You should take a course in statistics and analysis. Get a copy of SPSS 15+ (I don't have experience with earlier versions, I don't know if they'd be worth using if they were available or not) and play around with the numbers. This is math, and math doesn't lie. With even 40 subjects the results will be more reliable than a billion anecdotal responses. This is incredibly obvious and doesn't hardly merit stating, but every one of those billion anecdotes is worth exactly nothing. This is really, really, really, basic stuff here. Any research methodology course or even a course in this sort of statistics (I'm forgetting what it's called right now. This isn't the sort of thing covered in a basic math statistics course I know, but I can't remember what it was actually called).
The university I went to focused heavily on applied psychology, barely had a course in anything clinical outside of a few counseling courses, so I had the great fortune of taking a lot of courses in research and statistics that didn't really interest me. At least I'm proficient with SPSS now.
Also your suggestion for oral administration is absurd, as cannabinoids are converted to 11-ho-thc before reaching the cns.
Not true. Or at least, only partly true. One or two cannabinoids may be, but the majority will not be. They are too different in structure for all of them to possibly be. Nor would oral administration alter anything. If the various cannabinoids present are actually responsible for a different intoxication, they will still create a different intoxication orally. You must compare like to like, of course, oral 'indica' vs. oral 'sativa' vs. oral placebo. These results would then only be applicable to oral administration then, just as results obtained by comparing smoked cannabis would only be applicable to smoked cannabis. Again, this is really basic it should hardly require mentioning; apparently it does, though.
Secondly your experiment is incredibly flawed for such an expert on what is and is not good science. Not only is that a statistically insignificant number of subjects (a couple of dozen?) which renders your entire study far weaker than my non-scientific evidence but its design is so flawed it sad. Inexperienced smokers will not be able to differentiate if they are even high, let alone the difference in effect profile.
You really don't understand how this works, do you? No one who had even a basic understanding of research statistics and methodology would ever make such a statement. Like I said earlier, even a billion anecdotal reponses is worth absolutely nothing.
Since this apparently difficult to understand, I'd suggest the following readings:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=218
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=33
http://hitexchangereport.com/what-is-anecdotal-evidence/
http://stats.org/in_depth/evaluate_healthrisks/health_risks_page6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability
first say comparing the bioassays of millions of user is in no way comparable to religion which is propped up by numerous social institutions that have vested interested in convincing people of the existence of an imaginary deity.
The bulk of your argument is based around accepting what billions of people claim as truth for truth. This is called argumentum ad populum in logic. It's fallacious.
Also, the particular quoted section is irrelevant. People believed in dieties before anyone profited from it. They have debated the issue before there was any profit motive. The same is true for whether or not cannabis strains produce a particular intoxication. There is absolutely no difference in the reliability of billions of anecdotal reports. Refer back to argumentum ad populum.
We do not need to identify a specific receptor for spirituality to realize psychedelic can cause mystical experiences, this FACT has been discovered through countless user reported bioassays.
More fallacy. Red herring, maybe. I'd need to think about it to figure out exactly which type of fallacy, but it's fallacious none the less.
That psychedelics can cause mystical experiences has been studied scientfically (The Good Friday study, for example) and shown to be true. Discovering a specific receptor to cause this is entirely irrelevant. It was studied in much the same way you'd conduct the study proposed herein.
testimony of countless cannabis experts
Appeal to authority: more fallacy.
your assault on my argument amounts to shit.
Invert's argument is well crafted and sound. On the other hand, your argument is riddled with one fallacy after another.
Basically it comes down to this:
Science is not the only way of knowing.
And to hear such a stupid comment is really disapointing.
It's entirely possible that indica's produce a different intoxication than sativa's. However, there is absolutely no way of knowing this without conducting a well designed study- even a well designed study with a small sample size is far more reliable than the anecdote you're willing to accept as meaningful.