Why do others invalidate weed addiction?

I am a smoker of 5 years (today marks my 21st day sober) and the plant, while I advocate for it's medicinal uses and recreational legality, has for lack of better words fucked up my brain. In the sense of ruining my motivation, aspirations, short term memory functioning, social skills, financial stability... Inducing more anxiety, paranoia, and lies than bringing about any overall relaxation, creativity, or enlightenment for the good last half of my chronic use... and yet when I reveal to people what I am going through they seem to laugh it off and tell me I'm acting like it's a hard drug and I'm an addict. But I feel like I am an addict! It's hard to find support because my family won't want to hear it and my friends who mostly smoke themselves seem to treat my newfound sobriety as a dramatic exaggeration. How come weed addicts are invalidated and ignored? Btw this Reddit is the reason I signed up for an account and all of.your stories have helped me so much and made me realize that what I'm going through IS real, so thank you all.