I make light of the very real and serious issue of drug addiction, and admit that doing so is very poor of me. I have no firsthand knowledge of serious addiction nor do I know anyone who does, so it's easy and flippant of me to joke about it. All kidding aside, it's difficult to make fun of this type of misfortune because the people know that they've fxcked themselves and just want a way out. Even I find that brand of tragedy more sad than humorous. I won't make jokes about drug addiction from here on. Lately it makes me feel...dirty.
That said, I don't believe anyone has actually died from opiate withdrawl. They feel like they'll die and they wish that they'd die, but it doesn't actually result in death. The only substances whose sudden withdrawl can kill people habituated to large amounts of them are alcohol, quaaludes, and GHB (biochemically very similar to alcohol).
As for cannabis, pfft, cough medicine is a more hardcore drug. I smoked weed every day for 15 years and the only thing it ever got in the way of was ambition beyond playing video games when I was off work. Since I stopped smoking almost 3 years ago the biggest changes I've experienced are being harassed more insistently by my muse (silencing that unruly beast was half the reason I started in the first place), and gaining 50 pounds. Go figure.
