Study Shows Marijuana Use In Teens Correlates To Decreasing IQ

retroworks writes "The BBC reports on a paper published in the U.S.'s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing a correlation between persistent, regular cannabis use and risk of lower IQ. The study finds the risk particularly correlates use of cannabis by teenagers who use the drug "four times a week year after year." The more people smoked, the greater the loss in IQ. Reviewers of the study at King's College Institute of Psychiatry states that the data and methodology are exceptional, but she also cautions that there may be another explanation, such as depression, which could lower IQ while stimulating marijuana use. The study does not mention or rule out 'nocebo' effects, i.e. just feeling stupid for spending your teens hanging out with potheads."

Comments

Mods

[Anonymous Coward]

Tag news article 'Propaganda'

Re:Mods

[i kan reed]

Propaganda by whom, and for what purpose? How do you identify it as propaganda instead of legitimate science? You have to answer these basic questions and support your answers with evidence before anybody is going to buy into your conspiracy theories.

Re:Mods

[jeffmeden]

Propaganda by whom, and for what purpose? How do you identify it as propaganda instead of legitimate science? You have to answer these basic questions and support your answers with evidence before anybody is going to buy into your conspiracy theories.

Propaganda; n. Any material which proposes to sway a reader to form a conclusion that conflicts with your own.

Re:Mods

[Immerman]

recreational use implies abuse

I assume your stance on this extends to alcohol and caffeine as well, correct? Personally I wouldn't call a couple glasses of beer/wine/etc at a party abuse, but it's most definitely recreational.

Re:Mods

[composer777]

You should study the history of anti-drug research. One of the original studies that claimed marijuana caused severe brain damaged basically put face masks on monkeys and had them inhaling nothing but smoke for a significant period of time. The cause of the brain damage was CO poisoning and general hypoxia, which should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain. No one breathes nothing but smoke when they smoke. That's what a lot of studies do, they give a subject 100x the dose that is used, or use some unusual delivery method, and perform the study on it, drawing absurd conclusions that aren't event remotely scientific.

The purpose? Funding, plain and simple. Studies that are anti-drug get lots of funding, and those that aren't, don't get approved (by the DEA when performed on humans) or funded. Why? Because the government funds the studies and the drug war is a political tool that they need evidence to support. A huge amount of science is shaped and steered through funding, and it absolutely biases the results.

If you are reasonably intelligent, this shouldn't surprise you. We've had quacks for the entire history of science and medicine, and many of them have used science to explain what is clearly a politically motivated status quo. Just look at all the studies that assumed minorities were inferior, and proposed to find out why (by measuring brain volume and other anatomical characteristics), without first checking the assumption that minorities were inferior.

Re:Mods

[TheRealMindChild]

No. First, let us look at this little tidbit:

Having taken into account other factors such as alcohol or tobacco dependency or other drug use, as well the number of years spent in education...

So there was manipulation of the data to exclude the effect of these "other factors", which completely throws out any correlation that these could/would/should have. It would be akin to testing if teen pregnancy lowered IQ, but they threw out data belonging to private school girls.

they found that those who persistently used cannabis - smoking it at least four times a week year after year through their teens, 20s and, in some cases, their 30s - suffered a decline in their IQ.

This is plain bad science. These people they are studying are CHRONIC users. They are likely using right up to the morning of their "interview". It is like the kid who started smoking cigarettes at 8 years old vs. someone starting at, say 23. The former is most likely to smoke 2+ packs a day. The latter usually smokes less than one pack. Also, nothing has been done to show what happens when they would stop.

I get my data through observation of people throughout my life from all sorts of geography. I absolutely believe that my retort has as much of a proper sampling as 1000 people from New Zealand

News Flash

[Lumpy]

Drinking Wine or Beer 4 times a day year after year will reduce your IQ. Over use of ANYTHING will cause problems.

Re:News Flash

[sonamchauhan]

4 times a week, not 4 times a day.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

It affects reading comprehension also....

Re:News Flash

[TemperedAlchemist]

Do you have any evidence to support that assertion?

The medical community has known for some time that marijuana has adverse effects. For one reason or another, the pot smoking community seems to get all defensive and denies all allegations backed by science almost as fiercely as denial of global warming or evolution.

It would be nice to see more studies like this and see if these results can be replicated.

Re:News Flash

[lengau]

I think this is a case of where "overdoing it" is. There are some things for which just about any amount is overdoing it (e.g. cyanide). On the other hand, reading has a much higher threshold. Unless your reading is actively hindering another part of your life (e.g. you read for days on end without eating, drinking or sleeping, thus causing medical problems), it's fine. [Note: As I am not familiar with the subject, I withhold commentary about where I believe that line to be regarding cannabis use.]

Re:News Flash

[NeoMorphy]

And cue the queue of stoners attempting to defend their addiction.

Desperate attempts to rationalize the use of marijuana is one of the signs of addiction. They're big on pointing out some benefits, but ignore all of the mental and physical problems associated with it.

Teenagers who are in the "I know everything" stage can be very frustrating when you try to explain the dangers.

Re:News Flash

[Rei]

Desperate attempts to rationalize the use of marijuana is one of the signs of addiction.

So by your argument, pretty much anything I use in my daily life would become a "sign of addition" if you challenged it and I defended it. Apparently I'm addicted to my bed, underwear, forks, and washcloths, to name a few.

Full disclosure: I don't use pot. In case your immediate assumption was to do an "attack the messenger" reply.

Re:News Flash

[WaywardGeek]

I noticed the article talked about people who kept on smoking pot until they were 35. I though I'd be a counter-example to this study, but I only smoked pot heavily in 9th grade. Before that I was universally called the "space cadet", and was infamous for getting lost on the way to the bathroom. I managed to get a D- in 8th grade, which is incredibly hard to do, especially in a school with low standards and easy teachers who hate giving F's. My IQ never tested particularly high as a kid. In 9th grade, I got all A's, and mostly A+'s. Going to school stoned was great. I even joyed spelling tests! By 10th grade, I'd smoked so much pot I burned out on it. I could get high just going for a jog. I gave it up and never started again. School was a lot harder while not stoned, but I still managed a respectable 3.85 average (9th - 12th, back when 4.0 was the max).

My memory remains a leaky can, and I've wondered if smoking pot in 9th grade degraded it any. Thanks for the link to that article about pot improving memory. It does make me feel a bit better. I haven't been officially tested lately for my IQ, but on a dumb on-line quiz that my friends were all taking, I got 100% right, far higher than any of them, and most of them are pretty sharp. If there's a negative impact of heavy smoking for one year in the early teens, I don't know what it is.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Teenagers who are in the "I know everything" stage can be very frustrating when you try to explain the dangers.

Probably because you're an adult in the "I know everything" stage, and think you know the dangers. Funnily enough, teenagers with internet access can easily learn more about a given subject than you know offhand, and it may surprise you that some of them actually research marijuana before smoking it. Which is often more than their parents can manage before laying down the law to them about it.

In fact your entire attitude stinks, and teenagers can smell that a mile away. The teenager doesn't actually think he knows everything, but he has learnt that his parents don't. Yet many of them still insist on being treated as unquestioned authorities. Hence your "frustration" when you're not treated that way. It's a parenting problem, not a growing up problem.

I'll bet $100 all you know is what you've uncritically read in the sensationalist media. For instance, you seem to think marijuana addiction exists. There is no scientific basis for this idea, as you should know if you want to engage in a serious discussion with your teenager about what you believe the risks to be. Talking about marijuana addicts just makes you look ridiculous, I'm afraid, and that is why you fail.

Re:News Flash

[Radres]

But pot use after age 18 doesn't have long-term affects on IQ, only for the time immediately after consuming the drug. This was an important point lost in the summary. So, marijuana should be illegal for young kids to smoke. If marijuana were legal and regulated like alcohol, we would see less young people abusing the drug.

Re:News Flash

[jpapon]

simply the fact that smoking pot isn't exactly famous for leading to intellectually-stimulating activities....

I think that's the key here. Smoking pot tends to lead to activities which will result in you having a lower IQ. If you spend your formative years watching Adult Swim and eating funyuns all day, you're probably going to have a pretty low IQ.

I'd venture to say a study would find that frequent use of NASCAR in your teens correlates with a lower IQ as well.

Re:News Flash

[crakbone]

I was more worried about your indiscriminate fork use.

Re:News Flash

[CanHasDIY]

Do you have any evidence to support that assertion?

The medical community has known for some time that marijuana has adverse effects.

Lol, it never fails to amuse me when someone lambastes another for making an un-backed statement without citing any evidence... moments before they themselves make an un-backed statement without citing any evidence.

To that end, who is this 'medical community' of which you speak, and what are these 'adverse affects' you so ambiguously refer to?

Re:News Flash

[mikael_j]

Actually no, the argument put forth by NeoMorphy is a classic fallacious argument that doesn't hold up well to scrutiny. It's used for pretty much anything that should be a personal choice that certain people have moral or ideological objections to. It can be summed up as "If you say something isn't harming you or that it isn't addictive then that is in itself a sign of harm or addiction and thus you voicing your opinion "proves" that it is harmful and addictive and any further protest from you merely demonstrates how hopelessly addicted you are". This argument is quite familiar to me as the rabid anti-drug crowd here in Sweden have been using it every chance they get for decades...

Re:News Flash

[mikael_j]

In my experience most of those in favor of cannabis legalization aren't blind to the adverse effects, it's just that they're sick to death of seeing time and time again how some study proclaims "Teenagers who are genetically predisposed to end up with severe mental illness may have slightly earlier onset of their condition if they smoke marijuana on a daily basis" and how the media and those who fervently hate cannabis turn that into "POT MAKES YOU CRAZY!".

Re:News Flash

[schlachter]

The pot smoking community has released their official response to this study, saying, "dude, chill with the anti pot stuff."

Re:News Flash

[ebh]

Short form: If you admit it, you're addicted. If you don't, you're in denial.

Re:News Flash

[Knuckles]

I've been practicing Tai Chi Chuan and meditation for more than 15 years in an attempt to keep myself healthy and sane. Sometimes between work and other commitments I don't practice enough. By your argument if I decide to put in some additional effort and time, this would be a sign of addiction?

Re:News Flash

[Pax681]

Any behavior can become an addictive behavior. Some people become physically addicted to exercise and the endorphin rush that comes from pushing their bodies to the edge. Some become addicted to tobacco and the stimulation that nicotine gives them. Some are addicted to food. To say that marijuana addiction doesn't exist is to discount that the human body and mind can become addicted to almost any stimulation. That's not to say that all individuals who consume marijuana will be addicted but some do. So don't fully discount the potential for addiction. Some portion of the population when exposed to the ongoing stimulation will become addicted to it.

It is impossible, and this is scientifically proven, to become physically addicted to marijuana. It's just not made of physically addictive stuff. There are no chemicals which give rise to physical dependency. Now as to the question of psychological dependency, that's a different matter however when you compare a psychological addiction to the chemical dependencies such as the endorphin rush or nicotine you are just building yourself a badly constructed argument. Also btw you will find that the actual mechanics(the movement of the hand to mouth to take a draw of a cigarette), the behavioural aspect of tobacco , is one of the habits hardest to break. Such as recent ex-smokers being out, beer in one hand and thinking it's weird not having a cigarette....

Re:News Flash

[lexsird]

Compared and contrasted to addiction to other substances, weed rates pretty low on the "Omfg i got to have it" scale. Booze is way far more addictive, so is smoking and caffeine. Not to mention it doesn't even stand close to the company it keeps with cocaine, heroine, crack, meth. etc. etc.

Science these days is so corrupted with politics and agendas. Anyone can get a lab rat geek with a degree to skew data. I would have loved to see a side by side run of this experiment with booze and other substances.

For me, this one is grasping at straws. It's an intoxicant and it has no place around children, just like booze and cigarettes and some would argue caffeine. I mean if this is the best that they can come up with, it's pretty pathetic. When I factor this versus the bullshit I have seen my entire life on the subject versus real life results helping cancer, aids, and MS patients, I have to ponder did another "scientist(s)" sell out and give us more junk science/propaganda? I find the timing on it suspect considering we are coming up on a SCOTUS trial on moving weed down out of schedule 1 substances.

Re:News Flash

[slim]

So, marijuana should be illegal for young kids to smoke

It *is* illegal for young kids to smoke marijuana (and for anyone else).

The problem here is that there isn't a direct link between "it's illegal" and "people cease to do it". Prohibiting drug use has demonstrably failed to stop people wanting to use drugs, and has demonstrably failed to prevent them from doing so. It's even possible that prohibition has made it *easier* for people to get hold of drugs, since production, distribution and retail is in the hands of people who aren't beholden to the usual rules.

Make it legal, such that illicit supply is no longer profitable. Regulate and educate, so that kids (and adults) generally don't want to use, kids that want to can't find a supply, adults that want to have a trustworthy supply and a society that encourages sensible usage levels.

Re:News Flash

[Hatta]

For one reason or another, the pot smoking community seems to get all defensive and denies all allegations backed by science almost as fiercely as denial of global warming or evolution.

We don't deny that there are adverse effects. We deny that the adverse effects are sufficient enough to justify imprisioning people. Life is full of risks, and the fun parts even more so. A country that allows people to ride motorcycles for recreation has no place telling us Cannabis is too unsafe for recreation.

Re:News Flash

[hazah]

We all trust what the government says. There couldn't possibly be any motive for the same entity that is responsible for the existance of the DEA to say anything that would support their own agenda. Couldn't be that at all. Shoving the same article into every post you make doesn't reinforce the point... especially if it's utter bullshit.

Re:News Flash

[ffflala]

Also btw you will find that the actual mechanics(the movement of the hand to mouth to take a draw of a cigarette), the behavioural aspect of tobacco , is one of the habits hardest to break. Such as recent ex-smokers being out, beer in one hand and thinking it's weird not having a cigarette....

I wish this were more widely known. I foolishly picked up a pack a day cigarette habit for a few years, and I finally managed to quit about ten years ago. By far, the most useful thing for me to do when I got cigarette cravings past the third day (by which time the physical withdrawal symptoms end) was to mime through the actions of lighting and smoking an invisible cigarette. The level to which this satisfied my cravings was profound, and I think it was the key to my finally being able to quit for good.

Re:News Flash

[Belial6]

That kind of rationalization and twisting of the use of the word "addiction" is both deceptive, and counter productive to any discussion on marijuana use. By using that definition, you must acknowledge that "addiction" is not a bad thing, and is often a really good thing. (e.g. I am addicted to living a healthy lifestyle, I am addicted to being happy, I am addicted to being a good parent.)

When discussing marijuana "addiction", there is a clear attempt to imply an addiction to chemicals a drug which is bad, while, when being called out on the myth, declaring it to mean an addiction to chemicals that your body produces when you are happy which is not bad.

Re:News Flash

[Belial6]

Or football.

Re:News Flash

[jasno]

A telephone survey? Really?

Re:News Flash

[Artifakt]

When I read this debate, I always think of the bits on Dragnet, such as the one where LSD supposedly has this kid afraid he's turning into an orange and if anyone opens the closet door, he'll be 'juiced' into oblivion, or where the character "Blue Boy' supposedly overdoses on LSD (only to have the scrolling text at the end of the show mention it was actually Barbituates that killed the real person he was based on). We have people calling themselves 'experts' and speaking out publicly against drugs who still think that everything Joe Friday said came straight from a real case and not something made up by the Dragnet writers.
            Drugs share at least one thing in common with everything else. Nothing can be learned from the people who have their basics wrong. When the government has pressured researchers to redefine addiction so it covers drugs it didn't, or to redefine"Narcotic", "Chromosome Damage" and other scientific and medical terms to let them persuade people who still think the words mean what they once did, what really happens is people stop trusting anything their government says.
            I'm a little reassured that the researchers on this study are mostly from Duke University, but include some form the UK and New Zealand. Just the fact that some of them work where the DEA might not be able to influence them so easily makes me trust the paper a bit more. But this is an area where the US government has lied so much, so deliberately, and so cynically, that the people here on slashdot who are talking 'addiction denial' and 'conspiracy nut' lines come off like a shady lawyer saying "Just because my client comitted lebenty-leben bombings using this exact same M.O., shouldn't raise the remotest suspicion it's him again.". Read up on COINTELPRO, and learn that the conspiracy nuts in this area have usually been right. Or ignore what the US government's history in this area is like, and don't be surprised when the same people try to redefine 'terrorist' so they can jail the Dixie Chicks, or 'hacker' so that disabling region encoding on your DVD player is a felony, or whatever.

Re:News Flash

[hazah]

Mods... I am asking a legitimate question. Who are these "peers?" The only ones currently mentioned are in the same pockets as the author. If you think I'm flamebaiting, that's just sad.

Re:News Flash

[mcgrew]

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis
But of course, that's all lies and false propaganda right?

The first link obviously is, that's like asking Newt Gingrich if Obama's a good president. You might as well cite High Times for an equally biased view of pot. However, you didn't read the wikipedia link, did you?

A study of the development of 59 Jamaican children was conducted with the children being monitored from childbirth to age 5 years... The results over the entire research period showed no significant differences in development testing outcomes between using and non-using mothers. At 30 days of age, however, the children of marijuana-using mothers had higher scores on autonomic stability and reflexes
.
.
.
Research has shown a substantial percentage of cannabis users develop cannabis-related problems, including dependency.

If you do anything whatever every single day for a year, you're going to miss it if you no longer have it. Dependancy != addiction. Addiction has physical withdrawal symptoms; tobacco, alcohol, heroin, coffee are addictive. Orange juice and marijuana can introduce dependancies. Hell, there's a woman in my office who almost freaked out because the vending machine was out of little chocolate donuts and she'd been eating them every day for years. Yes, smoke pot every day for a year and you'll miss it when you can't find it... but you won't freak out or steal for it.

Cannabis use has been assessed by several studies[23] to be correlated with the development of anxiety, psychosis, and depression

You know about correlation and causation, of course. Marijuana eases symptoms of depression and anxiety, and probably psychosis as well. They're putting the cart before the horse here. Smoking pot doesn't make you crazy, being crazy makes you smoke pot. From your link: "A recent study has shown that cannabidiol (a major constituent of cannabis) may be as effective as atypical antipsychotics in treating schizophrenia."

Gateway drug hypothesis

You'll find many pot smoker to deny a link, but there is a clear link: the same people who sell pot also sell other drugs. In short, the drug laws themselves cause it to be a gateway drug.

A 2002 longitudinal study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal concluded that "marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligence [in adults]
.
.
.
Cannabis smoke contains thousands of organic and inorganic chemicals in the tar. This includes many of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke.

Odd that a two year old study wasn't mentioned here. Researchers thought that because of the facts cited above, that marijuana would cause cancer, so they did a test on very long term (>30 years) users. They had four groups: nonsmokers, pot smokers, cigarette smokers, and users of both tobacco and marijuana. They expected the users of pot to have as many or more cancers than cigarette smokers and users of both to have far more, but their research showed the opposite: those who smoked both pot and cigarettes had half the cancers of those who only smoked cigarettes, and those who smoked only pot amazingly had fewer cancers than nonsmokers, although the difference was statistically insignifigant.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Gees... drugabuse.org, why not cite the partnership for a drug-free america as well? Sheesh!

Re:News Flash

[mcgrew]

They get defensive because results like this can be used as a reason for keeping pot illegal.

This study can be used as evidence that it should be legal. If you have teenagers, ask them if it's easy to get pot in school, then ask them if it's easy to get a beer in school. I asked my kids that when they were in high school, and they said "of course you can buy pot in school." When I asked about beer, they laughed and said "don't be silly, of course not."

See, it's easier for a teenager to buy pot than it is an adult. A dealer will be paranoid of an adult, because he could be the secret police, but there are no teenaged police officers.

If you want to keep pot out of teenaged hands (and I certainly don't want kids smoking anything at all), legalize it and sell it like alcohol.

Ya buddy

[Metabolife]

I was gonna go to class, before I got high
I coulda' cheated and I coulda passed, but I got high
I'm taking it next semester and I know why, (why man) 'cuz I got high
Because I got high
Because I got high

Work ethic...

[shakezula]

I'd say the biggest drawback to pot smoking in teenage years is a lack of ability to find and keep a job. Being a loaf isn't conducive to paying the bills, which is the skill teenagers need to learn first and foremost. Self-sufficiency is paramount to heading off to college, or work, or simply moving on in life and I'd wager is more important than grades, social status, or if they are pot-heads or not. Its possible to smoke weed and still have a reasonable income, but the desire to be self-sufficient needs to come first or the stoner mentality wins over.

Re:Work ethic...

[Dr_Barnowl]

It demotivates you. I've lived with stoners and they were some of the most lackadaisical folks I've met. If you're not going to get up off your ass and get a job, and prove that you want to keep it, you're not going to be employed, simple as that.

My POV on the IQ loss is that there's probably a heavy component of just not exercising the mind, because you can't be bothered.

Confounding

[Anonymous Coward]

Does smoking pot as a teen lower your IQ, or are stupid teens more likely to smoke pot?

Re:Confounding

[stranger_to_himself]

It was a longitudinal study. First assessment was before anybody had smoked anything, and it was the change in IQ that was tracked.

Re:Confounding

[radtea]

Does smoking pot as a teen lower your IQ, or are stupid teens more likely to smoke pot?

From the abstract; "Impairment was concentrated among adolescent-onset cannabis users, with more persistent use associated with greater decline. Further, cessation of cannabis use did not fully restore neuropsychological functioning among adolescent-onset cannabis users. Findings are suggestive of a neurotoxic effect of cannabis on the adolescent brain and highlight the importance of prevention and policy efforts targeting adolescents."

A randomized controlled trial is by far the best means of proving causality, but a strong dose-response curve is a good secondary indicator. In this case, the data don't seem to support the contention of the abstract very well. Here they are from Table 1 in the paper:

Persistence of regular cannabis use
Never used | 242 | 38.84 | 99.84 (14.39) | 100.64 (15.25) | 0.05
Used, never regularly | 508 | 50.59 | 102.27 (13.59) | 101.24 (14.81) | â'0.07
Used regularly at 1 wave | 47 | 72.34 | 101.42 (14.41) | 98.45 (14.89) | â'0.20
Used regularly at 2 waves | 36 | 63.89 | 95.28 (10.74) | 93.26 (11.44) | â'0.13
Used regularly at 3+ waves | 41 | 78.05 | 96.00 (16.06) | 90.77 (13.88) | â'0.35

Where the columns are: MJ usage category, # of people in category, %male, Avg(SD) IQ at 7- 13 years old, Avg(SD) IQ at 38 years old, size of effect.

There are a couple of striking things: the percentage of males jumps markedly as the regularity of cannabis use goes up, and the initial IQ drops. So this study shows that young men with slighlty lower than average IQ are more likely to engage in regular cannabis use, and this may or may not result in a further decrease in their IQ over time.

Also, the numbers in the regular use categories are quite small: a few dozen.

I've not read the paper in detail, but superficially this looks exactly like the kind of research that led to hormone replacement therapy being touted as a good thing for post-menapausal women. Selection effects amongst the population of HRT users in the early days resulted in apparently dramatically improved health outcomes, whereas when applied to the general population the results were just the opposite.

While the data are plausibly suggestive that cannabis is bad for the adolescent brain, it is also plausibly suggestive that the lower-IQ male adolescent is more at risk for cannibis use and IQ decline.

Re:Confounding

[Hatta]

There are a couple of striking things: the percentage of males jumps markedly as the regularity of cannabis use goes up

Holy crap, smoking pot turns females into males!

Summary left out important information

[HungryHobo]

Those who started after the age of 18 did not have the same IQ decline.

"It's such a special study that I'm fairly confident that cannabis is safe for over-18 brains, but risky for under-18 brains."
-King's College professor Terrie Moffitt.

As `The Dude` would say

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Correlation or Causation?

[Shirgall]

Breaking the law on a regular basis with a decent chance of being caught and treated harshly by the system probably correlates with a low IQ too, doesn't it?

Re:Legalise all drugs

[svick]

How far does that go? Can I invite all my friends into your house while you're at work? After all, why can't we use that empty house? It doesn't matter that it "belongs" to someone.

Re:Legalise all drugs

[Joce640k]

"at work"?

I wouldn't read too much into that.

[gallondr00nk]

IQ tests are incredibly subjective anyway, and have innate cultural biases. Essentially all an IQ test calculates is how good you are at the test. It has very little to do with "intelligence", however loosely defined.

Re:No surprise there

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that we (the netherlands) have a much lower percentage of regular cannabis users than, say, the US, right?

Re:Not being a dickhead

[Heed00]

Mod you down -- oh, but why?

When you use such generalizations as "...they're all completely drug-fucked wastes of space..." and respected scientific terms such as "the not being a complete cunt part of your brain" why would we think you unworthy of notice? Why would we not wish to bask in such measured delivery of your wisdom? When you proclaim the devil's weed will "...destroy your mind..." why would we think that to be hyperbole and scare mongering? Oh good sir, taunt us not with your desire to be unheard -- to be banished from our eyes and minds. You do us great injury to suggest such a thing -- even in mockery.

Mod him up! Mod him up, my friends. We must all see what "not being a dickhead" looks like. We must all learn from this shining example.

Re:that's why they call them stoners

[ultranova]

if you have nothing better to do in life than sit around and inhale a drug to "get high" and have psychodelic hallucinations then you're probably not destined for greatness

So? The chances are, you are not "destined for greatness" no matter what you do. Why waste your life chasing for a winning lottery ticket rather than simply relax and enjoy what you can have? Besides that the lottery company - the 1% - have a harder time exploiting you if you don't buy into the lie, I mean.

Most people can never be great, because great means exceptional, and most people are average by definition. You are not exceptional and will never be great. And there's no shame in that, no matter how much you're trying to evoke it.

The stereotypical stoner mentality - "relax, take it eeeeasy" - is the antithesis of the rat race mentality, and almost impossible to exploit, so of course the people who benefit from having all the little hamsters spin their wheels fight pot. And since they are nasty people, they use nasty methods, to the point of calling their fight a War with capital W, complete with propaganda front to complement the armed forces and prison camps. And all that should really make you wonder if you should trust them to be quite honest.

Re:Legalise all drugs

[betterunixthanunix]

Crystal Meth.

Methamphetamine is already legal by prescription and it is prescribed to both children and adults. Most of the harm caused by recreational methamphetamine is caused by toxic byproducts that are left over from poorly controlled and completely unregulated production processes, which is a direct result of prohibition; such things are not present the pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine that doctors prescribe.

Bath Salts.

You will have to be more specific, since that is a generic name for a number of stimulants that are also produced under poorly controlled and unregulated conditions. Yes, the media has been playing up the risk, but the stimulant psychosis is not news, and incidents involving caffeine seem to go unnoticed (or do you really think coffee should be illegal?):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19407709

The difference, of course, is that caffeine pills come with dosage information, their production is regulated, and you know that they contain caffeine. "Bath salts" come with no such information, and you have no idea what they contain -- it might be MDPV, but it could just as easily be caffeine, some unknown byproduct of MDPV synthesis, or something that is only known among drug researchers. Do you see the pattern yet?

PCP.

PCP is legal by prescription (same schedule as methamphetamine), for use as a painkiller. Recreational users have the same problems as recreational methamphetamine users: poor production, unknown dosage, etc. There is not much more to be said -- the problem here is not the drug, it is the law.

Science vs. propaganda

[betterunixthanunix]

Scientific conclusion: heavy marijuana use amongst teenagers is correlated with decreasing IQ.

Propaganda: MARIJUANA LOWERS IQ

The difference is in how this is presented. A scientific presentation cannot possibly say that marijuana is a causal factor until at least all of the following are addressed:

1. What can cause IQ to change over time? As someone else pointed out, it is entirely possible that sitting around doing nothing all day will lower IQ, and so marijuana's role may just be in discouraging teenagers from participating in activities that maintain or increase their IQ. Marijuana can increase appetite -- it is possible that eating too much junk food lowers IQ.
2. There may be a particular trait that attracts some teenagers to smoke pot heavily, which also causes them to have lower IQs later in life.
3. Teenagers who smoke marijuana may be participants in a subculture that involves other activities that cause lower IQ.
4. Marijuana may be produced using fertilizers or pesticides that are also absorbed when the drug is used, and those might cause lower IQ.
5. Marijuana smoke may contain chemicals that cause lower IQ; maybe other methods of taking the drug will not have such an effect (or maybe other methods are even worse).

There are a lot of things that can cause the results the scientists saw -- which is good news for them, since it means they have plenty of questions to answer. Unfortunately, the media will see this, ignore the part about heavy users, spend no time discussing confounding factors, and jump right on the "marijuana is bad" bandwagon. Typical, unsurprising, propaganda-driven approach.

Re:Science vs. propaganda

[Belial6]

As someone else pointed out, it is entirely possible that sitting around doing nothing all day will lower IQ, and so marijuana's role may just be in discouraging teenagers from participating in activities that maintain or increase their IQ.

I have always heavily suspected that this is the single biggest issue with "marijuana making you dumb". We see the same kinds of effects with people who have other, non-intellectual hobbies that they over indulge in. (sleeping, reading romance novels, playing sports, etc..., etc..., etc...) I'm pretty sure that we have some strong evidence that mental stimulation makes people smarter than they would be without it.

Re:Science vs. propaganda

[tobiah]

Perhaps it's just that low IQ is correlated with answering "yes" on a marijuana survey.