Implicit Cognition and Marijuana Use
The dopaminergic system is activated after using marijuana which creates a sense of pleasure within the user. Users learn from their physiological marijuana experience and many people do not experience the subjective effects of marijana until they have used it multiple times [7]. The learning experienced from using marijuana multiple times suggests that memory may play a part in the use of marijuana, and it's not surprising that drug reinforcement and addiction has been examined from expectancy and memory association perspectives. In these paradigms, expectancy is viewed as implicit nodes of information pertaining to marijuana that is connected to an extensive semantic network that joins the individuals prior experiences (and therefore memories of these experiences) that are in some way related to the idea of marijuana. These expectancies act as associations that bind memories, and the more memories an individual has that are related to a specific idea, the more probable it is that this network will be activated. This network can be activated by a variety of stimuli that are captured by a variety of senses and subsequently encoded into memory, and is thus cross modal [8]. For instance, a particular smell may elicit a visual memory, or a particular sound heard by the individual may elicit a specific smell from memory. These memories also extend to affective evaluations as well as motor sequences associated with a particular experience. As a result, stimuli encountered in the environment may activate this network and thus influence the individuals resulting behaviour. Using this paradigm as a framework for research, studies have found that marijuana users are more likely than non-users to activate this network when presented with cues related to marijuana usage (i.e. marijuana paraphernalia) in comparison to neutral cues. Furthermore, heavy users networks consist of positive expectancies such as relaxation, enhanced abilities on cognitive tasks, as well as stimulating social behaviour, whereas the opposite effect was found in non-users. This may help explain the reinforcing effects of drugs on individuals who as a result become addicted to the substance. As such, it becomes difficult when attempting to disentangle the chemical effects of marijuana from the associations between previous experiences, since both play a part in addiction. This becomes especially apparent in the phenomenon known as reverse tolerance, in which individual differences result in different experiences when initially exposed to marijuana. Some individuals fail to experience the intoxicating effects associated with marijuana usage during primary exposure, and these effects materialize only after multiple exposures [9]. Drug users attribute more positive connections to drug use than non-users, and as such they become biased in their evaluations of related as well as unrelated cues and are more likely to connect neutral cues to the drug network than non-users [8]. This cue reactivity suggests that drug users are more likely to be reminded of drugs, and are thus more likely to engage in the act of using drugs [10]. Furthermore, when presenting these cues to marijuana users, they are more likely to report cravings for the drug
I am quite capable of smoking a single pipe over the course of 1-2 hours while gaming or otherwise occupied without getting high. A single hit every several minutes will produce no noticeable effects, it's being done for the pleasure of smoking it. Believe it or not, it happens.
