19 ms·

Cannabis Access and Academic Performance

101 points by herendin 11y ago

guard-of-terra 11y ago
Steve Yegge comes to rescue: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... So... one minor, teeny-weeny almost insigificant caveat before I continue: I have smoked marijuana (and inhaled it, deeply) on more occasions than I can count. And yet I'm almost undoubtedly smarter than your kid that you're so goddamned worried about. I skipped three grades (3rd, 7th and 8th), entered high school at age 11 and graduated at age 14, took A.P. courses, had stellar SAT scores, was a U.S. Navy nuclear reactor operator, went to the University of Washington and earned a Computer Science degree, worked at major corporations like Amazon.com and Google for many years as a senior staff engineer and/or senior development manager, and now I'm an internationally famous blogger. I don't usually dwell on that, but today it's relevant. It's relevant because I've smoked a LOT of pot, and I dare you to prove that it has impaired me in any scientifically detectable way. We would debate, and you would lose; nevertheless I double-dog dare you.
- tensor 11y ago
  Steve Yegge is not a scientist and prone to highly emotional rants. Further, your situation, whatever it is, is an anecdote, not sufficient to draw a conclusion. I wonder if the same is true of alcohol, given the two substances are so close. Whatever the conclusion, it's not justification to ban either of course. There are many other facets of the problem to consider.
  - mtreis86 11y ago
    Cannabis and Alcohol share just about nothing in common. Not the chemical structure, the method of consumption, the neuro-physical effects, nor the after-effects. They both do get you a high in their way, but aside from that, nothing. They don't feel much alike, and are very different in terms of long term and short term cognitive effects.
- deleted 11y ago
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- lubonay 11y ago
  I can't quote a source, but I recall one study correlating higher IQ with higher risk of psychoactive drug usage. Maybe your brain is amazing enough to not be hindered by smoking pot. Maybe the performance decline is not noticeable and you continue to function well. Maybe you've smoked so much marijuana that you have a strong resistance to its effects. But then again, maybe you are the exception - that's the problem with anecdotal evidence. If a more average person is given easy access to THC, maybe their chance at greater academic performance would go up in smoke (ha). Either way, as a recreational smoker, I prefer to keep my habit away from my work and study. That would be the worst way to multitask - can't enjoy the high due to work, can't be as productive at work because of the high.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Good point, people brain and psyche structure can respond differently to substances. To some it might free the system of some problems, balances things so you can focus or be more relaxed longer, but for others it might just trigger 'unproductive' fun.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  It's interesting. I was just thinking a little while ago about the tendency for smart people to equate being smart with being right. A while ago I was mentoring a young colleague of mine and I warned him that it is often the case that when we experience one failed project after another, we tend to think, "People should listen to me. I've seen every way to make a project fail and so I know how to make a project succeed." In reality, unless you have experienced success you are unlikely to know how to create that success. He replied with one of the most interesting things I've heard in a while: "But I have lots of good ideas. Not all of them can be wrong". I had to step away and think about that for a long time, but eventually I realized that, yes, he could be wrong every single time. The search space is huge. And the tricky thing is that it doesn't really matter how smart he is. He can still be wrong every single time because there are a lot more wrong answers than right ones. A lot of the wrong answers really look like they should be right too. Even to otherwise brilliant (though wrong) people. In a similar vein, I think you will find that despite your great intellect and professional success, there are many, many areas where you are wrong. In fact, there are likely to be a lot more areas where you are wrong than areas where you are right. There's just a huge search space out there. I have no idea if you are right or wrong about marijauna use. I'm am absolutely convinced that you would beat me in a debate on the subject (I can't even spell the damn word correctly). Beating me (or anyone) in a debate makes absolutely no difference to whether or not you are correct. It's not like I am immune to the occasional (umm... possibly a lot more than occasional... :-P) egocentric outburst, but I have found that admitting that I am likely wrong actually improves my credibility. I mean a brilliant, internationally famous blogger with a CS degree might very well be right about the effects of marijuana on the brain. Researchers on the effects of marijuana on the brain may just have the edge though, despite a possible lack of comparative brain power. It's something to consider.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    The thing about being wrong is interesting. It reminds me of something i read about a bright young developer that joined a company, got assigned tasks, completed them brilliantly, until the day that one stumped him. Afterwards he claimed that the experience had been the best he could have, because until that day he had not really faced failure.
- xupybd 11y ago
  Yet for me a few months of pot gave me a stutter for two years, and I'm pretty sure killed my motivation in my final school year. I eventually got my act together and got an engineering degree, but I'd definitely recommend against pot use.
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    As would I. I missed my late teens and early twenties while sitting in a haze of pot smoke, and while I did have some interesting experiences, the time would have been far better spent learning to deal with life in healthier ways. Ten years on, and I'm still dealing with the aftermath of those poor decisions.
  - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
    Every time I ever got high on weed I felt lingering effects for about three days. I've never experienced this with anything else. It always seemed to me that people who smoke weed a couple times a week or more often might be slightly under the influence almost continuously and not even realize it.
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- Camillo 11y ago
  That doesn't even make sense. Who's to say he would not have done even better if he had not smoked pot? How can he assume his case generalizes across the population? How does someone who is So Very Smart not realize this? Did his AP courses not give him an inkling of the scientific method? For what it's worth, that blog post caused a tiny increase in my propensity to believe marijuana is harmful.
  - engx 11y ago
    And maybe Yegge would had accomplished less without weed? The point is, he still accomplished all that while having smoked a lot of weed. True you can't generalize across the population but his story is still relevant. Maybe Francis Crick would had invented time travel if it wasn't for LSD. I know 10 doctors and surgeons, and the majority smoke weed and do cocaine (not everyday / nor every week). I wouldn't say they are great people though.
  - brc 11y ago
    Yes, precisely. So many times a debate is about whether or not something does measurable harm. People or policies with a measure if success are often cited as evidence of lack of harm. Whether it's taking drugs or raising the tax rate, if the subjects in question continue to prosper, it is assumed no harm is done. However people forget to ask the question whether the outcomes are maximised? Could the blogger have been the next Steve Jobs but for the weed use? I don't pretend to have the answer but I see the question is rarely asked.
- Uptrenda 11y ago
  This really has nothing to do with the study but congrats ... I guess.
- fsloth 11y ago
  Well endowed smart kid is not wrecked by drugs? Common entertainment drugs in general are not disastrous for mentally healthy well off people. As per rats - http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/ http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/ I have nothing to say about drugs, but neither does Steve's anecdote.
- cowsandmilk 11y ago
  P. Diddy has been known to go for 4 days without sleeping, seemingly with no ill effects according to assistants who have had to stay awake and by his side during these times. I'm sure this self-reported N of 1 study is extremely relevant to sleep researchers all over the world.
- lazyjones 11y ago
  The abstract clearly points out that the observed (negative) effect is stronger for low performers and women. Furthermore, Yegge's rant is a bit short on actual facts that would show possible effects. For example, did his career changes happen due to increased pot consumption at the time? Did he abandon his PhD plans because of it? Did he even smoke before high school (at the age of 11)? We don't know.
- a3n 11y ago
  He describes how undeniably exceptional he is, and then implies that his experience should be a guide for unexceptional people. There will always be outliers.
- douche 11y ago
  Are people not realizing that everything after the first sentence is a direct quote from the Yegge rant?
- JakeAl 11y ago
  https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activities/testimony-to-congress/2014/mixed-signals-administrations-policy-marijuana-part-four-scientific-focus-adverse-health https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activities/... Posted for the list of data sources. Read all of the articles on the site if you can. Conclusion: If you are fked up you are fed up and one would be showing poor judgement at the least and be legally liable at the most if they trusted you with ther child, finances, or company, regardless of how functional a drug-addict you are.
_98fj 11y ago
It appears that regular cannabis use [0] decreases dopaminergic brain-activity [1]. Dopamine is often referred to as "pleasure"-transmitter, but it's function in certain parts of the brain is better thought of as "regulating expectation", therefore influencing drive & motivation. It makes it possible to work on stuff you don't particularly enjoy by focussing on an expected long-term reward. This works by enabling your conscious thoughts to silence other, more excitatory and emotional parts of your brain via a feedback-loop. [2] People with ADHS have trouble concentrating because this feedback-loop doesn't work well when they're not moving. Sitting still, they are constantly being flooded with inappropriate and negative emotions. They calm down when taking stimulants like Ritaline, because the "calming"-function of the brain starts working properly. Bottom-line: Cannabis has many good effects, but it definitely blunts motivation. [3] [0] rule of thumb: more than once weekly [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/E3149.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/E3149.abstract [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYsTmIzjkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYsTmIzjkw
- engx 11y ago
  What you wrote is not definitive. What is the cause of ADHD? There is no physical test for it and its cause is unknown. Some experts believe it is caused by other things, like patterns of thinking. There is absolutely no evidence that millions of people have a physical biological issue where a stimulant effects them differently than normal people. An amphetamine is an amphetamine is an amphetamine. And: A new study challenges the popular idea that dysfunction in dopamine — a chemical that controls the brain’s reward and pleasure centers — is the main cause of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/11/02/chemical-imbalance-is-probably-not-behind-adhd/61512.html http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/11/02/chemical-imbalance-i... In truth, the “chemical imbalance” notion was always a kind of urban legend- - never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists. - http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/psychiatry-new-brain-mind-and-legend-chemical-imbalance#sthash.RRX0NFMA.dpuf http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/psychiatr...
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cnp 11y ago
Like all (good) drugs, they get better when you age. When you're young and blasted there's no way to make sense of things and responsibilities become more difficult. When you're older its like a whole new wonderful world to explore.
- antoniuschan99 11y ago
  I agree with this. If weed becomes legal it should be restricted like alcohol.
zmk_ 11y ago
One thing that jumps at me in this study is the high risk of investigating two different populations with different characteristics. Foreign students are more likely to be high achievers (and high-achieving women), quantitative degrees are also in higher demand from foreigners and more likely to be in English. If you are Dutch you can pick whatever university/field you want and they will admit you (exception is medicine); thus there is a higher chance of low-achievers (who drive the results) to be in that part of the sample. I am suspicious of results which are driven by the tail of the distribution and die out in time (when that tail drops out).
- tomp 11y ago
  Didn't the study compare the performance of a group before and after the marihuana ban, with the natives being the control group? the differences you list (motivation, skill, effort) didn't change (except as an effect of the ban).
- losvedir 11y ago
  The study used a "diffs-in-diffs" technique which would control for that. It takes the difference between two groups, say English and Dutch, prior to banning marijuana for English students, and then looks at the difference between the two groups afterwards. So it's a way of looking at how the performance of the English group changed with banning the drug, while trying to control for the things that affected _all_ students.
DarkContinent 11y ago
The real concern with this study is not the possible negative effects of marijuana (which are already known) but the moral correctness of its legalization. I personally have not and never will smoke pot, but that doesn't mean I support the continuing ban in America. Everyone has the right to determine his own destiny, and if engaging in personally (but not socially) destructive behaviors like smoking pot is a person's chosen destiny, he shouldn't be held back by dated laws restricting personal freedom.
- 98Windows 11y ago
  How harmful would cannabis have to be to people until you'd consider banning it?
  - Ensorceled 11y ago
    Personally, it would have to be worse than the impact on your life for getting a felony charge for possession. This whole "we have to put people in jail and destroy any and all future job prospects for their own protection" is madness.
    - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
      That simply doesn't happen in America. Cannabis is de facto legal throughout the USA. I repeat: marijuana is in practice legal in America, and all these people talking about drug charges ruining lives don't know what they're talking about. The only way you get serious charges or any jail time at all for marijuana in America is when you've been arrested for serious crimes, but a District Attorney goes with "possession" for the plea deal. It's just easier that way.
      - wavefunction 11y ago
        You are either incredibly misinformed or you are an out-and-out liar. For instance, a drug charge of any kind, even just a misdemeanor for paraphernalia precludes any Federal Student loans from being offered. My younger brother was arrested with a pipe containing some cannabis residue and was unable after that point to receive any Federally subsidized student loans. Some 20,000 inmates in US prisons are currently incarcerated for cannabis possession and trafficking. There was a young man of 19 years of age down here in Texas that was arrested after he was ratted out by some teenage customers who were themselves arrested and flipped on their dealer to save themselves. He was arrested with cannabis and cannabis oil along with a pan of brownies he had made with the oil. The Williamson County prosecutor sought to treat the entire volume of brownies as drugs and the defendant was facing LIFE in prison over some cannabis brownies. So yeah, you either need to inform yourself better or you need to stop lying.
rickdale 11y ago
I want to note that this is how THC can effect academic performance. There are other compounds in marijuana other than THC and although THC is the leading compound in most cannabis, in the medical cannabis world there are certain strains like Cannatonic that will test 0%THC with 10-20%CBD. CBD is not like THC and has a lot of different medical benefits associated with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol
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acomjean 11y ago
I think things like drugs and alcohol are worse for growing brains. From a NYC teacher (One reference point) "I’ve taught high school for 25 years and I hate what marijuana does to my students. It goes beyond missing homework assignments. My students become less curious when they start smoking pot. I’ve seen it time and time again. People say pot makes you more creative, but from what I’ve seen, it narrows my students’ minds until they only reference the world in relation to the drug. They’ll say things like: “I went to the beach and got so high,” or “I went to a concert and got so high.” They start choosing their friends based on the drug. I hate when people say that it’s just experimenting. Because from what I’ve seen, it’s when my students stop experimenting.” ' http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/129574836736/i-hate-pot-i-hate-it-even-more-than-hard-drugs http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/129574836736/i-hate-pot-...
- jtedward 11y ago
  I think our modern education system has done more to blunt people the curiosity of young people then these drugs possibly could.
  - sv123 11y ago
    I see what you did there.
- willholloway 11y ago
  I think this teacher should take this as an opportunity to examine what it is he, and the institution he works for is offering these students as an alternative, and consider the students are making rational choices that serve them better. We know from the Rat Park study that rats in an enriched environment full of positive social engagement and freedom do not choose morphine. [1] If the students are choosing drugs, it's because they are trapped in a bare metal cage. For high achievers the do good in high school so you can go to a good college so you can get a good job track can be financially rewarding, but it is also stressful, often leads to burn out and depression and at the end a kind of existential malaise. For average students this track means bleak economic prospects, low status, a boring monotony with high student loan debt burden. Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds. If his students are rejecting society's plan for them and choosing another, perhaps he should examine what it is he is offering. The conclusion often made from his sentiment is a reflexive authoritarian prohibition. I know many high achieving friends that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to start lucrative tech careers, and started businesses that are building the future. I know many other average students that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to live rewarding ski-bum lifestyles funded by bar tending, waiting tables, and small scale real estate investment. The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
willholloway 11y ago
Alcohol is the real threat to cognition, and we don't talk about it. [1] [2] We don't know where the line is exactly, but somewhere around 4-5 drinks over a few hours has an acute neurotoxic effect. Cannabis use in adolescents does not result in changes that can be picked up on high resolution MRI scans. [3] This is a considerable finding considering that one would expect changes just from the added stress of being a cannabis user in a prohibition environment (fear of arrest, fear of expulsion, fear of parental punishment upon discovery). It may even point to a protective effect of cannabis on the brain, as we see in Parkinson's and has been seen in other studies and in stroke. [4] A UK study on the IQ effects of moderate cannabis use on students did not find evidence of harm. The study did find significant evidence of cognitive deficits caused by alcohol use. [5] Why do young adults want to get high so much? I think the answer is that they are coping with the stress of being locked into institutions that do not serve them, do not respect them and offer them very little, while demanding very much. One of the themes of Ferris Bueller's Day Off was high school as prison. The entire movie is a jail break story, and I think it gets to the truth of what its like to be doing time in high school better than anything. It's no wonder so many teenagers cope by getting high as much as they can. And then we blame them, and treat them like criminals, when they are just sufferers of low mood. We need a radically different approach to high school education. I think we need to find a way for people to be more economically useful, economically empowered and more in control of their lives at younger ages. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25702705 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25702705 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183294/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183294/ [3] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/4/1505.short http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/4/1505.short [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10863546 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10863546 [5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/22/no-marijuana-use-doesnt-lower-your-iq/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/22/no...
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  if people used other drugs as heavily as alcohol is used, then it's not going to be sunshine and roses. it's the volume of alcohol consumed that's the problem. too much of anything is bad for you, as the saying goes.
compbio 11y ago
As this is framed more as the results of a policy change, there are some things to consider when banning weed: - Street sales to tourists and foreigners exploded. Small-time dealers reported weekly income of 2k Euros during the prohibition. - Dutch teenagers use less weed than German, UK and Belgian teens. Legal availability seems inversely correlated with actual use. - In France there is no clear distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs. A dealer will sell you pot, but also heroin. - There are other ways to get weed, without using a weed pass. Home growers will not check the age of the person they are selling to. Smoking weed in Holland has a social stigma attached to it. It is not cool, it is for chumps. Policy changes like these may make it dangerous, hidden and cool again, actually raising our usage to the levels of neighboring countries. As to the results, I shudder and think: Imagine what Feynman would have been able to achieve, if he had no access to weed or bongos for seven months...
- tunap 11y ago
  Or that ne'er-do-well Mister X, akA Carl Sagan: http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/ http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/ An immediate family member, who happens to be a 30 year practicing behavioral therapist freely admits most science preceeding the 21st cemtury is bunk science based more on policy than science. The blank brain scans of the "habitual pot smoker" hanging on the clinic walls were the source of many amusements. The pro's I speak with all agree, addictions and self-defeating behaviors are the products of deeper problems... and, "everything in moderation". Oh, but we as a culture are taught to always blame external 'demons' we can point to to excuse our personal shortcomings without having to shoulder that whole 'personal responsibility' burden. Meh.
  - Floegipoky 11y ago
    Thank you for posting that, I was not aware of Mr X
- pmoriarty 11y ago
  Or consider how shitty music would be if musicians did not have access to pot, psychedelics, and various other currently illegal drugs. If you like virtually any 20th or 21st century popular music, you are greatly indebted to drugs.
tpllaha 11y ago
Well... I can see how it can be easy to reach conclusions like this. The same result (most likely even worse) would be reached even if the effect of alcohol was studied instead of cannabis. This is not surprising, but neither is it interesting in my opinion. Of course there is a correlation between time spent doing mentally engaging activities and success, and surely smoking weed is not a mentally engaging activity. But this does not imply anything about moderate consumption in leisure time, neither does it mean that we should never engage in activities in which we do not exercise our brain.
peter303 11y ago
Glad to see some sort of scientific study on this. Too much of the debate is based on ideology and hearsay, not systematic study. Colorado sets aside a quarter of its pot taxes for scientific study. Fed funding sources generally ban or highly restrict such studies. So we dont have good modern evidence for the claimed benefits or harms of drugs.
- justifier 11y ago
  can you speak more to your findings that this paper is scientific? i find it frustratingly unscientific in regards to what i consider scientific investigation
thenerdfiles 11y ago
"We find that the academic performance of students who are no longer legally permitted to buy cannabis increases substantially." Pfft. For my own case, when I smoke cannabis, my brain becomes hyperactive. I want to resolve all of my codesmell at once. I want to finish all of my code at once. My writing becomes "electric". My writing becomes transcendental and on fire — why do I become electric, yet all of these students become unmotivated globs? Tell me why this is the case before you moralize and vilify such a beautiful plant! So maybe it's me. Or maybe the lot of you just don't know how to smoke and ritualize the practice. Maybe you all have a flawed philosophy to begin with, or worse, you don't have a philosophy about what you're smoking — to begin with. As Kafka notes: The unfitness of the object may cause one to overlook the unfitness of the means. — Franz Kafka
- antoniuschan99 11y ago
  I think it has to do with the maturity of the smoker. Since you probably have an established career or passion, weed tends to amplify that. Whereas with students, they are still maturing and figuring their lives out and since marijuana amplifies that they become even more lazy? Just my 2 cents
justifier 11y ago
A first step is to have an idea of baseline consumption rates for the particular group of individuals who were affected by the policy. To obtain rough estimates of these rates, we carried out an anonymous survey among currently enrolled students at Maastricht University. To make the question about cannabis consumption less Although these are different students to the ones on which we have performance data that we use in the rest of the analysis, their baseline consumption rates are relevant for two reasons. First, their demographic salient, we embedded it in a more general questionnaire on risky behavior. In total, 192 students answered the survey, which is over 97 percent of the students present in the lectures where it was distributed. The survey question we focused on asks students if they “have ever smoked cannabis or hashish” and if so, when: “ever”, “in the last 12 months”, “in the last 30 days” or “in the last 7 days”. all ridicule of the data used aside.. they fail completely to address dose give a kid 2400mg of ibprofen and see how well children function on 'numerical skills'
joesmo 11y ago
So is there evidence of this in states where cannabis access has been legal/decriminalized for at least a decade like California, Washington, and the Netherlands as a whole? It sounds like a significant portion of students from those states should be consistently underperforming each year compared to other states and to students before legal access was allowed.
papaf 11y ago
I would never argue against science but the following is a true anecdote: A friend of mine was up all night smoking pot and drinking alcohol. She had a University exam the next day that involved writing essays. She picked herself up, went to the exam and passed. She did so well that she got an award for the best peformance that year. True story.
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coetry 11y ago
PHP fascinates me when I'm high :), I usually incline towards languages in which I can enjoy the syntax (clojure and ruby), but when I'm baked, I enjoy the pure act of coding;translating my thoughts into binary manifestations. I think there should be more studies on how weed impacts learning.

101 points by herendin 11y ago

Steve Yegge comes to rescue: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... So... one minor, teeny-weeny almost insigificant caveat before I continue: I have smoked marijuana (and inhaled it, deeply) on more occasions than I can count. And yet I'm almost undoubtedly smarter than your kid that you're so goddamned worried about. I skipped three grades (3rd, 7th and 8th), entered high school at age 11 and graduated at age 14, took A.P. courses, had stellar SAT scores, was a U.S. Navy nuclear reactor operator, went to the University of Washington and earned a Computer Science degree, worked at major corporations like Amazon.com and Google for many years as a senior staff engineer and/or senior development manager, and now I'm an internationally famous blogger. I don't usually dwell on that, but today it's relevant. It's relevant because I've smoked a LOT of pot, and I dare you to prove that it has impaired me in any scientifically detectable way. We would debate, and you would lose; nevertheless I double-dog dare you.

tensor 11y ago
Steve Yegge is not a scientist and prone to highly emotional rants. Further, your situation, whatever it is, is an anecdote, not sufficient to draw a conclusion. I wonder if the same is true of alcohol, given the two substances are so close. Whatever the conclusion, it's not justification to ban either of course. There are many other facets of the problem to consider.
- mtreis86 11y ago
  Cannabis and Alcohol share just about nothing in common. Not the chemical structure, the method of consumption, the neuro-physical effects, nor the after-effects. They both do get you a high in their way, but aside from that, nothing. They don't feel much alike, and are very different in terms of long term and short term cognitive effects.
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lubonay 11y ago
I can't quote a source, but I recall one study correlating higher IQ with higher risk of psychoactive drug usage. Maybe your brain is amazing enough to not be hindered by smoking pot. Maybe the performance decline is not noticeable and you continue to function well. Maybe you've smoked so much marijuana that you have a strong resistance to its effects. But then again, maybe you are the exception - that's the problem with anecdotal evidence. If a more average person is given easy access to THC, maybe their chance at greater academic performance would go up in smoke (ha). Either way, as a recreational smoker, I prefer to keep my habit away from my work and study. That would be the worst way to multitask - can't enjoy the high due to work, can't be as productive at work because of the high.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Good point, people brain and psyche structure can respond differently to substances. To some it might free the system of some problems, balances things so you can focus or be more relaxed longer, but for others it might just trigger 'unproductive' fun.
mikekchar 11y ago
It's interesting. I was just thinking a little while ago about the tendency for smart people to equate being smart with being right. A while ago I was mentoring a young colleague of mine and I warned him that it is often the case that when we experience one failed project after another, we tend to think, "People should listen to me. I've seen every way to make a project fail and so I know how to make a project succeed." In reality, unless you have experienced success you are unlikely to know how to create that success. He replied with one of the most interesting things I've heard in a while: "But I have lots of good ideas. Not all of them can be wrong". I had to step away and think about that for a long time, but eventually I realized that, yes, he could be wrong every single time. The search space is huge. And the tricky thing is that it doesn't really matter how smart he is. He can still be wrong every single time because there are a lot more wrong answers than right ones. A lot of the wrong answers really look like they should be right too. Even to otherwise brilliant (though wrong) people. In a similar vein, I think you will find that despite your great intellect and professional success, there are many, many areas where you are wrong. In fact, there are likely to be a lot more areas where you are wrong than areas where you are right. There's just a huge search space out there. I have no idea if you are right or wrong about marijauna use. I'm am absolutely convinced that you would beat me in a debate on the subject (I can't even spell the damn word correctly). Beating me (or anyone) in a debate makes absolutely no difference to whether or not you are correct. It's not like I am immune to the occasional (umm... possibly a lot more than occasional... :-P) egocentric outburst, but I have found that admitting that I am likely wrong actually improves my credibility. I mean a brilliant, internationally famous blogger with a CS degree might very well be right about the effects of marijuana on the brain. Researchers on the effects of marijuana on the brain may just have the edge though, despite a possible lack of comparative brain power. It's something to consider.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  The thing about being wrong is interesting. It reminds me of something i read about a bright young developer that joined a company, got assigned tasks, completed them brilliantly, until the day that one stumped him. Afterwards he claimed that the experience had been the best he could have, because until that day he had not really faced failure.
xupybd 11y ago
Yet for me a few months of pot gave me a stutter for two years, and I'm pretty sure killed my motivation in my final school year. I eventually got my act together and got an engineering degree, but I'd definitely recommend against pot use.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  As would I. I missed my late teens and early twenties while sitting in a haze of pot smoke, and while I did have some interesting experiences, the time would have been far better spent learning to deal with life in healthier ways. Ten years on, and I'm still dealing with the aftermath of those poor decisions.
- a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  Every time I ever got high on weed I felt lingering effects for about three days. I've never experienced this with anything else. It always seemed to me that people who smoke weed a couple times a week or more often might be slightly under the influence almost continuously and not even realize it.
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Camillo 11y ago
That doesn't even make sense. Who's to say he would not have done even better if he had not smoked pot? How can he assume his case generalizes across the population? How does someone who is So Very Smart not realize this? Did his AP courses not give him an inkling of the scientific method? For what it's worth, that blog post caused a tiny increase in my propensity to believe marijuana is harmful.
- engx 11y ago
  And maybe Yegge would had accomplished less without weed? The point is, he still accomplished all that while having smoked a lot of weed. True you can't generalize across the population but his story is still relevant. Maybe Francis Crick would had invented time travel if it wasn't for LSD. I know 10 doctors and surgeons, and the majority smoke weed and do cocaine (not everyday / nor every week). I wouldn't say they are great people though.
- brc 11y ago
  Yes, precisely. So many times a debate is about whether or not something does measurable harm. People or policies with a measure if success are often cited as evidence of lack of harm. Whether it's taking drugs or raising the tax rate, if the subjects in question continue to prosper, it is assumed no harm is done. However people forget to ask the question whether the outcomes are maximised? Could the blogger have been the next Steve Jobs but for the weed use? I don't pretend to have the answer but I see the question is rarely asked.
Uptrenda 11y ago
This really has nothing to do with the study but congrats ... I guess.
fsloth 11y ago
Well endowed smart kid is not wrecked by drugs? Common entertainment drugs in general are not disastrous for mentally healthy well off people. As per rats - http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/ http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/ I have nothing to say about drugs, but neither does Steve's anecdote.
cowsandmilk 11y ago
P. Diddy has been known to go for 4 days without sleeping, seemingly with no ill effects according to assistants who have had to stay awake and by his side during these times. I'm sure this self-reported N of 1 study is extremely relevant to sleep researchers all over the world.
lazyjones 11y ago
The abstract clearly points out that the observed (negative) effect is stronger for low performers and women. Furthermore, Yegge's rant is a bit short on actual facts that would show possible effects. For example, did his career changes happen due to increased pot consumption at the time? Did he abandon his PhD plans because of it? Did he even smoke before high school (at the age of 11)? We don't know.
a3n 11y ago
He describes how undeniably exceptional he is, and then implies that his experience should be a guide for unexceptional people. There will always be outliers.
douche 11y ago
Are people not realizing that everything after the first sentence is a direct quote from the Yegge rant?
JakeAl 11y ago
https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activities/testimony-to-congress/2014/mixed-signals-administrations-policy-marijuana-part-four-scientific-focus-adverse-health https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activities/... Posted for the list of data sources. Read all of the articles on the site if you can. Conclusion: If you are fked up you are fed up and one would be showing poor judgement at the least and be legally liable at the most if they trusted you with ther child, finances, or company, regardless of how functional a drug-addict you are.

_98fj 11y ago

It appears that regular cannabis use [0] decreases dopaminergic brain-activity [1]. Dopamine is often referred to as "pleasure"-transmitter, but it's function in certain parts of the brain is better thought of as "regulating expectation", therefore influencing drive & motivation. It makes it possible to work on stuff you don't particularly enjoy by focussing on an expected long-term reward. This works by enabling your conscious thoughts to silence other, more excitatory and emotional parts of your brain via a feedback-loop. [2] People with ADHS have trouble concentrating because this feedback-loop doesn't work well when they're not moving. Sitting still, they are constantly being flooded with inappropriate and negative emotions. They calm down when taking stimulants like Ritaline, because the "calming"-function of the brain starts working properly. Bottom-line: Cannabis has many good effects, but it definitely blunts motivation. [3] [0] rule of thumb: more than once weekly [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/E3149.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/E3149.abstract [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYsTmIzjkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYsTmIzjkw

engx 11y ago
What you wrote is not definitive. What is the cause of ADHD? There is no physical test for it and its cause is unknown. Some experts believe it is caused by other things, like patterns of thinking. There is absolutely no evidence that millions of people have a physical biological issue where a stimulant effects them differently than normal people. An amphetamine is an amphetamine is an amphetamine. And: A new study challenges the popular idea that dysfunction in dopamine — a chemical that controls the brain’s reward and pleasure centers — is the main cause of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/11/02/chemical-imbalance-is-probably-not-behind-adhd/61512.html http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/11/02/chemical-imbalance-i... In truth, the “chemical imbalance” notion was always a kind of urban legend- - never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists. - http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/psychiatry-new-brain-mind-and-legend-chemical-imbalance#sthash.RRX0NFMA.dpuf http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/psychiatr...
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cnp 11y ago

Like all (good) drugs, they get better when you age. When you're young and blasted there's no way to make sense of things and responsibilities become more difficult. When you're older its like a whole new wonderful world to explore.

antoniuschan99 11y ago
I agree with this. If weed becomes legal it should be restricted like alcohol.

zmk_ 11y ago

One thing that jumps at me in this study is the high risk of investigating two different populations with different characteristics. Foreign students are more likely to be high achievers (and high-achieving women), quantitative degrees are also in higher demand from foreigners and more likely to be in English. If you are Dutch you can pick whatever university/field you want and they will admit you (exception is medicine); thus there is a higher chance of low-achievers (who drive the results) to be in that part of the sample. I am suspicious of results which are driven by the tail of the distribution and die out in time (when that tail drops out).

tomp 11y ago
Didn't the study compare the performance of a group before and after the marihuana ban, with the natives being the control group? the differences you list (motivation, skill, effort) didn't change (except as an effect of the ban).
losvedir 11y ago
The study used a "diffs-in-diffs" technique which would control for that. It takes the difference between two groups, say English and Dutch, prior to banning marijuana for English students, and then looks at the difference between the two groups afterwards. So it's a way of looking at how the performance of the English group changed with banning the drug, while trying to control for the things that affected _all_ students.

DarkContinent 11y ago

The real concern with this study is not the possible negative effects of marijuana (which are already known) but the moral correctness of its legalization. I personally have not and never will smoke pot, but that doesn't mean I support the continuing ban in America. Everyone has the right to determine his own destiny, and if engaging in personally (but not socially) destructive behaviors like smoking pot is a person's chosen destiny, he shouldn't be held back by dated laws restricting personal freedom.

98Windows 11y ago
How harmful would cannabis have to be to people until you'd consider banning it?
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  Personally, it would have to be worse than the impact on your life for getting a felony charge for possession. This whole "we have to put people in jail and destroy any and all future job prospects for their own protection" is madness.
  - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
    That simply doesn't happen in America. Cannabis is de facto legal throughout the USA. I repeat: marijuana is in practice legal in America, and all these people talking about drug charges ruining lives don't know what they're talking about. The only way you get serious charges or any jail time at all for marijuana in America is when you've been arrested for serious crimes, but a District Attorney goes with "possession" for the plea deal. It's just easier that way.
    - wavefunction 11y ago
      You are either incredibly misinformed or you are an out-and-out liar. For instance, a drug charge of any kind, even just a misdemeanor for paraphernalia precludes any Federal Student loans from being offered. My younger brother was arrested with a pipe containing some cannabis residue and was unable after that point to receive any Federally subsidized student loans. Some 20,000 inmates in US prisons are currently incarcerated for cannabis possession and trafficking. There was a young man of 19 years of age down here in Texas that was arrested after he was ratted out by some teenage customers who were themselves arrested and flipped on their dealer to save themselves. He was arrested with cannabis and cannabis oil along with a pan of brownies he had made with the oil. The Williamson County prosecutor sought to treat the entire volume of brownies as drugs and the defendant was facing LIFE in prison over some cannabis brownies. So yeah, you either need to inform yourself better or you need to stop lying.

rickdale 11y ago

I want to note that this is how THC can effect academic performance. There are other compounds in marijuana other than THC and although THC is the leading compound in most cannabis, in the medical cannabis world there are certain strains like Cannatonic that will test 0%THC with 10-20%CBD. CBD is not like THC and has a lot of different medical benefits associated with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol

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acomjean 11y ago

I think things like drugs and alcohol are worse for growing brains. From a NYC teacher (One reference point) "I’ve taught high school for 25 years and I hate what marijuana does to my students. It goes beyond missing homework assignments. My students become less curious when they start smoking pot. I’ve seen it time and time again. People say pot makes you more creative, but from what I’ve seen, it narrows my students’ minds until they only reference the world in relation to the drug. They’ll say things like: “I went to the beach and got so high,” or “I went to a concert and got so high.” They start choosing their friends based on the drug. I hate when people say that it’s just experimenting. Because from what I’ve seen, it’s when my students stop experimenting.” ' http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/129574836736/i-hate-pot-i-hate-it-even-more-than-hard-drugs http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/129574836736/i-hate-pot-...

jtedward 11y ago
I think our modern education system has done more to blunt people the curiosity of young people then these drugs possibly could.
- sv123 11y ago
  I see what you did there.
willholloway 11y ago
I think this teacher should take this as an opportunity to examine what it is he, and the institution he works for is offering these students as an alternative, and consider the students are making rational choices that serve them better. We know from the Rat Park study that rats in an enriched environment full of positive social engagement and freedom do not choose morphine. [1] If the students are choosing drugs, it's because they are trapped in a bare metal cage. For high achievers the do good in high school so you can go to a good college so you can get a good job track can be financially rewarding, but it is also stressful, often leads to burn out and depression and at the end a kind of existential malaise. For average students this track means bleak economic prospects, low status, a boring monotony with high student loan debt burden. Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds. If his students are rejecting society's plan for them and choosing another, perhaps he should examine what it is he is offering. The conclusion often made from his sentiment is a reflexive authoritarian prohibition. I know many high achieving friends that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to start lucrative tech careers, and started businesses that are building the future. I know many other average students that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to live rewarding ski-bum lifestyles funded by bar tending, waiting tables, and small scale real estate investment. The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

willholloway 11y ago

Alcohol is the real threat to cognition, and we don't talk about it. [1] [2] We don't know where the line is exactly, but somewhere around 4-5 drinks over a few hours has an acute neurotoxic effect. Cannabis use in adolescents does not result in changes that can be picked up on high resolution MRI scans. [3] This is a considerable finding considering that one would expect changes just from the added stress of being a cannabis user in a prohibition environment (fear of arrest, fear of expulsion, fear of parental punishment upon discovery). It may even point to a protective effect of cannabis on the brain, as we see in Parkinson's and has been seen in other studies and in stroke. [4] A UK study on the IQ effects of moderate cannabis use on students did not find evidence of harm. The study did find significant evidence of cognitive deficits caused by alcohol use. [5] Why do young adults want to get high so much? I think the answer is that they are coping with the stress of being locked into institutions that do not serve them, do not respect them and offer them very little, while demanding very much. One of the themes of Ferris Bueller's Day Off was high school as prison. The entire movie is a jail break story, and I think it gets to the truth of what its like to be doing time in high school better than anything. It's no wonder so many teenagers cope by getting high as much as they can. And then we blame them, and treat them like criminals, when they are just sufferers of low mood. We need a radically different approach to high school education. I think we need to find a way for people to be more economically useful, economically empowered and more in control of their lives at younger ages. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25702705 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25702705 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183294/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183294/ [3] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/4/1505.short http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/4/1505.short [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10863546 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10863546 [5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/22/no-marijuana-use-doesnt-lower-your-iq/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/22/no...

throwawayaway 11y ago
if people used other drugs as heavily as alcohol is used, then it's not going to be sunshine and roses. it's the volume of alcohol consumed that's the problem. too much of anything is bad for you, as the saying goes.

compbio 11y ago

As this is framed more as the results of a policy change, there are some things to consider when banning weed: - Street sales to tourists and foreigners exploded. Small-time dealers reported weekly income of 2k Euros during the prohibition. - Dutch teenagers use less weed than German, UK and Belgian teens. Legal availability seems inversely correlated with actual use. - In France there is no clear distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs. A dealer will sell you pot, but also heroin. - There are other ways to get weed, without using a weed pass. Home growers will not check the age of the person they are selling to. Smoking weed in Holland has a social stigma attached to it. It is not cool, it is for chumps. Policy changes like these may make it dangerous, hidden and cool again, actually raising our usage to the levels of neighboring countries. As to the results, I shudder and think: Imagine what Feynman would have been able to achieve, if he had no access to weed or bongos for seven months...

tunap 11y ago
Or that ne'er-do-well Mister X, akA Carl Sagan: http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/ http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/ An immediate family member, who happens to be a 30 year practicing behavioral therapist freely admits most science preceeding the 21st cemtury is bunk science based more on policy than science. The blank brain scans of the "habitual pot smoker" hanging on the clinic walls were the source of many amusements. The pro's I speak with all agree, addictions and self-defeating behaviors are the products of deeper problems... and, "everything in moderation". Oh, but we as a culture are taught to always blame external 'demons' we can point to to excuse our personal shortcomings without having to shoulder that whole 'personal responsibility' burden. Meh.
- Floegipoky 11y ago
  Thank you for posting that, I was not aware of Mr X
pmoriarty 11y ago
Or consider how shitty music would be if musicians did not have access to pot, psychedelics, and various other currently illegal drugs. If you like virtually any 20th or 21st century popular music, you are greatly indebted to drugs.

tpllaha 11y ago

Well... I can see how it can be easy to reach conclusions like this. The same result (most likely even worse) would be reached even if the effect of alcohol was studied instead of cannabis. This is not surprising, but neither is it interesting in my opinion. Of course there is a correlation between time spent doing mentally engaging activities and success, and surely smoking weed is not a mentally engaging activity. But this does not imply anything about moderate consumption in leisure time, neither does it mean that we should never engage in activities in which we do not exercise our brain.

peter303 11y ago

Glad to see some sort of scientific study on this. Too much of the debate is based on ideology and hearsay, not systematic study. Colorado sets aside a quarter of its pot taxes for scientific study. Fed funding sources generally ban or highly restrict such studies. So we dont have good modern evidence for the claimed benefits or harms of drugs.

justifier 11y ago
can you speak more to your findings that this paper is scientific? i find it frustratingly unscientific in regards to what i consider scientific investigation

thenerdfiles 11y ago

"We find that the academic performance of students who are no longer legally permitted to buy cannabis increases substantially." Pfft. For my own case, when I smoke cannabis, my brain becomes hyperactive. I want to resolve all of my codesmell at once. I want to finish all of my code at once. My writing becomes "electric". My writing becomes transcendental and on fire — why do I become electric, yet all of these students become unmotivated globs? Tell me why this is the case before you moralize and vilify such a beautiful plant! So maybe it's me. Or maybe the lot of you just don't know how to smoke and ritualize the practice. Maybe you all have a flawed philosophy to begin with, or worse, you don't have a philosophy about what you're smoking — to begin with. As Kafka notes: The unfitness of the object may cause one to overlook the unfitness of the means. — Franz Kafka

antoniuschan99 11y ago
I think it has to do with the maturity of the smoker. Since you probably have an established career or passion, weed tends to amplify that. Whereas with students, they are still maturing and figuring their lives out and since marijuana amplifies that they become even more lazy? Just my 2 cents

justifier 11y ago

A first step is to have an idea of baseline consumption rates for the particular group of individuals who were affected by the policy. To obtain rough estimates of these rates, we carried out an anonymous survey among currently enrolled students at Maastricht University. To make the question about cannabis consumption less Although these are different students to the ones on which we have performance data that we use in the rest of the analysis, their baseline consumption rates are relevant for two reasons. First, their demographic salient, we embedded it in a more general questionnaire on risky behavior. In total, 192 students answered the survey, which is over 97 percent of the students present in the lectures where it was distributed. The survey question we focused on asks students if they “have ever smoked cannabis or hashish” and if so, when: “ever”, “in the last 12 months”, “in the last 30 days” or “in the last 7 days”. all ridicule of the data used aside.. they fail completely to address dose give a kid 2400mg of ibprofen and see how well children function on 'numerical skills'

joesmo 11y ago

So is there evidence of this in states where cannabis access has been legal/decriminalized for at least a decade like California, Washington, and the Netherlands as a whole? It sounds like a significant portion of students from those states should be consistently underperforming each year compared to other states and to students before legal access was allowed.

papaf 11y ago

I would never argue against science but the following is a true anecdote: A friend of mine was up all night smoking pot and drinking alcohol. She had a University exam the next day that involved writing essays. She picked herself up, went to the exam and passed. She did so well that she got an award for the best peformance that year. True story.

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coetry 11y ago

PHP fascinates me when I'm high :), I usually incline towards languages in which I can enjoy the syntax (clojure and ruby), but when I'm baked, I enjoy the pure act of coding;translating my thoughts into binary manifestations. I think there should be more studies on how weed impacts learning.