Amy knew it wasn’t great. But there she was, at the bottom of a dumpster, desperately searching for the THC vape cartridge she’d thrown away just hours earlier.

Amy, 18, had previously tossed that same cartridge, known colloquially as a cart, into a public trash can. Passersby stared as she later rooted around to recover it. So she lifted the entire garbage bag and brought it back to her apartment, where she dug through a bunch of sloppy, stinking detritus before finding it and taking a grateful toke. Later that same week, she threw it into the dumpster – surely that would prevent her from going back. But she did.

“I’ve tried everything to stop,” said Amy (not her real name – all interviewees requested anonymity for this story). She’s been to rehab and discussed her cannabis use in therapy for years. She’s given carts away, made non-smoking friends, changed schools – but nothing has helped her quit. She said she’s trying every day.

“Especially after the dumpster situation,” she added. “That seriously scared me.”

I found Amy in r/leaves, a subreddit about quitting cannabis that has more than 400,000 followers. I joined the group late last year, having finally admitted that smoking weed almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day, might be ruining my life.

Recreational cannabis use is now legal in about half of US states; almost every state allows for medical use. According to a 2024 study, that year, for the first time in history, more Americans were consuming some form of cannabis daily than alcohol.

For a long time, I had been in deep denial – not just about my own dependency, but the possibility weed could be addictive at all. After all, it was perfectly “natural” and basically impossible to overdose on. Didn’t that mean it was pretty much safe?

But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 30% of cannabis users will become addicted. Cannabis use disorder (CUD), according to the DSM-5 and the CDC, is characterized by 12 months or more of continuing usage despite negative physical, social or psychological effects, spending a lot of time using or thinking about using, and trying and failing to quit.

THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive element of cannabis. It stimulates the brain’s reward system to release the neurotransmitter dopamine, giving the user a high. Those withdrawing from heavy usage will experience a sharp decrease in dopamine release, which might encourage continued use. Studies have shown the risk of developing CUD is greater for those who start using before the age of 25, as Amy did, and for those who use heavily or have pre-existing mental health issues or genetic predispositions to developing addiction.

I never received a formal diagnosis – my denial and fear that I’d be told to stop using kept me from bringing up my dependence to medical providers. But by my mid-30s I hit pretty much every single one of those criteria. According to recent research, “cannabis can affect the developing brain into one’s early 30s”, said Dr Kevin Hill, an addiction psychiatrist and leading clinical expert on cannabis policy and treatment.

Like so many others, I went from dabbler to regular user at the start of the pandemic. My roommates and I all got sick with what was almost certainly Covid in March 2020, before testing became widely available in New York City. I was scared and bored, and it kind of felt like the world was ending. Why not get high?

There was something ritualistic and almost sacred about rolling a joint at the end of the day or popping a gummy and giggling with my roommates. I’d drift away into my own safe and silly reality. By the following year, New York had legalized recreational use, and grabbing THC seltzers on the way to a party became as casual as showing up with a six-pack of beer.

A few years later, I got laid off from my job. Both my self-worth and finances were at an all-time low. Weed had gone from something fun, social and stress-relieving to an almost exclusively solo necessity. I’d wake up in a panic, immediately running a mental tally of how much bud I had left; if I was running low and didn’t have the funds to re-up, I would spiral. I sold my belongings online to pay for the habit. I would pick weed over groceries.

My wife had never been a fan of my smoking, and she liked it even less when I went from a single, evening joint to constant vaping. She thought weed made me clumsy, inconsiderate, forgetful and aloof. (She was right.) And she hated how often I was somewhere else entirely, barely responsive. That is, if I was awake at all – toward the end, weed mostly just made me want to go to sleep. To check out. That was the best-case scenario; otherwise I got terribly paranoid, the way I had when I had first tried smoking more than 10 years earlier, or I experienced bouts of disorientation and derealization.

I had growing suspicions my dependence was also blunting my ambition and harming my memory. I felt sapped of the focus, inspiration and drive to make art, let alone a better life for myself. On my worst days I barely even felt like a human being. But I couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop.

I tried everything: restricting myself to evenings and weekends, moderation, breaks. Nothing worked.

This is an all too common tale on r/leaves.

Liam, a 33-year-old father, told me that cannabis initially helped him quit alcohol and other harmful drugs. “In a way I considered it a savior,” he said. But after his first child was born, he couldn’t shake the habit.

“I’ve destroyed bongs, cut contacts with dealers, but it has been futile,” he said. “Without cannabis I felt empty, as if there was nothing to life without it. And therefore I always came back.”

There’s a “persistent misunderstanding” about cannabis not being addictive, said Dr Jonathan Caulkins, a drug policy researcher and professor at Carnegie Mellon University who authored a 2024 study on changes in cannabis use. “We don’t need more research to know it’s a dependent-producing toxin,” he said.

But because “so many people use it without developing cannabis use disorder, lots of people know plenty of people who don’t become addicted”, he said. As with other drugs, some people can be casual dabblers; other people, well, can’t.

All of the experts I spoke with emphasized that today’s cannabis is not your hippie grandma’s weed. Half a century ago, the typical THC content was about 4%. “The reason why people didn’t believe that cannabis was addictive,” said Dr Deepak D’Souza, a professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and the director of the Yale Center for the Science of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, is “because [of] the cannabis that was available then, and the studies that were done to look at cannabis addiction, suggested that only one in 10 people developed cannabis use disorder.”

But nowadays, the THC content of street cannabis is closer to 20%; at a dispensary, you can buy concentrates as strong as 95% THC. “Newer studies are suggesting that one in three might have developed cannabis use disorder,” said D’Souza, who has conducted research on the biology of CUD. “We can see clear changes in the brain in heavy cannabis users which reflect the consequences of the brain being bombarded with THC over a period of time.”

According to Caulkins’ research, “a significant share of current cannabis users, including those who use frequently, self-report the consumption interferes with their lives in some consequential way”.

For instance, there are growing associations between high-THC consumption and psychosis, particularly for younger users. People may be increasingly showing up to emergency rooms with symptoms for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), a rare but debilitating condition characterized by severe vomiting and abdominal pain. Frequent use is also associated with deleterious effects on memory and executive function.

Another contributing factor to the lasting cultural consensus against weed’s more unsavory effects, said Caulkins, is a different but equally powerful persistent belief “that the government exaggerates the harms and risks of all drugs, and cannabis in particular”. He mentions the infamous anti-marijuana propaganda film from the 1930s, Reefer Madness, in which unsuspecting high school students lured by drug pushers become so marijuana-crazed they commit crimes and hallucinate to the point of insanity; one character kills himself.

It’s understandable “that people have a lot of distrust” when it comes to institutional messaging on cannabis since the US, Australia, the UK and beyond have all criminalized drug use, even though “we know that drug use is a health problem. It’s not a criminal problem,” said Dr Jack Wilson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney.

Wilson co-wrote the largest review ever conducted on the safety and efficacy of cannabinoids for treating mental health. It found no evidence that medical cannabis is effective in treating anxiety, depression or PTSD – three of the leading conditions for which it’s prescribed. Since it was published in March, he’s been accused of working for a pharmaceutical company, he said. “I find that funny, not only because I’m not funded by any industry – but because cannabis is big pharma now, whether people like it or not.”

Social media jokes about such findings being conspiracies are common: they’re funded by big alcohol! The Man doesn’t want us to unwind and be free! And yet, as D’Souza pointed out, “one of the most important dynamics in substance use disorders is denial and rationalization”.

I’ve been there. For years, I tried to convince myself that weed made me more creative, less inhibited and more in tune with the universe – even though I rarely followed through on bursts of stoned inspiration.

The same pattern happened with Liam. “With hobbies, it’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “At first, [cannabis] motivated me to go to the gym, play guitar and do martial arts. But as time passed … a week-long break from a hobby turned into a month, and that turned into half a year.”

When you prioritize weed, the rest of your life tends to pass you by. “It has caused me to not be there when a friend needed me, because I was mentally checked out,” said Liam. “I have forgotten to answer messages for weeks, or canceled stuff because I was high and was embarrassed to go out … I was never fully there.”

Weed helped me to feel, however temporarily, content with less. Being broke, depressed and unfulfilled was more tolerable while stoned. Weed was something to look forward to, and it lulled me into complacency.

I knew that, if I wanted to live the kind of life I wanted, I would have to quit eventually. But I wouldn’t have had the courage or motivation if my doctor hadn’t said I needed 30 days weed-free before I could start medication for my newly diagnosed ADHD. It was off-limits once I started on the meds, too – mixing cannabis and stimulants is really dangerous for the heart. Even then, the only thing that helped me stop was the promise of another drug.

For a frequent user, stopping cold turkey really, really sucks. Marianne, a 22-year-old who’s recently quit, had many symptoms associated with cannabis withdrawal syndrome (CWS), which is now included in the DSM-5. The inability to sleep, night sweats, no appetite and irritability were “really difficult”, she said. All of that eased after a few days, but “feeling empty and emotionally flat can take weeks and months to go away”.

My first couple weeks without THC were hell. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I had crazy, vivid dreams that almost always morphed into night terrors. I felt empty, like life would never be fun again.

But I made it through, passing into what some call the pink cloud: a period in early sobriety marked by overconfidence and optimism, an almost overwhelming sense of euphoria and freedom. It’s now been a few months since I last ingested any form of cannabis, and though the pink cloud effect has faded somewhat, quitting has changed every aspect of my life for the better.

The ADHD meds I trialed didn’t work out, but even without them, I have the attention span for art again; I’ve crafted more in 2026 than I have in years.

The boring healthy stuff has slowly helped me heal: qigong workouts and eating well. I fill my evenings with sewing classes, dancing and hikes – anecdotally, activities to look forward to are essential for preventing relapse. And the depression and anxiety I thought I was treating with weed has since lessened considerably.

Even though there is little to no evidence that medical cannabis helps with mental health conditions, D’Souza acknowledges the possibility that the immediate effects of marijuana relieve some psychological distress. “But not long term,” he said. “It’s like if we gave people Valium for everything – it may relieve some degree of distress and anxiety, but it really doesn’t do much for the underlying condition.”

I do have moments of missing my longtime crutch, as does Marianne. “I am still in the preliminary stages,” she said, “so I’m still struggling to feel normal. I still crave it. I still feel a bit sad and lost. I’m trying to replace it with other things, but I’m being confronted with all the obligations that I ignored when I was always stoned.” I relate to that so strongly: without weed, you can’t hide from yourself anymore.

EB used regularly for more than 40 years; she recently quit in her mid-60s. Her advice for others trying to kick the habit: “Get at the root of why you’re using in the first place. Deal with the pain. Once you deal with the pain, you don’t need the Band-Aid any more.”

As a child, EB really wanted to learn to play drums, but her father wouldn’t let her. Now, she’s planning to take lessons. “I love [EB] 2.0,” she said.

I told her that had been a childhood dream of mine too. “It’s not too late for you to learn, either,” she told me. “We’re grownups now, and we’re in charge.”

• Shannon Keating is a Liverpool-based freelance writer