Today, the New York Times published an opinion piece titled “I’m Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot.” The essay, by a film critic named Neal Pollack, uses a personal confession to raise the question of whether cannabis legalization will produce widespread drug problems. Though Mr. Pollack repeatedly affirms his support for legalization, he more often undercuts that support—not explicitly but through loaded language, disingenuous questions, and a big lie about history.

The first line makes the essay’s argument.

“My name is Neal, and I’m a marijuana addict.”

By introducing himself the way he would at a twelve-step meeting, he claims that “addiction” is the right word to describe heavy cannabis use. It’s an easy claim to make in a culture steeped in the language of addiction, where the suffix “-aholic” is applied to everything from work to chocolate and people claim to be “in recovery” from racism and religious beliefs, as well as drugs. But, it’s a large claim when it’s meant literally and needs to be proven.

Mr. Pollack doesn’t offer much evidence. Exhibit A is that he used cannabis several times a day without having any medical need for it. I’ll grant that frequent use may point toward addiction, but it’s not sufficient on its own. Lots of people use psychoactive substances several times a day without truly being addicts—coffee- and tea-drinkers, for starters.

Exhibit B is that Mr. Pollack was “in denial” of his yet-to-be-established addiction. If you’re wondering how to distinguish “denying” from being “in denial,” the answer is: in a twelve-step program, you can’t. Even wondering about the distinction indicates denial that you are in denial. In other words, the only fact visible here is that Mr. Pollack once thought his cannabis use was okay but changed his mind. That may be evidence of exposure to a twelve-step program, but it is not evidence of addiction.

Exhibit C is some bad behavior when stoned. In the most dramatic instance, Mr. Pollack “got into a bar fight with a former friend and broke his tooth with a beer bottle.” Wait a minute . . . he was in a bar wielding a beer bottle, and we’re supposed to blame cannabis for this attack? All by its leafy green self? That’s a little like blaming a chihuahua for killing a cat when there’s also a bloody-mouthed pit bull standing over the dead kitty. Anyway, in a quarter-century of cannabis use, Mr. Pollack flashed a crowd, insulted a poet, and dumped a pitcher of water over his own head. He may also have yelled a lot, though he doesn’t remember because he was too high. He claims to have “put his son in danger” but cites not one instance of actual harm (or even a near miss), which he surely would have included, had there been any.

Exhibit D is exactly the same as Exhibit A: Mr. Pollack smoked a lot, through joyous times and sad times. So, in the way of evidence, we have only two indicators of addiction: frequent consumption and a few lapses in deportment, most of which seem to have happened a long time ago and/or under the influence of more drugs than just cannabis. The evidence for addiction, in other words, is flimsy. And Mr. Pollack knows it’s flimsy, judging by the number of times he uses forms of the word “addict” in his short article: seventeen if you count the headline. When in doubt, hammer the dubious term home.

So why do I care whether Mr. Pollack calls himself an addict? On one level, I don’t. If he wants to stop using cannabis and believes that calling himself an addict will help him do that, fine. Had he told me this story personally, I would have accepted it at face value and offered the same warm support I offer anyone struggling to give up a drug habit.

But he didn’t tell me the story personally; he published it in The New York Times. In 2014, the Times editorial board made history by calling for federal cannabis legalization and launching a six-part series on the issue and its history. Arguably the most influential paper in the US anyway, the Times positioned itself to shape cannabis policy as it enters the political and cultural mainstream. So reactionary personal essays become more than just individual musings; to readers less familiar with cannabis, they have the potential to establish opinions as facts, opinions such as “pot is addicting.”

Why does it matter? One reason, the main reason, is the importance of language in communicating relative risk. Some drugs produce physical dependency and painful or even life-threatening withdrawal symptoms, and some of those drugs, in addition to dependency, produce significant physical damage. Other drugs may be used habitually, even compulsively, but don’t cause addiction and don’t cause nearly as much harm. I think it’s good to keep those effects categorically distinct. At the moment, one of our most dangerous psychoactive drugs, alcohol, is perfectly legal. Another, though illegal, is ravaging Appalachia, the rust belt, the desert southwest, and other parts of the country. Marijuana and derivatives such as CBD oil help treat alcohol and opioid addiction. Cannabinoids are not without risk, but they are not on the same footing as drugs that, added together, kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.

I know, I know, Mr. Pollack claims he is not opposed to legalizing cannabis. At the same time, he says he is “fortunate” not to live in a state where it is legal and tells of an agitated stay in a California hotel room “less than a mile from three recreational weed dispensaries.” I wonder, how many alcohol “dispensaries” would he have found within the same one-mile radius? Frankly, I’d give my eye teeth to have alcohol sold in a tiny number of dedicated shops, rather than in every supermarket, drug store, convenience store, bar, and restaurant in my town. In other words, I understand his wish for difficult access to his drug of choice; I just don’t want it informing public opinion here at the threshold of legalization.

After his agitation drives him to a “packed” meeting of Marijuana Anonymous, Mr. Pollack coyly suggests that legalization will produce a surge of cannabis addicts.

There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition. Alcohol abuse became rampant, and the country almost drank itself off the rails. Will the same thing happen with marijuana?

This is a flat-out lie, and I’m shocked that the New York Times fact-checkers didn’t catch it. Yes, there was “a reason” AA started in 1935, but it wasn’t a jump in alcohol consumption after the end of Prohibition because there wasn’t one. In fact, it’s well accepted that “Prohibition’s flattening effect on per capita consumption continued long after Repeal.” Moreover, if cannabis legalization does increase the number of problem users, and it may, we’d do well to inquire how many of them have substituted a cannabis habit for a more dangerous addiction.

At the end of the essay, Mr. Pollack finally asks the questions he has been begging throughout the essay.

Marijuana isn’t alcohol or an opioid. You can’t die from an overdose. It doesn’t really evince physical cravings. So is it better to call my problem marijuana “dependence”? Does it matter?

Yes and yes.