FORBES: This Might Be Your Brain On Drugs: Colorado's Softer Anti-Pot Propaganda Is..

[neversickanymore]

This Might Be Your Brain On Drugs: Colorado's Softer Anti-Pot Propaganda Is Still Propaganda
Jacob Sullum
Aug 14th, 2014

This week the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment unveiled a new ad campaign aimed at scaring teenagers away from marijuana by warning them that it might damage their brains. Then again, it might not. Larry Wolk, the health department’s executive director, concedes “more research is necessary” because “much still needs to be learned about the effect marijuana has on the brain.” As the campaign itself intermittently acknowledges, claims that marijuana causes lasting neurological impairment remain controversial. But why take a chance? That is the state’s message in a nutshell. Hence the slogan: “Don’t be a lab rat.”

Article with links here http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsu...fter-anti-pot-propaganda-is-still-propaganda/

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Another great piece by Jacob Sullum. There are a ton of links provided with this one. With ocean liners worth of pot I have smoked, not to mention all the other chemicals I have ingested, I test at or above 120 every time and sometimes in the mid to upper 140's. So I'd be real surprised if cannabis or many other drugs have any lasting effect on IQ. But the brain is like anything else, if you don't work it out it does not develop and remains weak.

 

[slimvictor]

Don't forget, NSA, that you might have been smarter if you had never used drugs, and there is no way to know, so that doesn't really count as a valid argument. I also am a smart person, and have smoked cannabis thousands of times since I began at age 16, but I occasionally wonder if I would have been smarter (possibly something in the realm of EQ, if not IQ) if I had never smoked. Oh well. Cannabis has brought me so much joy, and creativity, and opening, and relaxation, and energy (sounds like a contradiction, but it's not) that I would say it is most likely worth it.

Also, I would prefer that my kids don't use drugs at all while they are teenagers. I can easily see the point that there is an unknown danger associated with using cannabis before your brain is fully developed.

However, I also know that the real world does not work this way. Kids will be using all kinds of drugs from age 14 or 15 on, and I would vastly prefer my kids to use cannabis instead of thinner, meth, speed, or even alcohol and tobacco. So, to launch a propaganda campaign against cannabis without mentioning other drugs may only succeed in creating bigger problems.