Study on Marijuana and IQ

[letianchen]

This is a year old video/study, but we talked about it in school the other day

Hi I was wondering what you thought about this study

Here is a video
Marijuana & IQ - YouTube
there are some links in the description box about the study done, here is an article

Does Marijuana Use by Teens Really Cause a Drop in IQ? | TIME.com


What are your opinions on this in general and the study. I believe it says in the study it has to be a rather intensive prolonged smoking of pot, but still I am skeptical about this and unsure it seems a bit bias unless I am not reading through the lines properly.

 

[coolio123]

Havent had time to read the study but this sure does bring me back to the weed days. Good times. I would imagine something like this is hard to test because I believe the discrepancy is like 8 or so lower, so it could be they are having bad days, or the iq test could have some things that make it harder. I have never took an actual IQ test but I would imagine each test would have some differences.

 

[Mark of Zorro]

Its hard to tell where the fault of the research begins and fault of the media reporting ends in being mislead on marijuana.. Most research on health and marijuana does seem to focus on "heavy use" and, even though the article actually lays that caveat out clearly in the very first sentence, it will be ignored by pundits and idiots alike, although for different reasons. If I wrote the article or the research, I would probably make sure the caveat of "heavy use" were mentioned at least 5 times.

I had friends who were heavy users as teens. I have no doubt they lost IQ as well as experienced memory loss. I on the other hand, from about 8 years old, was getting contact buzzes at least once a week up through about 17. I was always at the head of the class in elementary and junior high. It was not until high school that my grades slipped into some B's and a C, but that had to do with the fact that I lost interest in school. My senior year, I skipped about 1/3 of school year to stay home and play games. Yet I still got an ACT (similar to SAT) score high enough to go to Harvard.

Anyway, I hardly ever actually smoked pot directly. Maybe four or five times in my whole life. What I got was contact buzzes. I did drink alcohol a lot though, but I would not say I abused it. I certainly never abused marijuana. My friends did.

But what is there in this world that you cannot abuse? You can even abuse water, because if you drink too much, you can die of toxic shock.

I am really sick of so many things being banned in this world for people abusing it, despite the fact that so many of us can use it in moderation with no ill effects or even a benefit. I am sick of being held to the standards of a minority of idiots who cannot control themselves. And the combo of this research plus the way the media reports it leads to the effect of bans, cause you know people will hold this up and say "Look! Marijuana is bad, bad, bad!", instead of realizing that all the research says is the obvious fact that abusing anything is bad.

 

[letianchen]

Not to mention its not very healthy for your wallet

To be honest I know heavy users who don't even let it negatively effect there school life they tend to have a policy of "don't let anyone see you not high", I wonder how long that will last.

 

[RickNZ]

The heavy weed smokers I know are all not the sharpest tools in the shed, but I'm not sure which way round the cause and effect is there. Casual ones are fairly normal.

 

[Mark of Zorro]

The heavy weed smokers I know are all not the sharpest tools in the shed, but I'm not sure which way round the cause and effect is there. Casual ones are fairly normal.

The tail wags the dog. An excellent point. Stupid is as stupid does, and we can expect that the stupid, more often than others, will be the abusers who cannot control themselves.

I would not say intelligence and willpower are strictly tied together, but there is a relation.

 

[FinancialWar]

I had friends who were heavy users as teens. I have no doubt they lost IQ as well as experienced memory loss. I on the other hand, from about 8 years old, was getting contact buzzes at least once a week up through about 17. I was always at the head of the class in elementary and junior high. It was not until high school that my grades slipped into some B's and a C, but that had to do with the fact that I lost interest in school. My senior year, I skipped about 1/3 of school year to stay home and play games. Yet I still got an ACT (similar to SAT) score high enough to go to Harvard.

So did you get into Harvard? Because ACT and SAT are jokes compared to IB or our HSC. Hence why Harvard and other good school look more than just SAT score.

Also Black and other so called disadvantaged people in the States also get SAT discounts into top school to increase diversity. So when you say ACT high enough to get into Harvard, doesn't really say much. But whether you actually get in is another matter.

 

[RickNZ]

The tail wags the dog. An excellent point. Stupid is as stupid does, and we can expect that the stupid, more often than others, will be the abusers who cannot control themselves.

I would not say intelligence and willpower are strictly tied together, but there is a relation.

Interesting to compare tobacco smoking, because tobacco definitely doesn't lower your IQ, and yet if I think of the heavy smokers I know, low intelligence / low education is definitely over represented.

 

[Mark of Zorro]

So did you get into Harvard? Because ACT and SAT are jokes compared to IB or our HSC. Hence why Harvard and other good school look more than just SAT score.

Also Black and other so called disadvantaged people in the States also get SAT discounts into top school to increase diversity. So when you say ACT high enough to get into Harvard, doesn't really say much. But whether you actually get in is another matter.

It says I had a top ranked ACT score. Most people don't get that high. According to the documents I received with my score notification, it was the highest rank and Harvard was a possibility (at least at the time).

I did not apply for Harvard. I grew up in a trailer park for Pete's sake. I could not afford it and I am too lazy to have gone for scholarships.