In Which I Admit I Am Merely A Product Of My Upbringing

Jonah Lehrer points to a pretty dang convincing study that not only are there no long-term ill effects from smoking pot, but actually that once education/race/gender/social status are normalized, it turns out that pretty much everything D.A.R.E told us about pot is myth.

Once these population differences were corrected for, the long-term effects of marijuana use disappeared: The scientists found that “there were no significant between group differences.” In other words, the amount of pot consumed had no measurable impact on cognitive performance.Furthermore, there’s some intriguing evidence that marijuana can actually improve performance on some mental tests. A recent paper by scientists at University College, London looked at a phenomenon called semantic priming. This occurs when the activation of one word allows us to react more quickly to related words. For instance, the word “dog” might lead to decreased reaction times for “cat,” “pet” and “Lassie,” but won’t alter how quickly we react to “chair.”

Well. I should just state for the record (and for the benefit of my mother) that I've never smoked pot. Never seen a need. Never understood the need in others. But as the quality, peer-reviewed evidence compounds...I have to admit: I have stopped seeing pot's illegality as worthwhile.


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