Study: Marijuana doesn't make you dumb!

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preslove

Lifer
Sep 10, 2003
16,754
64
91
Did you ever see that movie Super High Me? He goes sober for 30 days and does tests, then he gets really high for 30 days and does tests. He was quite a bit dumber when stoned. His ability to do math was completely gone.

Yeah. You do realize that he was using an abnormally large amount of weed, right? He woke up vaped more weed than many daily pot smokers smoke in a day. And that was just the morning volcano bag. He continued to eat/smoke/vape all day, every day, for 30 days. And, he only did slightly worse on the cognitive tests.
 
Feb 6, 2007
16,432
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Did you ever see that movie Super High Me? He goes sober for 30 days and does tests, then he gets really high for 30 days and does tests. He was quite a bit dumber when stoned. His ability to do math was completely gone.
That's going to be true when you're intoxicated regardless of what the substance happens to be. You think you're going to do well on cognitive tests when you're black out drunk? Of course not. The problem is that the stereotype of marijuana users is that pot makes them permanently retarded, which is not true. Sure, they're plenty stupid when they're high, but when they're sober, they're no better or worse than they would be if they never used pot.
 

sigurros81

Platinum Member
Nov 30, 2010
2,371
0
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To those who knew better, this goes under the category of obvious news.

To those that believe otherwise, nothing will change their minds.

Truth.

I know A LOT of people who smoke recreationally that carry on a healthy lifestyle and career. Just with anything, if you do it a lot, it will mess you up.

It's rather alarming to see so many people are quick to judge something or make a smarmy remark when they have never done it themselves or know anything about it, yet they are already biased just because of what they've seen portrayed in movies or one of them anti-drug commercials.
 

IGemini

Platinum Member
Nov 5, 2010
2,472
2
81
As a former psych academic and researcher, it ranges from annoying to outright infuriating when reporters rehash research, this one's somewhere in the middle. Mainly because most authors can't even reasonably give enough information to find the full article easily. This one hasn't been published on hard copy (yet), it's sitting in online publication so it can be edited for a future issue. The reporter decided to use the initial sample (2000) instead of the resulting sample (842) for whatever reason.

But this isn't news. The article conclusion more specifically said that "Cessation of cannabis use appears to be associated with an improvement in capacity for recall of information that has just been learned. No other measures of cognitive performance were related to cannabis after controlling for confounds." Recall improvement after quitting is probably the most common finding in this kind of research.

Too many morons will look at this sort of research and foolishly think that scoring lower on something like a word recall test translates to a person being stupid (or the researchers themselves "THEY MUST BE BIASED" garbage etc., if it somehow puts the subjects in a better light). Because that's literally what the test is, they give you a list of words and ask you to recount them up to 30 minutes later, in another list with additional words. The only thing they found (assuming I understand their scale, not having access to the full text and I can't find the CVLT scale anywhere) is that heavy smokers who stopped got 1.5 more words ON AVERAGE than those who didn't quit. That's it.

Stupidity isn't exclusive to marijuana smokers, everyone's an equal-opportunity idiot.
 

Wyndru

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2009
7,318
4
76
I wonder what smoking weed for someone in their teens does to brain development though.
 

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,758
603
126
Does anyone else support Marijuana legalization in principle, but every time a strong supporter starts talking think "Maybe I'm wrong about this"? Seriously, do those guys do fucking anything all day besides get high, talk about getting high, talk about weed or not wash their hair? I think they'd do better advancing their cause if they weren't walking stereotypes.
 

Squisher

Lifer
Aug 17, 2000
21,204
66
91
Does anyone else support Marijuana legalization in principle, but every time a strong supporter starts talking think "Maybe I'm wrong about this"? Seriously, do those guys do fucking anything all day besides get high, talk about getting high, talk about weed or not wash their hair? I think they'd do better advancing their cause if they weren't walking stereotypes.

I haven't seen this. Considering the large pool of legalization advocates there are plenty to choose from to get up on a soapbox. The first two that pop into my mind are Ron Paul and Gary Johnson.
 

TheNinja

Lifer
Jan 22, 2003
12,207
1
0
That's going to be true when you're intoxicated regardless of what the substance happens to be. You think you're going to do well on cognitive tests when you're black out drunk? Of course not. The problem is that the stereotype of marijuana users is that pot makes them permanently retarded, which is not true. Sure, they're plenty stupid when they're high, but when they're sober, they're no better or worse than they would be if they never used pot.

Yup. Good Post.
 

TheNinja

Lifer
Jan 22, 2003
12,207
1
0
I actually wish weed was legal so I could smoke up once in a while. I end up drinking more alcohol on Friday or Saturday night, which is probably more damaging to my body than a few puffs of weed would be 1-2x a month.
 

qliveur

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2007
4,090
74
91
The problem is a lot of stoners are hardly ever not stoned. That makes them perpetually impaired, so stupid becomes the norm.
I was stoned 24/7 for 10 years, and this describes my experience to a tee.

It's like any other intoxicant. It's perfectly fine when used responsibly and in moderation, but people shouldn't be under its influence 24/7 unless they enjoy sleep-walking their way through life.
 

BAMAVOO

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
8,087
41
91
IF smoking weed doesn't make you dumb and it is just the dumb that smoke week, ATOT logic presents the following....A Stoner is either....

A. - a CHRISTIAN
B. - a Conservative
C. - God Forbid - both A and B
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,791
6,351
126
Did you ever see that movie Super High Me? He goes sober for 30 days and does tests, then he gets really high for 30 days and does tests. He was quite a bit dumber when stoned. His ability to do math was completely gone.

Doing Math while a million thoughts are racing through your head? :D
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
37,402
33,055
136
And playing left field tonight, we have:
IF smoking weed doesn't make you dumb and it is just the dumb that smoke week, ATOT logic presents the following....A Stoner is either....

A. - a CHRISTIAN
B. - a Conservative
C. - God Forbid - both A and B
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Does anyone else support Marijuana legalization in principle, but every time a strong supporter starts talking think "Maybe I'm wrong about this"? Seriously, do those guys do fucking anything all day besides get high, talk about getting high, talk about weed or not wash their hair? I think they'd do better advancing their cause if they weren't walking stereotypes.
This does seem to be a major problem. Most of the weed people I know are walking stereotypes.

The alcohol and hard drug people are a lot more interesting. A remarkably high percentage of the MDMA people I know are working engineers or science majors in university.
 

preslove

Lifer
Sep 10, 2003
16,754
64
91
This does seem to be a major problem. Most of the weed people I know are walking stereotypes.

The alcohol and hard drug people are a lot more interesting. A remarkably high percentage of the MDMA people I know are working engineers or science majors in university.

The least interesting people I've ever met have been macro brew and sugary mixed drink drinkers.

I'm sure more than a few people you don't think smoke weed do, in fact, smoke it.