Damn, that's a stoned ass donkey!

I understand what you're saying but marijuana DOESN'T provide any form of chemical the human body would create a dependacy on.

Smoking is an addiction to the activities and events that come with smoking.

Marijuana makes you feel less bored in what would normally be an unsatisfactory activity.

Sitting around all day eating junk food watching TV would start to really drag a sober person down. With weed you take that "blah, im doing nothing" feeling and throwing it out the window.

It's much easier for someone to continue behavior like this than it is to quit smoking, deal with the feeling of "blah" and use it to drive yourself into something rewarding/fun to the sober people.

I've yet to hear of a documented case of physical marijuana addiction

This is different than the guys who smoke 3 or 4 blunts a day and have found themselves addicited to the tobacco leaf.

 

"Anecdotal evidence a scientific argument does not make." - Yoda

Also, Linchpinn ironically provided the lynchpin statement:

Right, it activates the reward mechanism of the brain through a series of chemical reactions within the brain. People smoke more because they like it, because it does this. Alcohol does the same thing (except it inhibits certain chemical reactions) as does sex (a major burst of serotonin and dopamine?! YES PLEASE!)

All of those things are addictive (yes sex addiction is a real thing, you can insert jokes as many times as you like, but it's an actual scientific diagnosis).

Now, before everyone continues on the defensive, you act is if I'm assaulting marijuana use or looking down on it. I'm not, anymore so then alcohol (which I drink) or sex for uses other than reproduction (which I WISH I had :P ). But just as with sex and alcohol, it DOES have addictive qualities and heavy long term smokers DO go through withdraw just like heavy long term drinkers go through withdraw as well (albeit, every person reacts different as no two CNS'es are the same!). Denying that is simply denying science. The nice thing about science is that it doesn't care whether or not you believe it, it's still true (I'm addicted to science )

 

Side note, caffeine is addictive as well, yet I still go to Starbucks. In fact caffeine is more addictive than marijuana according to some experts.

Again the jump to the sudden defensive though... well, to bastardize Macbeth... "Thou doth protest too much, methinks."