The short answer

Clinicians don't use the word "addiction" for cannabis much anymore. The diagnosis is cannabis use disorder (CUD), and it comes down to a simple idea: use that keeps going despite real costs, and use you can't easily stop. The official checklist has 11 items. Meeting two or three in a 12 month span is mild CUD. Four or five is moderate. Six or more is severe. If you're scanning for signs in yourself or someone else, the ones that matter most are failed attempts to cut back, cravings that crowd out other thoughts, and use that quietly erodes work, sleep, money, or relationships.

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The 11 criteria, in plain language

These come straight from the DSM-5. A clinician would ask about the past year.

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  1. Using more often, or in larger amounts, than you intended.
  2. Wanting to cut down or stop and not managing it, even after several tries.
  3. Spending a lot of time getting it, using it, or recovering from it.
  4. Craving, meaning a strong pull toward using that's hard to ignore.
  5. Use that interferes with school, work, or home responsibilities.
  6. Continuing despite friction it causes with family, friends, or coworkers.
  7. Dropping hobbies, sports, or social things you used to care about.
  8. Using in situations where it's physically risky, like before driving.
  9. Continuing even though it's making a physical or mental health issue worse.
  10. Needing more to get the same effect, which is tolerance.
  11. Withdrawal symptoms when you stop or cut back.

Two of those is the threshold. That surprises people. You can meet the criteria and still hold a job, pay rent, and look fine from the outside.

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Signs you notice in daily life

  • You smoke or vape earlier in the day than you mean to, most days.
  • Your tolerance has climbed and the same dose barely registers.
  • You've said "I'm taking a break" more than once and made it a few days at most.
  • You plan around use: timing errands, dosing before events, keeping a vape within arm's reach.
  • You feel flat, irritable, or bored until you use again.
  • Money for cannabis has started competing with things you actually need.
  • You've stopped mentioning it to your doctor, or you round the number down.

None of those alone is a diagnosis. A pattern of several, repeated across months, is worth taking seriously.

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What withdrawal actually looks like

Cannabis withdrawal is real and it's in the DSM-5. It is not medically dangerous the way alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal can be, but it's uncomfortable enough that people use again just to make it stop. Typical timeline: irritability, restlessness, and trouble sleeping in the first couple of days, peaking around days two through six, easing over two to three weeks. Add decreased appetite, vivid or strange dreams, sweating, chills, headache, and a craving that hits hard in the evening. Heavy daily users tend to feel it most.

Tolerance, dependence, addiction: clearing up the words

Tolerance means you need more for the same effect. Dependence is a broader physical adaptation, and it can exist without a disorder. Addiction, or CUD, is about behavior and control: compulsive use, continued use despite harm, and a hard time stopping. You can be physically dependent and not have CUD. You can also have mild CUD with modest tolerance. The behavior is the part that counts.

When it's probably not a disorder

Occasional use that stays occasional, no failed quit attempts, no craving, no interference with obligations. Plenty of legal adult consumers fall here. A rough week of heavier use during a stressful stretch isn't automatically CUD either. The pattern and the cost are what to watch, not the amount alone. Someone who uses a small amount nightly for sleep and never escalates is in a different place than someone chasing the same effect with a rising dose.

If you want to check it honestly

  1. Track your use for two weeks. Time, amount, and what you were feeling beforehand.
  2. Try a two week tolerance break. How the first 72 hours go tells you a lot.
  3. Write down what you'd lose if you stopped for a month. If the list is short, that's data.
  4. Talk to a clinician, ideally one who screens for substance use without lecturing. Brief interventions and CBT both have support behind them, and there are no FDA approved medications for CUD yet.

Cutting back works better with a plan than with willpower alone. Pick a start date, tell one person, and clear the house so the first hard evening isn't a decision.