New Self-Help Group Seeking to Offset Increasing Addiction to Marijuana Use

Dr. Robert Mellen, a psychologist who runs an outpatient drug treatment program for St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, began noticing an increase in people reporting themselves hooked on marijuana about a year ago.

Their problems were not the same as those of alcoholics and other drug addicts, Mellen noticed. In general, they did not have the same long list of personal horror tales frequently recounted at meetings of such groups as Alcoholics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous.

They were simply tired of being stoned day after day on pot, in some cases for up to 20 years. In a quiet way, marijuana had left them incapable of actively pursuing their careers and otherwise blocked them from achieving their ambitions in life.

Specific Objective

In private therapy with a group of marijuana users who subsequently enrolled for treatment at St. John’s, Mellen became increasingly convinced there was a need to start a new and private self-help program aimed specifically at potheads.

The result was the formation in September of Marijuana Anonymous, a recovery program modeled after AA and Cocaine Anonymous, but with a distinctly laid-back style of its own.

“Marijuana is a more insidious drug than cocaine or alcohol,” Mellen said in his Santa Monica office, where the group holds regular Tuesday night meetings. “With potheads, there’s less obvious acting-out behavior. It’s more of a dullness and lethargy and loss of opportunity, a withdrawing from other people and society.

“Marijuana abusers are quite different from any other drug users,” Mellen added. “They live a life of quiet desperation. These are people who want to get some things done in their lives, but don’t quite get around to it.”

Several members of the new marijuana recovery program--which preaches total abstinence from all drugs and alcohol--said they also attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, but others said a major reason for their involvement in Marijuana Anonymous is that they were not comfortable in recovery programs dominated by alcoholics and cocaine users.

Told to Shut Up

“I started talking at an AA meeting and they told me to shut up, that I couldn’t speak because I wasn’t an alcoholic,” one of Mellen’s potheads said. “I got pretty upset. At first I was crying, then I decided, ‘Who are these drunks to be telling me what to do?’ ”

While he and the marijuana users who formed Marijuana Anonymous modeled it after Alcoholics Anonymous, Mellen agrees that AA can be a difficult recovery program for marijuana smokers who feel that they have no other drug problem.

“These people really are different,” he said. “One measure is that almost nobody is ever on time for our meetings. They’re supposed to start at 8 p.m., but most people don’t get here until 8:15 or so. That’s not typical of AA, where everybody is half an hour early to a meeting. Potheads really are more laid back.”

In Mellen’s view, part of the increase of self-proclaimed marijuana addicts is explained by the increased potency of the drug in recent years.

“Today’s marijuana is up to 12% or more in its most significant chemical compound, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC),” he said. “That compares to an average strength of 1% to 1.5% in the 1960s and it means we are now dealing with a strong drug which is more addicting than in the past.”

Despite the publicity generated by cocaine in the last decade, Mellen noted that marijuana remains the most widely abused drug in the United States after alcohol, and said marijuana addiction is growing.

“I’ve been doing drug counseling for 12 years and we’re definitely seeing more and more marijuana addicts or abusers coming in now than ever before,” Mellen said. “At St. John’s we’ve had 20 or so since last spring.

“We’re now seeing people come into treatment who weren’t coming in 10 years ago,” he added. “It’s not a flood, but a steady stream. At one time we might have treated one or two marijuana users a year. Typically we have one in treatment at all times now.”

Marijuana is physically as well as psychologically addictive in that it produces some withdrawal symptoms such as feelings of “edginess” when a smoker is out of pot, Mellen said. Like many other drug counselors, however, he regards such distinctions as “old-fashioned” and defines addiction in terms of damage done to a person’s life.

“Addiction occurs when a person continues to use a drug despite adverse consequences,” he said. “These consequences can be medical, emotional, legal, financial, social, relationship or employment problems.”

Cumulative Effect

While citing the increased strength of today’s marijuana as a factor in the related problems of marijuana smokers, Mellen also said there is a cumulative social effect of regularly smoking marijuana over prolonged periods of time.

“It just adds up over the years,” he said. “The kid who smoked as a teen-ager who keeps on smoking marijuana ends up being 30 one day. Then he finds himself turning 40, and he’s been stoned on grass for the last two decades.”

In addition to the Marijuana Anonymous group in Santa Monica, which will start a second Thursday night meeting at St. John’s Hospital next week, Mellen said there are similar groups in New York and Orange County. He expects more groups to be formed in the Los Angeles area. The number for information about Marijuana Anonymous is (213) 306-2954.