Marijuana is great, I'm a fan for both recreation and medicinal. However, it is certainly addictive and If used regularly, you will become dependent on it. Depending on how much you need for pain relief, withdrawal can suck pretty bad. I prefer it to opiates because i can control it better, and it doesn't affect my ability to program nearly as much. Especially since I can stop using marijuana to get through a hard problem, where opiate pain management plans require a constant level. Dropping below that level requires more breakthroughs to get above the pain. This increases your tolerance, and if you do it enough, you end up having to have surgery without any pain management because your at the top level of prescribeable opiates for your baseline, and would require ICU care for fear of your respiratory system shutdown. Marijuana has no such issues, but it still isn't magic.