Drug addictions and rehab trips have - as much drugs themselves - been trendy forever. But what about weed addictions? The Times' Sunday Styles' 'bout to get all High Times on us and investigate. Bongs out, bowls packed? Blaze away!

Things you didn't know before: people can get addicted to weed! For example, this lady, who came home after work, and got blazed:

Joyce, 52 and a writer in Manhattan, started smoking pot when she was 15, and for years it was a pleasant escape, a calming protective cloud. Then it became an obsession, something she needed to get through the day. She found herself hiding her addiction from her family, friends and co-workers. "I would come home from work, close my door, have my bong, my food, my music and my dog, and I wouldn't see another person until I went to work the next day," said Joyce...

Okay, well, Joyce is 52, but that pretty much rules out anybody on any Gawker Media editorial mastheads, yet basically resembles a fairly accurate description of half the people I know, except they're too broke to have dogs. Also, that sounds like a decent routine, although one that'd get old, fast. Also:

The drug cannot lead to fatal overdose and its hazards pale in comparison with those of alcohol. But at the same time, marijuana can be up to five times more potent than the cannabis of the 1970s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Weed's getting way better, because there's more out there, so more people are smoking it. Like the internet? No.

They even threw down on an awesome graph showing just how not-addicting marijuana is. But I knew plenty of people like Joyce in my years of rigorous academia, wherein a hot shower ran in a dorm bathroom all day to steam out the smell of marijuana, smoked traditionally before and after long lecture hall classes. These were the exploits of other people far more successful than me. I ended up here, and can't handle my shit when too stoned. I freak out and get paranoid of COPS, MAN, FUCKING COPS. Anyway, these people are what we like to call High-Functioning Stoners, whose existence the Times only hints at:

Jonathan James, has concerns about his own marijuana use. Mr. James, 50, a former choreographer, has been a regular pot smoker for 35 years. He said smoking marijuana helped inspire some of his most original ideas. But Mr. James is afraid to stop smoking, even after kicking heroin and cocaine...He said he would be more successful without pot. "It keeps me back - from engaging in the dreams and aspirations I have," he said. "I would like to feel I don't need to take anything to feel better."

They also tell sad tales of people who've lost everything to Marijuana addiction, but the medically skeptical side of me just thinks that if it weren't pot, it'd be something else. Isn't that how addictive personalities work?

See, upon first reading the Sunday Styles seemingly investigative piece, it occurred to me that the real problem they try to get at throughout the entire thing but (typically) fail miserably at is: having a weed addiction simply isn't cool. It doesn't carry the I-Was-Out-With-People-Doing-Shit street cred of coke (recent case study: Mischa Barton going crazy) or the I-Was-Hanging-Out-With-People-You'll-Never-Be-Cool-Enough-To-Know je ne sais quoi of heroin (recent case study: the death of Dash Snow), or even the longstanding tradition of Red-Blooded American Alcoholism and Lung Cancer that comes with drinking and smokin' cigs. But weed? Puh-leese.

Then, it occured to me that that's exactly what the Times was hinting at. Weed addictions aren't cool...yet. But they're so rare and looked down upon and things nobody you've heard of or know has, the fact of the matter is that weed addictions are the new heroin addictions, and Sunday Styles was the first to crack the case. Genius.

Unfortunately, despite referencing Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, and "silly...movies like 'Harold and Kumar,'" no piece on marijuana addiction is complete without one substantial moment in pop culture, which they miserable failed at including. We've done the pleasure of bringing it to you.

Click to view

Now: who's got greens?

Marijuana Is Gateway Drug for Two Debates [NYT]