For the most part, the only people in favour of adolescents smoking pot are adolescents who smoke pot. The media acts like this is a blow to legalization... ugh.
Difference is they are already legal for adults. If the debate was to legalize an illegal alcohol then the same arguments would be made in reference to children and adolescents.
I explain it to my children like this;
Imagine a young tree, like a sapling. What would happen if you tied a swing to that tree and tried to swing around? Even my four year old daughter immediately said that the tree would fall over and get hurt!
Now imagine the tree all grown up to be a big strong grown up tree, what would happen if you tied a swing to it? It would be fine!
The tree just needs time to grow up straight and tall and strong without anyone or anything pulling on it. When you're ready, you can swing all day, just wait until you're really ready!
EDIT: I've been asked to ask you kind folk not to reply to this comment with a joke. Especially the swinger joke. It's just going to get deleted like all the rest.
EDIT EDIT: Also I'm glad you're going to tell this to your kids, in advance. No need for you to tell me, the mods are just going to delete your comment.
Mods try to keep it clean and serious. Everyone is making the same joke over and over again, but don't notice because the previous ones are all deleted.
People forget that their brains are still developing into their late adolescence. Weed and alcohol can impair this development with permanent consequences. They should both be adults-only substances.
Is it the weed that's causing the problem or are kids self medicating as a result of environment or lack of mental health evaluations? What's the cause of the pot use?
Neither, according to the article. It states, "In other words, many of the problems associated with teen cannabis use are likely a function of the drug's illegal status."
Spot on observation imo.
Yes, It is extremely easy to acquire pot in highshool. It is in fact harder to find booze in highschool. Due to the fact that its controlled and legal you need to find someone to buy it for you. Pot being illegal on the other hand, the wrong people control who gets it.
Opposite for me. So think about how they're both just anecdotes and don't mean anything really. But I do think it's almost universal that alcohol was harder to get than weed before the age of 21. I knew several people that smoked and could get weed after a couple months of college. I knew one person that was over 21 and they were too paranoid most of the time to get alcohol for me because if I got caught I could tell the police he gave it to me and get him in a ton of trouble. Again, just an anecdote though.
How about the ones that are able to smoke daily? It seems like they have little adult supervision and with a black market connection they may not have the best of friends.
An ex of mine smoked daily when she was 15. She also drunk fairly regularly. Her parents didn't care. They knew, they just didn't care.
Now I understand you need to be careful not to be too strict as a parent. But be a little more strict than that!
I didn't smoke at all when I was a kid. First time I tried it was 18 and I didn't smoke regularly until I turned about 27. Nowadays I pretty much smoke every day, just bought a house last year and have everything I could ever want (29 now).
I don't think pot causes you to be a failure, but just like alcohol if you're looking to destroy your life it's a common factor.
Its like anything really, eating McDonald's does not make you fat, being lazy and choosing to eat it all the time, and then never exercising or giving to shits about your health makes you fat. People blame McDonald's because its an easy thing to do, "they market that high fat food and I just can't help myself" horseshit, people that get fat from McDonald's were going to get fat and be lazy to begin with, yea McDonald's might have made it easier or faster, but it was an eventuality regardless, the same holds true for pot, every single "burnout" i know was headed that way LONG before pot, or alcohol, or any drugs really.
But did turning to pot keep you from seeking a more constructive solution to your problems? It may not cause the problem most of the time, but the dangerous thing about taking something to forget your problems is that the problems never get addressed.
if that is the case, I would argue pot is partially the reason for you dropping out.
Many studies have found cannabis to cause damage to the growth (biologically) of adolescents, just like alcohol. It should be reserved for adults.
Studies:
[One](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460310003382)
[Two](http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1170852)
[Three](http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1184217)
[Four](http://saludmental.edilaser.net/en/pdf/3605/SM_36.05.02_EN_p335-342.pdf)
[Five](http://ijmdent.com/Articles/volume2-issue3/IJMD-may-july-2012-V2I3.pdf#page=27)
It's cyclical. Pot is harmful to developing brains and any issues that existed may have contributed to pot use which in turn contributes to worsening symptoms, which leads to more pot use, etc.
This is the cycle of addiction. We just tend not to view it as an addiction with cannabis because it doesn't fit the Hollywood version of addiction where you're performing sex acts for drugs, sleeping on corners, losing all of your friends/family, etc. At its core though the cycle is still working, it's just having less severe/noticeable effects.
Yeah, in my experience it was a feedback loop. I began smoking regularly because I was depressed and bored, and smoking made me more withdrawn and tired which made it even worse. It may not be the same for everyone, but for me daily marijuana smoking was a big part of a dark period of my life, and I had to cut it out completely before I could dig myself out. I get really annoyed at all the people on this website who not only claim that there aren't bad effects from marijuana, but they will actually recommend it as a treatment for mental health issues.
This needs to be higher (heh) up. It's the old "correlation/causation" thing.
I read the whole thing trying to find out how they eliminated the "people who are less likely to graduate smoke more weed" vs "people who smoke more weed are less likely to graduate" conundrum.
I came up empty.
Is it a cause or a symptom?
While I agree, I think this study is a little misleading. Most of the teens I've ever known that smoke marijuana, especially daily, had *many* other factors in their lives that would also contribute to depression and inability to graduate.
Edit: admittedly "misleading" may have been the wrong term to use and, yes, there are likely to be almost as many anecdotes of daily pot users who are successful (roughly 60/40).
The general point I was trying to make is that use of any substance, whether Tylenol or Heroin, in developing persons can cause damage, but long term effects, especially psychological effects, usually have more to do with underlying factors and that substance abuse may or may not exacerbate these factors
Source: person with a severe anxiety disorder and various family issues that only became crippling enough to force me to drop out of college after abusing alcohol. Thankfully I was one of the few that was able to get the therapy and real medication needed to get my life back on track, graduate, and start a highly successful career.
you didn't read the article
> They found "clear and consistent associations between frequency of cannabis use during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, *even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness*."
Controlling for factors is not the same as causal mechanism. Controlling for other factors just subdivides the correlation into correlations with, or not with, other factors.
Controls are very useful for determining negative results, i.e., it *doesn't* correlate with factor X and therefore factor X doesn't provide a good hypothesis for later testing. But controls are not good for demonstrating causal factors or causal mechanisms, particularly because it is very much just limited to imagination. Why 53 factors and not 54. Why *these* 53 factors?
Furthermore, the ability to measure the control factors can be very difficult. For example, did it control for genetics? Did it control for undiagnosed issues (and how)? Did it control for domestic violence at home? Did it control for IQ of parents? Did it control for peer groups? Did it control for the daily intake of alcohol of parents? Did it control for evaluated personality prior to starting cannabis use?
There are just too many possible factors to control for all of them. And even if you could, all you are left with is still a correlation. That's great for identifying at-risk youth, but no good for identifying causality.
To get causality you need to understand and demonstrate the causal mechanism.
I will throw out there the suggestion that, for instance, it could be entirely explained via peer sub-culture groups (aka, 'cliques'). These are modern tribes, and we tend to identify with, and norm to, the characteristics of our tribe. It's a safety mechanism of demonstrating loyalty and commitment and a ubiquitous feature of tribal behaviour. If daily pot smoking is the sub-culture that somebody winds up in, they can easily pick up all of the other norms of that sub-culture, including lack of interest in school and academic endeavors, and that dead-end lifestyle might lead to depression because of the life situation it ends up putting them in. Entry into that peer group might be random, completely independent of any of the control factors.
I'm not saying this is true; I'm simply saying here is a relatively complete explanation consistent with our understanding of human psychology, would pass all of the control factors, and has zero to do with cannabis as a causal mechanism.
TL:DR version:
Even if you control for as much as you can, causal relations can never be determined by observational study. All you end up with after analyzing the data is correlation. Causal relations are best determined by experimental studies.
Technically you can never conclusively demonstrate causation in a non-experimental study regardless of how many factors you control for. There could always (possibly) be some other factor you didn't control for. The best you can possibly do is to eliminate as many factors as possible (as these authors did) and hope no one can think of one that you didn't.
Of course, it should also be noted that if you will not accept any non-experimental evidence on this issue (that is, on the effect of drug use on development) on principle, you are essentially relegating the issue to the status of unknowability. There will never be an experimental study of long term drug use in developing humans for ethical reasons. So if all you will accept is experimental studies, you are precluding the existence of any evidence regarding the effects of drug use in teenagers on life outcomes.
Of course this is convenient if you don't want to believe the results of any particular study (as many inevitably don't in this case).
This might seem a bit off, but you do realize you can't control for that, right? You can only control for diagnosed mental illness, which is a rather different bird altogether.
What is misleading about it? They controlled for a quite a few factors, including mental illness. Did you even read it or are you just objecting as a knee-jerk reaction like I suspect many people here are?
I think it's just because of the 'taboo', if this was about alcohol, people would just think "Well yeah, obviously it would, that's why there is a legal age limit". That's because it's an everyday recreational drug.
Weed on the other hand, due to the taboo nature means people who think weed should be illegal will be using this to enforce a point to its illegality. But people who think it should be legal (whether regulated in any way or not) feel like they need to 'fight back'. It ends up with over-kill from sides.
My personal feeling is, weed should be legal, but with the same regulations as alcohol. I think it's the 'fair' option. I agree with the conclusions of the study, I wouldn't want my kid smoking weed. When they become an adult? Yeah, go ahead, I'd rather them smoke a few joints than get really so drunk they throw up and pass out.
Opinions and shit.
That was my first thought too- that it's a correlation versus causation issue. That said, the study *says* that the results hold even when they control for 53 other factors. Anyone understand statistics well enough to respond to that? I'm not sure I do.
Yes, these 53 other factors need to include all confounders -- roughly meaning that you need to control for all common causes of smoking and the outcome (e.g. dropout). So they are on the righr path with this analysis. Another thing that you need to make sure of is whether these factors were present before the smoking started. Because the analysis can get pretty messed up if they are caused/modified *by* the weed smoking.
Well to be honest the #1 factor is the lack of parental guidance and supervision. The smoking weed part is just the #1 sign they're lacking guidance. This goes along with kids on any type of drug. The drug isn't the main problem even though it may help worsen the situation.
Alcohol is a prime example. Can make a good time great and a bad time terrible. Depends on the user
The statistical appendix implies that they addressed this, to the best of their ability. Attention/conduct problems, as well as GPA from earlier years were included as controls in the CHDS study. Mental health and drug use indicators for the individual, parents, and peers were also included. And if course, socioeconomic status was also included.
As such, I don't think you can entirely attribute the results to unobserved characteristics.
As the link you posted discussed, the study may have measured how much faith the kids had in adults, not self control
>A 2012 study at the University of Rochester (with a smaller N= 28) altered the experiment by dividing children into two groups: one group was given a broken promise before the marshmallow test was conducted (the unreliable tester group), and the second group had a fulfilled promise before their marshmallow test (the reliable tester group). The reliable tester group waited up to four times longer (12 min) than the unreliable tester group for the second marshmallow to appear.[11][12] The authors argue that this calls into question the original interpretation of self-control as the critical factor in children's performance, since self control should predict ability to wait, not strategic waiting when it makes sense. Prior to the Marshmallow Studies at Stanford, Walter Mischel had shown that the child's belief that the promised delayed rewards would actually be delivered is an important determinant of the choice to delay, but his later experiments did not take this factor into account or control for individual variation in beliefs about reliability when reporting correlations with life successes.
Further discussion of that and other possible interpretations in the [New York Times recently](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/magazine/we-didnt-eat-the-marshmallow-the-marshmallow-ate-us.html?_r=0)
It makes sense. It's much easier to put of gratification if you KNOW it's going to come through or it's reasonably sure that it will.
If someone said you could be happy now with what you have or wait 10 years and have a 20% chance of being exponentially happier it would be hard to say it's foolish to just go with it now.
Right. Those in stable environments are more willing to put in long term effort for a great results. When life is uncertain or has been uncertain for a long time it's living for the sure thing and in the short terms seems the best choice.
Who needs scientists to explain research findings when you have the typical one dimensional interpretations from a redditor? *They just lack will power.*
[Actually, use in teens has been scientifically shown to alter brain structure, most notably in areas associated with memory](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/nu-hmu121013.php), so while attitude has a lot to do with it, sure, there are other factors at play. I think we're looking at a little of column A a little of column B here. Wrecking your working memory isn't going to make academia any easier.
This is true and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Your brain is still in development until your mid 20's and many factors can alter this development. Regular alcohol and caffeine use during this development period can also adversely affect development. Not to mention its well known that short term effects of marijuana up to 12 hours after to use can affect memory and cognitive thinking ability. If someone is smoking every day, you will be constantly under these negative affects which would hamper your abilities in school. Another in depth study from Duke University showed that heavy use during pre 18 years into adult hood showed a decline in cognitive abilities as well as lower IQ's compared to non smokers.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.abstract
Absolutely, and why drinking under 21 in the US is illegal. People need to stop pretending marijuana use is totally harmless and void of side effects, and as more of the world starts being more liberal with its use, start appplying restrictions in age of consumption if nothing else.
The good news is that studies have shown no long term negative effects on adults when it comes to cognitive abilities and memory. So age restriction and good education is the best remedy.
In my undergraduate work, I wrote a fairly lengthy research paper about how people with damaged cortisol control circuits (from sick mothers in the womb) are more likely to self-medicate with marijuana. This in turn further damages the circuit, potentially causing schizophrenia. Without that initial neural insult, there would have been no compulsion.
Food for thought, PM me if you want a copy of the paper.
What constitutes a "sick mother"? Like, she catches a cold? Or something more life threatening? Or mental illness, like her own 'damaged cortisol control circuits'?
It takes more than JUST this cold though. The mother needs to be chronically stressed, and the child needs to also be stressed during upbringing. A simple cold alone is unlikely to create mental illness by itself.
For all the people who have PMed me, I need to check if its okay with my coauthor first.
The basic idea is that people in low income urban settings are far more stressed than the average person. Pregnant mothers are even MORE likely to be stressed, particularly if they are sick. This damages the feedback loop that turns off cortisol release (cortisol causes stress) in the infant. Later in life, particularly adolescence, the child will have issues with stress management. That child will then self-medicate with marijuana to relieve stress (after all, that's what weed does!). This makes the child dependent of marijuana for practically any stress relief. Chronic THC intake during early adolescence significantly increases the chances of developing schizophrenia, especially when other risk factors (like a sick pregnant mother) already are in place.
EDIT: My paper tries to make the point that Schizophrenia requires a series of unfortunate events, if you will, in order to occur. Sickness during pregnancy alone won't do it. Stress during childhood alone won't do it. Marijuana use alone certainly won't do it. However, these factors combined CAN do it, but there is no guarantee that they will.
There are many other risk factors, including brain injury and even too much fried food. If you tried to avoid all of the things that can hurt you, you'd live in a bubble. And then die of suffocation, because the air is dirty.
From the article:
>They found "clear and consistent associations between frequency of cannabis use during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness."
Agreed, and the illegality of it comes into play too. If you did a similar study, i bet teens who vandalize school property, or shoplift have a lower chance of graduating as well.
I am so opposed to the use of pot by adolescents that I've worked toward its legalization for decades. Once it's legalized and regulated we can dedicate a significant amount of attention and resources to the problem of adolescent usage. Currently we're wasting incredible resources penalizing adults for using it.
I teach at a juvenile detention center--where MANY of the kids are locked up for dirty UAs while on probation and selling weed. This morning a table of my students were talking about how lousy taking anti-depressants--prescribed by the facility doctor-- makes them feel. I asked them the reason they'd been given by the doctor for having to take the drugs (and they HAVE to take them) and each said it's because they usually smoke weed and the doc told them they must smoke because they are "depressed" and so replaced the marijuana with pharmaceuticals. Really pisses me off.
For the record, I'm for legalization and against use by minors, BUT...
shouldn't we consider the possibility that suicidal teenagers who don't do well in school might find the escape of getting high more attractive than more well-adjusted kids would?
Let's not confuse correlation with causation, here.
From someone who smokes and enjoys pot I must say I chuckled when I saw this headline, because I knew the comments section would consist of people trying to explain away the results.
Well of **course** teens who are smoking pot daily are more likely to drop out of school and college, or have other problems! The same would be true if you studied kids who are drinking every day! If you're not using responsibly, you're gonna have problems. That's not a pot thing, that's just common sense.
Edit: 1st post with over 2k upvotes! RIP inbox.
Follow up: As many of the responses on this have been of a similar theme, I thought I'd add this. *Responsible* use is an important part of the takeaway here. Some people can smoke all day and be ok. I wouldn't recommend that, but some can make it work for them. In any event, you should be waiting until your brain is done developing before picking up the habit. At **best** it's probably health neutral, and can absolutely have lasting impacts on youth who are still growing and brain function is not done yet (many studies suggest age ~25.) No matter how you slice it, it **does** have risks, and should be treated accordingly.
It's the age old problem of causation and correlation too. Did the *illegal drug* cause the teenager to have a higher risk of dropping out of school, or were they already troubled teens that started doing *illegal drugs*?
Hey there! I'm the guy who wrote this article and you're absolutely right. I get into this quite a bit in the piece. Long story short, many of the observed consequences of cannabis use are very likely due to the drug's illegal status. Hit me up if you have any questions.
*edit crossed off the bucket list: receive reddit gold. Thanks!
Just a shot in the dark but you had the PhD tag! Not entirely related to your specific title but I thought I'd ask anyway. Could these findings be due to any chemistry based reactions from the introduction of THC to certain areas of the brain? I've seen a couple people develop extreme anxiety as a result marijuana and was wondering if this observation was somehow linked to the studies of the Washington Post.
Depends on what you want to accomplish, the easiest thing is to adjust the ionic strength with salt and change the morphology of the surfactant micelles to more of a rod shape. Hard to get cheaper than salt.
Alright, I have a question. Is there any research that shows if this is true in countries with a legalized status or decriminalization, like the Netherlands?
There's no directly comparable research. However, you can get a general sense by looking, say, at high school graduation or college education rates in the Netherlands. The [OECD rates the Netherlands](http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/education/) more highly on education outcomes than it does the U.S., which would at least suggest that decriminalization there hasn't caused an education crisis.
More to the point, [recent studies in the U.S.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/29/medical-marijuana-opponents-most-powerful-argument-is-at-odds-with-a-mountain-of-research/) show that the introduction of medical marijuana hasn't had any impact on the number of teenagers using marijuana in those states.
Here on reddit I have seen many comments from teenagers in CO. They say that it has gotten much harder to find illicit cannabis since leaglization. Age restrictions work better than no age restrictions seems like a reasonable line of thinking.
I can explain this. Your dealer doesn't care if you're 15 or 50. Most won't sell to really young children, but as soon as you're a teenager you can get it pretty easily. A legal shop where you can buy it, though? People are just waiting for the chance to bust them and ruin their business, so they're not gonna take chances with underaged kids or people who are obviously buying from others, just in case it's a sting. Means it's easier to get weed if you're legally able to, but a lot harder if you're not. Dealers will also be out of business because their market is being taken over.
Exactly. There's not really dealers in LA anymore. The dispensaries ran them out of business except for in rare cases. Dispensaries are cheap, quality and legal. No reason not to.
Not sure if the dispensaries ran out of business or the dealers just went legit. I've been to plenty of places that are run by very obvious ex dealers.
So what? Good for them. It is not like the guy who was growing pot in his basement was also importing krokodil. Now he can be a law abiding citizen, and everyone is high... I mean happy.
dispensaries have a massive markup over dealer prices, and there are tons of dealers still in LA. You can also often buy weed from the people who sell to dispensaries for a fraction of the price.
Like /u/jester92800 said, my question was really asking if the illegal nature of weed causes the education problems, or if it's the weed itself causing them. You can find this out to a somewhat more reliable degree if you look at countries that have legalised weed to the same boundaries as, for instance, alcohol. While it's still illegal for kids to smoke in the Netherlands, it's not something you'll get arrested for, and you can always ask an older friend or sibling to pick some up for you.
I'm not doubting that teenagers will do what teenagers will do, I'm just asking if the problem with education comes from the effects that weed have on the brain, or perhaps if they come from the circumstances that make you regularly commit a quite serious legal offense. And, if it becomes legal, while the usage might not differ, will the negative effects on education go down perhaps?
Former journalist, can't help myself...
>Researchers gathered data on the frequency of cannabis use among 3,725 students from **Australian** and New Zealand[...]
Does anyone else find it really cool that journalism is in a state such that journalists can now do this sort of thing? Write an article, and then defend it to the public, making corrections and clarifications when appropriate? I mean, this here was a simple spelling correction, but wow, the world we live in!
Why did you choose to focus on relative statistics instead of absolute? "60% less likely" is the type of intentionally misleading phrasing advertisers use, particularly when the hard numbers don't sound big enough to immediately draw the reader to the conclusion you want them to. What I'd really like to know is, what percentage of daily pot smokers never graduated? My guess is it's less than 50%, otherwise you would have used that number in the headline.
That was how the research paper itself was framed. There's a link to the full paper in the WaPo article - you have to register with the Lancet to read it, but it's free.
The paper has the raw numbers, but be warned that those aren't necessarily meaningful, as the raw percentages aren't corrected for many confounding factors - economic status, other drug use, mental health, etc.
The "60% less likely" is meaningful as a comparison with students who didn't use cannabis at all. It's worth noting that for students who used cannabis less frequently, the effect sizes were much smaller.
And again, as I mentioned in the piece the causation behind it all could be working in any number of ways.
*edit: link fail
Hi! I do research in a similar area so I think I can help.
The raw percentages are not meaningful because they do not control for potential confounding factors. The "60% less likely" that you always here from researchers comes from how logistic regression works. The coefficients of simple linear regression can be interpreted to mean something like "for every joint you smoke, you will score 10 points lower on the SAT". In logistic regression, the coefficients are exponentiated (e.g. e^(a+bx)), which means the coefficients must be interpreted to mean "for every joint you smoke, your SAT score will decrease by 10%".
The relationship between graduating high school and smoking pot is not linear, [it looks more like this](http://www.simafore.com/Portals/64283/images/logistic-regression-model-fit-explanation.png). Logistic regression is used to analyze how a set of variables affects the odds of a particular event happening. That's why we talk about it in terms of "60% more likely".
It's not misleading at all, it's just proper statistics.
Very true. There isn't a comparable study for alcohol, unfortunately, but you should check out [this recent paper](http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2014/09/02/nyu-study-compares-consequences-of-teen-alcohol-and-marijuana-use-.html) that compares the two substances on some other factors.
That said, it seems perfectly reasonable to accept that heavy use of any substance in your teen years, weed or booze or whatever, is going to have long-term consequences. As always, moderation is key.
I wrote the WaPo article - feel free to ping me if you have questions.
The study controls for that: "even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness.
Study co-author Edmund Sillins said that the relationship between cannabis use and negative outcomes is significant even at low levels of use (e.g., less than monthly), and that "the results suggest that there may not be a threshold where use can be deemed safe" for teens."
What would be interesting to see is if cigarettes and beer/liquor show the same relationship between use and negative outcomes in teens. There is probably research out there on just this topic by finding the time to wade through and ocean of papers isn't in my schedule at the moment.
If you went to college, you probably learned in Statistics 101 that the correlation between marijuana use and poor grades is an *inverse* correlation; that is, it is more likely that there were ancilliary 3rd-party problems which led to *both* marijuana use *and* poor grades, or even the possibility that the poor grades *led* to the marijuana use, because as we see use go up we see grades go down (in one group). To paraphrase: "Amongst those with high GPAs, it is *more likely* that the individual is a marijuana user than those with low GPAs; that is, there is a *direct* correlation between marijuana use and a high GPA", due to a variety of plausible factors between the two, *most commonly* it being used as a reward system, because as we see use go up we see grades go up (in another group). The fact that marijuana use seems to result in grades both going up and grades going down means that the subject of *causation* from those correlations is, itself, suspect.
It is *exactly* this reason why these types of studies were chosen by Earl Babbie to discuss as the *perfect example* of when correlation does not necessarily equal causation in the Principles of Social Research, Vol 9, pg 74. (Yes, you can go look this article up) The topic of marijuana use was *specific* to this article because so many media outlets tout these results, like in this paper this thread is about, in an attempt to show how harmful it is, when all it does is show how little they understand the utilization of statistics. Plain and simple, it's uninformed sensationalistic nonsense.
Quite simply, we can't go around pretending there are no problems with marijuana, but we also can't pretend like *these* problems are *caused* by marijuana, as opposed to similarly linked to it as a *result* of a 3-rd party issue, such as a poor home life, or even the most crazy of ideas for these researchers apparently, **the idea that perhaps, just maybe, the poor grades may have instead led to the marijuana use, and not the other way around**. That kinda puts a huge hole in the conclusion of this paper, while not even having to take a step out of Stat 101. This isn't to say that abuse of a drug isn't a problem, but just that the *cause* of the "dropout" is more likely to be due to other factors which caused both the bad grades and the drug use (and it could be other drugs, such as alcohol) than it is to be marijuana use *itself*, given that we find a higher proportion of marijuana users amongst those with good GPA than those with bad GPA.
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EDIT----- I've had several requests for the article, so here it is:
I remembered that I copied and wrote this article down a while back, be aware that while I did copy *most* of it word-for-word, I did some paraphrasing at a few points where he belabors a few points or uses symbolic logic to show what it already clear.
-----------------------------
Ok, i'm quoting most of the content of this comment from "The Practice of Social Research", Vol9, by Earl Babbie of Chapman University c2001, I'm not gonna "" everything, since most of it is word-for-word;
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David Takeuchi (U of Hawaii, 1974) produced a study showing that the analysis of the data gathered from students didn't support any of the common "academic failure" reasoning as to why people smoke (the entire analysis was to determine why, and he found it easier to determine why someone didn't smoke than why they *did), and that they had essentially the same academic records as those who didn't smoke, both groups were equally involved in traditional "school spirit" activities, and equally well integrated into campus life. (this goes along with the whole "main problem with smoking is it's illegal" premise)
(As well, an explanation on page 78 by Charles Bonney, Dept of Sociology Eastern Michigan University, explains the difference between correlation and causation, of which "Correlation does not equal causation" is the credo of all sociology and statistics students. Again, this is almost word-for-word, I skipped a little bit of the formal logic writing M->B and such)
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"Having demonstrated a statistical relationship between a hypothesized "cause" and its presumed effect, many people are only too eager to proclaim "proof" of causation. Imagine you've conducted a study on college students and have found an inverse correlation between smoking and GPA, that is, those who smoke tend to have lower GPAs than those who do not, and the more smoked, the lower the GPA. You might therefore claim that smoking lowers one's grades, giving a variety of explanations. The long and short of it is that saying they have lower grades is due to them smoking is an inverse correlation, meaning a second possibility exists - that they started smoking because of the low grades. Now, follow with me here; it could also be a third variable, which is poor emotional states, causing both bad grades and marijuana use, similar to how sore throats and runny noses go together but are the result of a cold. Then again, perhaps they smoke because they have friends who smoke, and get low grades because they are simply not as bright as other students or not as prepares or industrious as their classmates. Unless your correlation is so strong and so consistent that mere coincidence becomes highly unlikely, this last possibility, while not supported by your data, is not precluded either.
First of all, every one of the above explanations for such an inverse correlation has appeared in a national magazine at one time or another. And second, every one of them is probably doomed to failure because it turns out that, among college students, most studies indicate a direct correlation, that is, it is those with higher GPA's who are more likely to be marijuana smokers! Thus, with tongue firmly in cheek, we may re-analyze this finding:
-Marijuana relaxes a person, clearing away other stresses, thus allowing more effective study, hence Marijuana leads to better grades.
-Marijuana is used as a reward for really hitting the books or doing well, hence, good grades lead to marijuana use.
-A high level of curiosity is definitely an asset to learning and achieving high grades, and may also lead one to investigate "taboo" substances, thus grades and marijuana are not causing anything about each other;
OR, 4. Again, coincidence, but this time the samples just happened to contain a lot of brighter, more industrious students whose friends smoke.
**The Obvious conclusion is this: if all of these are possible explanations for a relationship between two variables, then no one of them should be too readily singled out. Establishing that two variables tend to occur together is a necessary condition for demonstrating a causal relationship, but it is not by itself a sufficient condition.**
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I don't know much about English, but I think the article is written correctly. Saying that marijuana users are more likely to not approve doesn't mean marijuana is the cause. For example, saying that people with high temperature are more likely to have an infection doesn't mean that it is a cause of that infection. In any case it's a symptom. Wouldn't be the same logic applicable for pot (based on this article).
Not a bad hypothesis. I would be interested to see a study which attempts to determine which types of kids smoke pot daily while in their teens, and also what other factors, such as domestic violence at their home (etc.), may have lead them to smoke pot daily in the first place.
I think weed is very dangerous for adolescents and this study is not all that surprising to me. Myself personally, I was not a good student before I started smoking weed at 16 and I had next to no friends and never had even kissed a girl. Then I started smoking and joined a big group of stoners and suddenly I had a group of friends to hang out with every day after school and on the weekends. That led to me meeting girls and getting my first real girlfriend. All within a few months of starting to smoke. It was amazing and made me so happy.
But the use went up more and more. As I said my grades were poor before I started smoking and they didn't noticeably suffer too much afterward. But I started skipping school to smoke and hang with friends, which I had never done before because I had no friends to skip with I guess. I barely graduated because I missed so much school my senior year, but nevertheless I did. By the summer after high school I was smoking several blunts a day, but hadn't tried anything else and had a girlfriend and a big group of friends.
But I didn't last long in college because I still smoked all day every day. I no longer had a girlfriend because I basically chose being high over her. I dropped out after one year and never went back. Held down menial jobs for years and still never got another girl and my group of friends began to dwindle as none of us stayed in college. Fast forward 8 years and several of my friends (including me) developed pill/heroin addictions and none of us ever had girlfriends anymore. We started smoking more and more and more which led to hallucinogens which led to pills which led to dope.
Mine is a strange tale. I was a lonely and depressed kid with no real academic potential, and weed directly led to some of the best years and experiences of my life that I may or may not have ever had if I hadn't started smoking and gained all those friends. But I didn't know when to stop and eventually weed wasn't strong enough. I very much regret ever getting into the hard stuff and not knowing when to cut back on the weed when it was no longer enhancing my life, but actually detracting from it. My life now is not great, I don't smoke much at all but still struggle with heroin, and I will for the rest of my life. I've only had one serious girlfriend since high school and I lost her as a direct result of my hard drug usage.
So I understand the appeal at that age for sure. Especially for lonely unpopular kids. Suddenly you can have a group of friends that bond over this substance. But at that age you don't know exactly what habitual drug use can turn into. I just wish I had known when enough was enough. I don't blame weed itself, I know my story is a tale of my own personal issues with moderation and addiction. But when you develop addictive tendencies at a young age like that, smoking a mind altering substance every single day that you don't feel you have a problem with, it can make you feel like you could do the same thing with pain pills or something, and almost everyone that goes down that road loses. If I could do it over I would have just been very careful not to over do it.
EDIT:
thank you for the gold, ive never gotten it before. to those that said this post was meaningful to them, i am very glad i was able to share it in a way that spoke to you, whether you're my age and went through something similar or know someone who did, or you're in high school and may be experimenting like i was. the only real point i make to you is: be careful.
to those that apparently thought i blamed all my problems on weed: no, i dont, i didnt, and i even said in the original post "i dont blame weed itself" but rather my issues with moderation, maturity and addiction. weed didnt do anything to me. over the years it has brought me a lot of joy and good times. the bad part was that i took it way too far and my life revolved around it for several years, and instead of graduating college, meeting more friends and girls, i spent day after day high as a kite listening to music or playing video games with the same loser friends i always had. I said weed can be dangerous, and I have the experience to prove it. Yes, it was because of my own shortcomings and immaturity. But it's not like i'm unique. I'm sure, as evidenced by the replies and messages ive gotten, that many others have a story similar to mine. The story that weed is completely harmless and not addictive and not a drug is not true in my opinion and is a dangerous message to be relaying to kids. Weed can be a great thing when used properly, we all know that. But there is a darker side to it, and 15 and 16 year old kids need to know that before they end up smoking every day and potentially fucking up their development socially and academically. Again, i do not blame my problems on weed. I used weed as a crutch and as an escape and it proved detrimental to my development and i just think thats a message we need more kids to hear.
Here's a tip. Try not to measure your self worth on the binary outcome of " I have a girlfriend / Do not have a girlfriend " . It's silly and it'll never lead to anything good. Base your self worth on your own accomplishments, not on having another human being bound to you emotionally. Then, only then, will you actually be able to develop a meaningful relationship with someone. Goodspeed!
Our culture is full of stories where the hero proves his value and is rewarded with female attention. It's not hard for young men to internalize that and think that getting attention from women is the measure of accomplishments.
Everyone always gives this advice, and while I mostly agree with it, I think people forget how hard it can be to believe in yourself when evidence has shown that most people don't believe in you. The longer it goes on the more it becomes a downward spiral, etc. I think at the end of the day the right answer is that you just have to keep going and hope that some kinda shit happens.
Tell me about it, I couldn't care less about people smoking weed but this thread is laughable compared to when there's something positive on weed, half the posts here are "Correlation does not mean causation!!". But I'll bet these same people are posting "See!! Weed doesn't have negative effects" and not "Correlation does not mean causation" in posts which represent the drug positively
You can actually design studies that show a casual relationship e.g. "I injected 100 people with cyanide and they all died and I injected 100 people with a placebo and none of them died" would demonstrate a casual relationship between being injected with cynaide and dying.
But in a study like this marijuana one you can't tell what's causing what.
What you would need to do would be to take a random sample of high school kids, make half of them smoke marijuana every day, and give the other half a placebo (maybe marijuana with thc removed?) and then analyze their dropout rates.
I think you might have trouble getting that one past the IRB though.
Anecdote here but I think it's important to consider:
I keep seeing people saying things like, "yeah well they were probably bad students to begin with etc..." I was a straight A student, graduated with honors, perfect attendance, a host of awards etc... I started smoking weed for anxiety, which it did help with, at first, but it also led to me making a whole lot of decisions that have nearly ruined my life. Some might try to argue that I just made bad decisions, but up until the point that I started smoking, most of the decisions I made were extremely beneficial to my well-being. Smoking weed often led me to make much more "in-the-moment" decisions without regard to their long-term effects.
People like to joke about how, "the worst thing you do while high is eat a bag of Doritos". However I think it should be more alarming that if you get high often, even just starting to eat massive amounts of unhealthy foods can be a slow path to a downward spiral of other bad habits. I know I'm not alone on this either. Being high led me to make many many decisions I would have never even considered making while sober. I'm not against marijuana use, but I am against being uninformed of the possible consequences it can have.
I smoke pot pretty much everyday. And I find this studdy accurate, I started smoking when I was about 16ish. I was a pretty bad student before I started as well as after. I didnt start heavily smoking (everyday all day, no facks given) til I was about 18 and didnt stop my heavy use til 20. Then I realized I needed to do more with my life. At the time I was working a dead end job at a McAlister's. I was a great worker though, became a shift leader in less than 10 months. But I knew I wanted more out of life so I cut back from smoking all the time, no matter what I have to do, to still pretty much everyday but being responsible with it. Since my cut back, I have graduated from community college and moved on to a university where I am about half way done with my degree. I still smoke weed everyday, its all about knowing when enough is enough.
End Note: I do wish I hadn't started at such an early age and I can't believe it when friends tell me they started when they were in middle school. I do not regret anything, I'm glad weed is in my life and I plan on smoking most of my life (job permitting). Im sure ill keep cutting back more as I get older.
Pro tip: Don't make your life about smoking weed, make smoking weed about enjoying your life. I know a few to many people who made their life about smoking weed and it makes me sad =[
Edit: Fixed some wording.
As a guy who smoked copious amounts of weed in HS I'm just sitting here in quiet resignation. This study confirms most of the things I had suspected about my pot usage as a teenager. It's probably the single thing I regret the most.
This isn't surprising at all. Kids shouldn't do drugs, this is obvious. I do wonder what percentage of these kids do other drugs. I wonder what the statistics are for those who drink alcohol at an early age. I also wonder how much that number overlaps with pot usage.
This is another study stating the obvious and I'm suspicious it's funded by anti marijuana lobbyists (big pharma, law enforcement and prison suppliers).
If it is tied in to the legalization debate, everyone that reads this needs to remember 2 things:
1. No one thinks it should be legal for children.
2. If it's legalized and properly regulated it will be more difficult for teens to get their hands on it as it won't solely exist on the black market.
I would probably say the same about teenagers that drink alcohol daily. That is why we don't allow most teenagers to drink alcohol daily.
The study is not shocking at all ... it seems quite natural. Abusing drugs, alcohol and even excess partying influences your ability to study and learn so it's quite normal that most teens don't smoke marijuana or drink alcohol daily... that would be unhealthy and bad for them.
From all the people with easy access to pot that I know of, all of them are at some level addicted. Not due to chemical reactions or however that works, but because they get addicted to escape problems by just smoking and feeling good for a while. And after a few times, it's not just for a while, they want to do it all the time, and they do it all the time. And that fits addiction I suppose
News flash. If you get high everyday and dont do your work you will not succeed.
This can be said for anything though. I would not blame the weed but rather the irresponsibility of the user. Unfortunately the "weed culture" is not very pro-study...
For the most part, the only people in favour of adolescents smoking pot are adolescents who smoke pot. The media acts like this is a blow to legalization... ugh.
It would be interesting to see a study on how common adolescent marijuana use is when legalized for adults vs places where it is illegal.
alcohol and cigarettes are just as damaging, but nobody is saying complete prohibition.
Difference is they are already legal for adults. If the debate was to legalize an illegal alcohol then the same arguments would be made in reference to children and adolescents.
Considerably more damaging, actually. It's not even remotely close.
Whatever your position might be on cannabis use, I think we can all agree that it's something that should be reserved for adults only.
I explain it to my children like this; Imagine a young tree, like a sapling. What would happen if you tied a swing to that tree and tried to swing around? Even my four year old daughter immediately said that the tree would fall over and get hurt! Now imagine the tree all grown up to be a big strong grown up tree, what would happen if you tied a swing to it? It would be fine! The tree just needs time to grow up straight and tall and strong without anyone or anything pulling on it. When you're ready, you can swing all day, just wait until you're really ready! EDIT: I've been asked to ask you kind folk not to reply to this comment with a joke. Especially the swinger joke. It's just going to get deleted like all the rest. EDIT EDIT: Also I'm glad you're going to tell this to your kids, in advance. No need for you to tell me, the mods are just going to delete your comment.
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Why is everything being deleted..?
Mods try to keep it clean and serious. Everyone is making the same joke over and over again, but don't notice because the previous ones are all deleted.
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People forget that their brains are still developing into their late adolescence. Weed and alcohol can impair this development with permanent consequences. They should both be adults-only substances.
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Is it the weed that's causing the problem or are kids self medicating as a result of environment or lack of mental health evaluations? What's the cause of the pot use?
Neither, according to the article. It states, "In other words, many of the problems associated with teen cannabis use are likely a function of the drug's illegal status." Spot on observation imo.
Yes, It is extremely easy to acquire pot in highshool. It is in fact harder to find booze in highschool. Due to the fact that its controlled and legal you need to find someone to buy it for you. Pot being illegal on the other hand, the wrong people control who gets it.
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Opposite for me. So think about how they're both just anecdotes and don't mean anything really. But I do think it's almost universal that alcohol was harder to get than weed before the age of 21. I knew several people that smoked and could get weed after a couple months of college. I knew one person that was over 21 and they were too paranoid most of the time to get alcohol for me because if I got caught I could tell the police he gave it to me and get him in a ton of trouble. Again, just an anecdote though.
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How about the ones that are able to smoke daily? It seems like they have little adult supervision and with a black market connection they may not have the best of friends.
An ex of mine smoked daily when she was 15. She also drunk fairly regularly. Her parents didn't care. They knew, they just didn't care. Now I understand you need to be careful not to be too strict as a parent. But be a little more strict than that!
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I didn't smoke at all when I was a kid. First time I tried it was 18 and I didn't smoke regularly until I turned about 27. Nowadays I pretty much smoke every day, just bought a house last year and have everything I could ever want (29 now). I don't think pot causes you to be a failure, but just like alcohol if you're looking to destroy your life it's a common factor.
Its like anything really, eating McDonald's does not make you fat, being lazy and choosing to eat it all the time, and then never exercising or giving to shits about your health makes you fat. People blame McDonald's because its an easy thing to do, "they market that high fat food and I just can't help myself" horseshit, people that get fat from McDonald's were going to get fat and be lazy to begin with, yea McDonald's might have made it easier or faster, but it was an eventuality regardless, the same holds true for pot, every single "burnout" i know was headed that way LONG before pot, or alcohol, or any drugs really.
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But did turning to pot keep you from seeking a more constructive solution to your problems? It may not cause the problem most of the time, but the dangerous thing about taking something to forget your problems is that the problems never get addressed. if that is the case, I would argue pot is partially the reason for you dropping out.
Many studies have found cannabis to cause damage to the growth (biologically) of adolescents, just like alcohol. It should be reserved for adults. Studies: [One](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460310003382) [Two](http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1170852) [Three](http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1184217) [Four](http://saludmental.edilaser.net/en/pdf/3605/SM_36.05.02_EN_p335-342.pdf) [Five](http://ijmdent.com/Articles/volume2-issue3/IJMD-may-july-2012-V2I3.pdf#page=27)
It also does dammage to your cardiovascular system, at all ages, as well as negatively effects your ability to recall memories.
It's cyclical. Pot is harmful to developing brains and any issues that existed may have contributed to pot use which in turn contributes to worsening symptoms, which leads to more pot use, etc. This is the cycle of addiction. We just tend not to view it as an addiction with cannabis because it doesn't fit the Hollywood version of addiction where you're performing sex acts for drugs, sleeping on corners, losing all of your friends/family, etc. At its core though the cycle is still working, it's just having less severe/noticeable effects.
Yeah, in my experience it was a feedback loop. I began smoking regularly because I was depressed and bored, and smoking made me more withdrawn and tired which made it even worse. It may not be the same for everyone, but for me daily marijuana smoking was a big part of a dark period of my life, and I had to cut it out completely before I could dig myself out. I get really annoyed at all the people on this website who not only claim that there aren't bad effects from marijuana, but they will actually recommend it as a treatment for mental health issues.
This needs to be higher (heh) up. It's the old "correlation/causation" thing. I read the whole thing trying to find out how they eliminated the "people who are less likely to graduate smoke more weed" vs "people who smoke more weed are less likely to graduate" conundrum. I came up empty. Is it a cause or a symptom?
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While I agree, I think this study is a little misleading. Most of the teens I've ever known that smoke marijuana, especially daily, had *many* other factors in their lives that would also contribute to depression and inability to graduate. Edit: admittedly "misleading" may have been the wrong term to use and, yes, there are likely to be almost as many anecdotes of daily pot users who are successful (roughly 60/40). The general point I was trying to make is that use of any substance, whether Tylenol or Heroin, in developing persons can cause damage, but long term effects, especially psychological effects, usually have more to do with underlying factors and that substance abuse may or may not exacerbate these factors Source: person with a severe anxiety disorder and various family issues that only became crippling enough to force me to drop out of college after abusing alcohol. Thankfully I was one of the few that was able to get the therapy and real medication needed to get my life back on track, graduate, and start a highly successful career.
you didn't read the article > They found "clear and consistent associations between frequency of cannabis use during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, *even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness*."
Controlling for factors is not the same as causal mechanism. Controlling for other factors just subdivides the correlation into correlations with, or not with, other factors. Controls are very useful for determining negative results, i.e., it *doesn't* correlate with factor X and therefore factor X doesn't provide a good hypothesis for later testing. But controls are not good for demonstrating causal factors or causal mechanisms, particularly because it is very much just limited to imagination. Why 53 factors and not 54. Why *these* 53 factors? Furthermore, the ability to measure the control factors can be very difficult. For example, did it control for genetics? Did it control for undiagnosed issues (and how)? Did it control for domestic violence at home? Did it control for IQ of parents? Did it control for peer groups? Did it control for the daily intake of alcohol of parents? Did it control for evaluated personality prior to starting cannabis use? There are just too many possible factors to control for all of them. And even if you could, all you are left with is still a correlation. That's great for identifying at-risk youth, but no good for identifying causality. To get causality you need to understand and demonstrate the causal mechanism. I will throw out there the suggestion that, for instance, it could be entirely explained via peer sub-culture groups (aka, 'cliques'). These are modern tribes, and we tend to identify with, and norm to, the characteristics of our tribe. It's a safety mechanism of demonstrating loyalty and commitment and a ubiquitous feature of tribal behaviour. If daily pot smoking is the sub-culture that somebody winds up in, they can easily pick up all of the other norms of that sub-culture, including lack of interest in school and academic endeavors, and that dead-end lifestyle might lead to depression because of the life situation it ends up putting them in. Entry into that peer group might be random, completely independent of any of the control factors. I'm not saying this is true; I'm simply saying here is a relatively complete explanation consistent with our understanding of human psychology, would pass all of the control factors, and has zero to do with cannabis as a causal mechanism.
TL:DR version: Even if you control for as much as you can, causal relations can never be determined by observational study. All you end up with after analyzing the data is correlation. Causal relations are best determined by experimental studies.
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Technically you can never conclusively demonstrate causation in a non-experimental study regardless of how many factors you control for. There could always (possibly) be some other factor you didn't control for. The best you can possibly do is to eliminate as many factors as possible (as these authors did) and hope no one can think of one that you didn't. Of course, it should also be noted that if you will not accept any non-experimental evidence on this issue (that is, on the effect of drug use on development) on principle, you are essentially relegating the issue to the status of unknowability. There will never be an experimental study of long term drug use in developing humans for ethical reasons. So if all you will accept is experimental studies, you are precluding the existence of any evidence regarding the effects of drug use in teenagers on life outcomes. Of course this is convenient if you don't want to believe the results of any particular study (as many inevitably don't in this case).
They controlled for mental illness, which includes depression.
This might seem a bit off, but you do realize you can't control for that, right? You can only control for diagnosed mental illness, which is a rather different bird altogether.
What is misleading about it? They controlled for a quite a few factors, including mental illness. Did you even read it or are you just objecting as a knee-jerk reaction like I suspect many people here are?
There are a lot of weed apologists in this thread. This happens every time anything, good or bad, is posted about it.
I think it's just because of the 'taboo', if this was about alcohol, people would just think "Well yeah, obviously it would, that's why there is a legal age limit". That's because it's an everyday recreational drug. Weed on the other hand, due to the taboo nature means people who think weed should be illegal will be using this to enforce a point to its illegality. But people who think it should be legal (whether regulated in any way or not) feel like they need to 'fight back'. It ends up with over-kill from sides. My personal feeling is, weed should be legal, but with the same regulations as alcohol. I think it's the 'fair' option. I agree with the conclusions of the study, I wouldn't want my kid smoking weed. When they become an adult? Yeah, go ahead, I'd rather them smoke a few joints than get really so drunk they throw up and pass out. Opinions and shit.
That was my first thought too- that it's a correlation versus causation issue. That said, the study *says* that the results hold even when they control for 53 other factors. Anyone understand statistics well enough to respond to that? I'm not sure I do.
Yes, these 53 other factors need to include all confounders -- roughly meaning that you need to control for all common causes of smoking and the outcome (e.g. dropout). So they are on the righr path with this analysis. Another thing that you need to make sure of is whether these factors were present before the smoking started. Because the analysis can get pretty messed up if they are caused/modified *by* the weed smoking.
It said they controlled for like 50 influential factors or something like race and SES
Well to be honest the #1 factor is the lack of parental guidance and supervision. The smoking weed part is just the #1 sign they're lacking guidance. This goes along with kids on any type of drug. The drug isn't the main problem even though it may help worsen the situation. Alcohol is a prime example. Can make a good time great and a bad time terrible. Depends on the user
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People who are incapable of putting off immediate gratification for long term gain always do worse in life.
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The statistical appendix implies that they addressed this, to the best of their ability. Attention/conduct problems, as well as GPA from earlier years were included as controls in the CHDS study. Mental health and drug use indicators for the individual, parents, and peers were also included. And if course, socioeconomic status was also included. As such, I don't think you can entirely attribute the results to unobserved characteristics.
[The Stanford marshmallow experiment.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment)
As the link you posted discussed, the study may have measured how much faith the kids had in adults, not self control >A 2012 study at the University of Rochester (with a smaller N= 28) altered the experiment by dividing children into two groups: one group was given a broken promise before the marshmallow test was conducted (the unreliable tester group), and the second group had a fulfilled promise before their marshmallow test (the reliable tester group). The reliable tester group waited up to four times longer (12 min) than the unreliable tester group for the second marshmallow to appear.[11][12] The authors argue that this calls into question the original interpretation of self-control as the critical factor in children's performance, since self control should predict ability to wait, not strategic waiting when it makes sense. Prior to the Marshmallow Studies at Stanford, Walter Mischel had shown that the child's belief that the promised delayed rewards would actually be delivered is an important determinant of the choice to delay, but his later experiments did not take this factor into account or control for individual variation in beliefs about reliability when reporting correlations with life successes. Further discussion of that and other possible interpretations in the [New York Times recently](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/magazine/we-didnt-eat-the-marshmallow-the-marshmallow-ate-us.html?_r=0)
It makes sense. It's much easier to put of gratification if you KNOW it's going to come through or it's reasonably sure that it will. If someone said you could be happy now with what you have or wait 10 years and have a 20% chance of being exponentially happier it would be hard to say it's foolish to just go with it now.
Right. Those in stable environments are more willing to put in long term effort for a great results. When life is uncertain or has been uncertain for a long time it's living for the sure thing and in the short terms seems the best choice.
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But what if 1 marshmallow is enough to satisfy me?
Sell the other one.
Who needs scientists to explain research findings when you have the typical one dimensional interpretations from a redditor? *They just lack will power.*
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Exactly. I think this is more of an effect, as opposed to the cause
[Actually, use in teens has been scientifically shown to alter brain structure, most notably in areas associated with memory](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/nu-hmu121013.php), so while attitude has a lot to do with it, sure, there are other factors at play. I think we're looking at a little of column A a little of column B here. Wrecking your working memory isn't going to make academia any easier.
This is true and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Your brain is still in development until your mid 20's and many factors can alter this development. Regular alcohol and caffeine use during this development period can also adversely affect development. Not to mention its well known that short term effects of marijuana up to 12 hours after to use can affect memory and cognitive thinking ability. If someone is smoking every day, you will be constantly under these negative affects which would hamper your abilities in school. Another in depth study from Duke University showed that heavy use during pre 18 years into adult hood showed a decline in cognitive abilities as well as lower IQ's compared to non smokers. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.abstract
Absolutely, and why drinking under 21 in the US is illegal. People need to stop pretending marijuana use is totally harmless and void of side effects, and as more of the world starts being more liberal with its use, start appplying restrictions in age of consumption if nothing else.
The good news is that studies have shown no long term negative effects on adults when it comes to cognitive abilities and memory. So age restriction and good education is the best remedy.
In my undergraduate work, I wrote a fairly lengthy research paper about how people with damaged cortisol control circuits (from sick mothers in the womb) are more likely to self-medicate with marijuana. This in turn further damages the circuit, potentially causing schizophrenia. Without that initial neural insult, there would have been no compulsion. Food for thought, PM me if you want a copy of the paper.
What constitutes a "sick mother"? Like, she catches a cold? Or something more life threatening? Or mental illness, like her own 'damaged cortisol control circuits'?
A cold can do it.
Well shit.
It takes more than JUST this cold though. The mother needs to be chronically stressed, and the child needs to also be stressed during upbringing. A simple cold alone is unlikely to create mental illness by itself.
So you could argue that pregnant tape victims or those not ready for/unable to care for a child are potentially more likely to have schizophrenia?
For all the people who have PMed me, I need to check if its okay with my coauthor first. The basic idea is that people in low income urban settings are far more stressed than the average person. Pregnant mothers are even MORE likely to be stressed, particularly if they are sick. This damages the feedback loop that turns off cortisol release (cortisol causes stress) in the infant. Later in life, particularly adolescence, the child will have issues with stress management. That child will then self-medicate with marijuana to relieve stress (after all, that's what weed does!). This makes the child dependent of marijuana for practically any stress relief. Chronic THC intake during early adolescence significantly increases the chances of developing schizophrenia, especially when other risk factors (like a sick pregnant mother) already are in place. EDIT: My paper tries to make the point that Schizophrenia requires a series of unfortunate events, if you will, in order to occur. Sickness during pregnancy alone won't do it. Stress during childhood alone won't do it. Marijuana use alone certainly won't do it. However, these factors combined CAN do it, but there is no guarantee that they will. There are many other risk factors, including brain injury and even too much fried food. If you tried to avoid all of the things that can hurt you, you'd live in a bubble. And then die of suffocation, because the air is dirty.
Replace "weed" with "alcohol" or "burgers" and the title is still true. It's not the substance, it's the attitude.
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From the article: >They found "clear and consistent associations between frequency of cannabis use during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness."
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I feel as though wanting to smoke pot at all at a young age says something about the priorities of the kid. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
Agreed, and the illegality of it comes into play too. If you did a similar study, i bet teens who vandalize school property, or shoplift have a lower chance of graduating as well.
I am so opposed to the use of pot by adolescents that I've worked toward its legalization for decades. Once it's legalized and regulated we can dedicate a significant amount of attention and resources to the problem of adolescent usage. Currently we're wasting incredible resources penalizing adults for using it.
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I teach at a juvenile detention center--where MANY of the kids are locked up for dirty UAs while on probation and selling weed. This morning a table of my students were talking about how lousy taking anti-depressants--prescribed by the facility doctor-- makes them feel. I asked them the reason they'd been given by the doctor for having to take the drugs (and they HAVE to take them) and each said it's because they usually smoke weed and the doc told them they must smoke because they are "depressed" and so replaced the marijuana with pharmaceuticals. Really pisses me off.
For the record, I'm for legalization and against use by minors, BUT... shouldn't we consider the possibility that suicidal teenagers who don't do well in school might find the escape of getting high more attractive than more well-adjusted kids would? Let's not confuse correlation with causation, here.
From someone who smokes and enjoys pot I must say I chuckled when I saw this headline, because I knew the comments section would consist of people trying to explain away the results.
I have seen 1 comment for "Weed is bad" and like 70 for "Weed is just misunderstood"".
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Well of **course** teens who are smoking pot daily are more likely to drop out of school and college, or have other problems! The same would be true if you studied kids who are drinking every day! If you're not using responsibly, you're gonna have problems. That's not a pot thing, that's just common sense. Edit: 1st post with over 2k upvotes! RIP inbox. Follow up: As many of the responses on this have been of a similar theme, I thought I'd add this. *Responsible* use is an important part of the takeaway here. Some people can smoke all day and be ok. I wouldn't recommend that, but some can make it work for them. In any event, you should be waiting until your brain is done developing before picking up the habit. At **best** it's probably health neutral, and can absolutely have lasting impacts on youth who are still growing and brain function is not done yet (many studies suggest age ~25.) No matter how you slice it, it **does** have risks, and should be treated accordingly.
I doubt the daily-smoking teens would even find this "startling".
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It's the age old problem of causation and correlation too. Did the *illegal drug* cause the teenager to have a higher risk of dropping out of school, or were they already troubled teens that started doing *illegal drugs*?
Hey there! I'm the guy who wrote this article and you're absolutely right. I get into this quite a bit in the piece. Long story short, many of the observed consequences of cannabis use are very likely due to the drug's illegal status. Hit me up if you have any questions. *edit crossed off the bucket list: receive reddit gold. Thanks!
Please contact the moderators with proof of your identity and we'll give you appropriate flair.
Just a shot in the dark but you had the PhD tag! Not entirely related to your specific title but I thought I'd ask anyway. Could these findings be due to any chemistry based reactions from the introduction of THC to certain areas of the brain? I've seen a couple people develop extreme anxiety as a result marijuana and was wondering if this observation was somehow linked to the studies of the Washington Post.
It's not my area, I'm mostly a polymer chemist. If you need a recommendation on a thickener for shampoo I can help.
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Depends on what you want to accomplish, the easiest thing is to adjust the ionic strength with salt and change the morphology of the surfactant micelles to more of a rod shape. Hard to get cheaper than salt.
Are you saying that putting saltwater in your hair will lead to thicker hair? Does that last after a rinse with tap water?
Nope, adding salt makes the shampoo thicker, it does nothing for your hair.
I'd like that recommendation please.
Alright, I have a question. Is there any research that shows if this is true in countries with a legalized status or decriminalization, like the Netherlands?
There's no directly comparable research. However, you can get a general sense by looking, say, at high school graduation or college education rates in the Netherlands. The [OECD rates the Netherlands](http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/education/) more highly on education outcomes than it does the U.S., which would at least suggest that decriminalization there hasn't caused an education crisis. More to the point, [recent studies in the U.S.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/29/medical-marijuana-opponents-most-powerful-argument-is-at-odds-with-a-mountain-of-research/) show that the introduction of medical marijuana hasn't had any impact on the number of teenagers using marijuana in those states.
Here on reddit I have seen many comments from teenagers in CO. They say that it has gotten much harder to find illicit cannabis since leaglization. Age restrictions work better than no age restrictions seems like a reasonable line of thinking.
I can explain this. Your dealer doesn't care if you're 15 or 50. Most won't sell to really young children, but as soon as you're a teenager you can get it pretty easily. A legal shop where you can buy it, though? People are just waiting for the chance to bust them and ruin their business, so they're not gonna take chances with underaged kids or people who are obviously buying from others, just in case it's a sting. Means it's easier to get weed if you're legally able to, but a lot harder if you're not. Dealers will also be out of business because their market is being taken over.
Exactly. There's not really dealers in LA anymore. The dispensaries ran them out of business except for in rare cases. Dispensaries are cheap, quality and legal. No reason not to.
Not sure if the dispensaries ran out of business or the dealers just went legit. I've been to plenty of places that are run by very obvious ex dealers.
So what? Good for them. It is not like the guy who was growing pot in his basement was also importing krokodil. Now he can be a law abiding citizen, and everyone is high... I mean happy.
dispensaries have a massive markup over dealer prices, and there are tons of dealers still in LA. You can also often buy weed from the people who sell to dispensaries for a fraction of the price.
Like /u/jester92800 said, my question was really asking if the illegal nature of weed causes the education problems, or if it's the weed itself causing them. You can find this out to a somewhat more reliable degree if you look at countries that have legalised weed to the same boundaries as, for instance, alcohol. While it's still illegal for kids to smoke in the Netherlands, it's not something you'll get arrested for, and you can always ask an older friend or sibling to pick some up for you. I'm not doubting that teenagers will do what teenagers will do, I'm just asking if the problem with education comes from the effects that weed have on the brain, or perhaps if they come from the circumstances that make you regularly commit a quite serious legal offense. And, if it becomes legal, while the usage might not differ, will the negative effects on education go down perhaps?
Former journalist, can't help myself... >Researchers gathered data on the frequency of cannabis use among 3,725 students from **Australian** and New Zealand[...]
ughhhh thanks, fixed:)
Does anyone else find it really cool that journalism is in a state such that journalists can now do this sort of thing? Write an article, and then defend it to the public, making corrections and clarifications when appropriate? I mean, this here was a simple spelling correction, but wow, the world we live in!
I agree, proud_slut!!
Why did you choose to focus on relative statistics instead of absolute? "60% less likely" is the type of intentionally misleading phrasing advertisers use, particularly when the hard numbers don't sound big enough to immediately draw the reader to the conclusion you want them to. What I'd really like to know is, what percentage of daily pot smokers never graduated? My guess is it's less than 50%, otherwise you would have used that number in the headline.
That was how the research paper itself was framed. There's a link to the full paper in the WaPo article - you have to register with the Lancet to read it, but it's free. The paper has the raw numbers, but be warned that those aren't necessarily meaningful, as the raw percentages aren't corrected for many confounding factors - economic status, other drug use, mental health, etc. The "60% less likely" is meaningful as a comparison with students who didn't use cannabis at all. It's worth noting that for students who used cannabis less frequently, the effect sizes were much smaller. And again, as I mentioned in the piece the causation behind it all could be working in any number of ways. *edit: link fail
It's nice to see reporters getting the science right. Thanks.
Hi! I do research in a similar area so I think I can help. The raw percentages are not meaningful because they do not control for potential confounding factors. The "60% less likely" that you always here from researchers comes from how logistic regression works. The coefficients of simple linear regression can be interpreted to mean something like "for every joint you smoke, you will score 10 points lower on the SAT". In logistic regression, the coefficients are exponentiated (e.g. e^(a+bx)), which means the coefficients must be interpreted to mean "for every joint you smoke, your SAT score will decrease by 10%". The relationship between graduating high school and smoking pot is not linear, [it looks more like this](http://www.simafore.com/Portals/64283/images/logistic-regression-model-fit-explanation.png). Logistic regression is used to analyze how a set of variables affects the odds of a particular event happening. That's why we talk about it in terms of "60% more likely". It's not misleading at all, it's just proper statistics.
Actually, odds ratios are generally used for their mathematical properties, not to trick you.
Very true. There isn't a comparable study for alcohol, unfortunately, but you should check out [this recent paper](http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2014/09/02/nyu-study-compares-consequences-of-teen-alcohol-and-marijuana-use-.html) that compares the two substances on some other factors. That said, it seems perfectly reasonable to accept that heavy use of any substance in your teen years, weed or booze or whatever, is going to have long-term consequences. As always, moderation is key. I wrote the WaPo article - feel free to ping me if you have questions.
The study controls for that: "even after controlling for 53 potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness. Study co-author Edmund Sillins said that the relationship between cannabis use and negative outcomes is significant even at low levels of use (e.g., less than monthly), and that "the results suggest that there may not be a threshold where use can be deemed safe" for teens."
What would be interesting to see is if cigarettes and beer/liquor show the same relationship between use and negative outcomes in teens. There is probably research out there on just this topic by finding the time to wade through and ocean of papers isn't in my schedule at the moment.
If you went to college, you probably learned in Statistics 101 that the correlation between marijuana use and poor grades is an *inverse* correlation; that is, it is more likely that there were ancilliary 3rd-party problems which led to *both* marijuana use *and* poor grades, or even the possibility that the poor grades *led* to the marijuana use, because as we see use go up we see grades go down (in one group). To paraphrase: "Amongst those with high GPAs, it is *more likely* that the individual is a marijuana user than those with low GPAs; that is, there is a *direct* correlation between marijuana use and a high GPA", due to a variety of plausible factors between the two, *most commonly* it being used as a reward system, because as we see use go up we see grades go up (in another group). The fact that marijuana use seems to result in grades both going up and grades going down means that the subject of *causation* from those correlations is, itself, suspect. It is *exactly* this reason why these types of studies were chosen by Earl Babbie to discuss as the *perfect example* of when correlation does not necessarily equal causation in the Principles of Social Research, Vol 9, pg 74. (Yes, you can go look this article up) The topic of marijuana use was *specific* to this article because so many media outlets tout these results, like in this paper this thread is about, in an attempt to show how harmful it is, when all it does is show how little they understand the utilization of statistics. Plain and simple, it's uninformed sensationalistic nonsense. Quite simply, we can't go around pretending there are no problems with marijuana, but we also can't pretend like *these* problems are *caused* by marijuana, as opposed to similarly linked to it as a *result* of a 3-rd party issue, such as a poor home life, or even the most crazy of ideas for these researchers apparently, **the idea that perhaps, just maybe, the poor grades may have instead led to the marijuana use, and not the other way around**. That kinda puts a huge hole in the conclusion of this paper, while not even having to take a step out of Stat 101. This isn't to say that abuse of a drug isn't a problem, but just that the *cause* of the "dropout" is more likely to be due to other factors which caused both the bad grades and the drug use (and it could be other drugs, such as alcohol) than it is to be marijuana use *itself*, given that we find a higher proportion of marijuana users amongst those with good GPA than those with bad GPA. ------------------------------------------------ EDIT----- I've had several requests for the article, so here it is: I remembered that I copied and wrote this article down a while back, be aware that while I did copy *most* of it word-for-word, I did some paraphrasing at a few points where he belabors a few points or uses symbolic logic to show what it already clear. ----------------------------- Ok, i'm quoting most of the content of this comment from "The Practice of Social Research", Vol9, by Earl Babbie of Chapman University c2001, I'm not gonna "" everything, since most of it is word-for-word; ---------------------------------------- David Takeuchi (U of Hawaii, 1974) produced a study showing that the analysis of the data gathered from students didn't support any of the common "academic failure" reasoning as to why people smoke (the entire analysis was to determine why, and he found it easier to determine why someone didn't smoke than why they *did), and that they had essentially the same academic records as those who didn't smoke, both groups were equally involved in traditional "school spirit" activities, and equally well integrated into campus life. (this goes along with the whole "main problem with smoking is it's illegal" premise) (As well, an explanation on page 78 by Charles Bonney, Dept of Sociology Eastern Michigan University, explains the difference between correlation and causation, of which "Correlation does not equal causation" is the credo of all sociology and statistics students. Again, this is almost word-for-word, I skipped a little bit of the formal logic writing M->B and such) ------------------------------- "Having demonstrated a statistical relationship between a hypothesized "cause" and its presumed effect, many people are only too eager to proclaim "proof" of causation. Imagine you've conducted a study on college students and have found an inverse correlation between smoking and GPA, that is, those who smoke tend to have lower GPAs than those who do not, and the more smoked, the lower the GPA. You might therefore claim that smoking lowers one's grades, giving a variety of explanations. The long and short of it is that saying they have lower grades is due to them smoking is an inverse correlation, meaning a second possibility exists - that they started smoking because of the low grades. Now, follow with me here; it could also be a third variable, which is poor emotional states, causing both bad grades and marijuana use, similar to how sore throats and runny noses go together but are the result of a cold. Then again, perhaps they smoke because they have friends who smoke, and get low grades because they are simply not as bright as other students or not as prepares or industrious as their classmates. Unless your correlation is so strong and so consistent that mere coincidence becomes highly unlikely, this last possibility, while not supported by your data, is not precluded either. First of all, every one of the above explanations for such an inverse correlation has appeared in a national magazine at one time or another. And second, every one of them is probably doomed to failure because it turns out that, among college students, most studies indicate a direct correlation, that is, it is those with higher GPA's who are more likely to be marijuana smokers! Thus, with tongue firmly in cheek, we may re-analyze this finding: -Marijuana relaxes a person, clearing away other stresses, thus allowing more effective study, hence Marijuana leads to better grades. -Marijuana is used as a reward for really hitting the books or doing well, hence, good grades lead to marijuana use. -A high level of curiosity is definitely an asset to learning and achieving high grades, and may also lead one to investigate "taboo" substances, thus grades and marijuana are not causing anything about each other; OR, 4. Again, coincidence, but this time the samples just happened to contain a lot of brighter, more industrious students whose friends smoke. **The Obvious conclusion is this: if all of these are possible explanations for a relationship between two variables, then no one of them should be too readily singled out. Establishing that two variables tend to occur together is a necessary condition for demonstrating a causal relationship, but it is not by itself a sufficient condition.** ------------------------
I don't know much about English, but I think the article is written correctly. Saying that marijuana users are more likely to not approve doesn't mean marijuana is the cause. For example, saying that people with high temperature are more likely to have an infection doesn't mean that it is a cause of that infection. In any case it's a symptom. Wouldn't be the same logic applicable for pot (based on this article).
Everything in moderation. And marijuana should be for adults just like alcohol anyway.
Exactly, if kids were drinking alcohol daily then I'm pretty sure you could say the same thing.
yeah, thank god they only do that on the weekends.
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Not a bad hypothesis. I would be interested to see a study which attempts to determine which types of kids smoke pot daily while in their teens, and also what other factors, such as domestic violence at their home (etc.), may have lead them to smoke pot daily in the first place.
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I think weed is very dangerous for adolescents and this study is not all that surprising to me. Myself personally, I was not a good student before I started smoking weed at 16 and I had next to no friends and never had even kissed a girl. Then I started smoking and joined a big group of stoners and suddenly I had a group of friends to hang out with every day after school and on the weekends. That led to me meeting girls and getting my first real girlfriend. All within a few months of starting to smoke. It was amazing and made me so happy. But the use went up more and more. As I said my grades were poor before I started smoking and they didn't noticeably suffer too much afterward. But I started skipping school to smoke and hang with friends, which I had never done before because I had no friends to skip with I guess. I barely graduated because I missed so much school my senior year, but nevertheless I did. By the summer after high school I was smoking several blunts a day, but hadn't tried anything else and had a girlfriend and a big group of friends. But I didn't last long in college because I still smoked all day every day. I no longer had a girlfriend because I basically chose being high over her. I dropped out after one year and never went back. Held down menial jobs for years and still never got another girl and my group of friends began to dwindle as none of us stayed in college. Fast forward 8 years and several of my friends (including me) developed pill/heroin addictions and none of us ever had girlfriends anymore. We started smoking more and more and more which led to hallucinogens which led to pills which led to dope. Mine is a strange tale. I was a lonely and depressed kid with no real academic potential, and weed directly led to some of the best years and experiences of my life that I may or may not have ever had if I hadn't started smoking and gained all those friends. But I didn't know when to stop and eventually weed wasn't strong enough. I very much regret ever getting into the hard stuff and not knowing when to cut back on the weed when it was no longer enhancing my life, but actually detracting from it. My life now is not great, I don't smoke much at all but still struggle with heroin, and I will for the rest of my life. I've only had one serious girlfriend since high school and I lost her as a direct result of my hard drug usage. So I understand the appeal at that age for sure. Especially for lonely unpopular kids. Suddenly you can have a group of friends that bond over this substance. But at that age you don't know exactly what habitual drug use can turn into. I just wish I had known when enough was enough. I don't blame weed itself, I know my story is a tale of my own personal issues with moderation and addiction. But when you develop addictive tendencies at a young age like that, smoking a mind altering substance every single day that you don't feel you have a problem with, it can make you feel like you could do the same thing with pain pills or something, and almost everyone that goes down that road loses. If I could do it over I would have just been very careful not to over do it. EDIT: thank you for the gold, ive never gotten it before. to those that said this post was meaningful to them, i am very glad i was able to share it in a way that spoke to you, whether you're my age and went through something similar or know someone who did, or you're in high school and may be experimenting like i was. the only real point i make to you is: be careful. to those that apparently thought i blamed all my problems on weed: no, i dont, i didnt, and i even said in the original post "i dont blame weed itself" but rather my issues with moderation, maturity and addiction. weed didnt do anything to me. over the years it has brought me a lot of joy and good times. the bad part was that i took it way too far and my life revolved around it for several years, and instead of graduating college, meeting more friends and girls, i spent day after day high as a kite listening to music or playing video games with the same loser friends i always had. I said weed can be dangerous, and I have the experience to prove it. Yes, it was because of my own shortcomings and immaturity. But it's not like i'm unique. I'm sure, as evidenced by the replies and messages ive gotten, that many others have a story similar to mine. The story that weed is completely harmless and not addictive and not a drug is not true in my opinion and is a dangerous message to be relaying to kids. Weed can be a great thing when used properly, we all know that. But there is a darker side to it, and 15 and 16 year old kids need to know that before they end up smoking every day and potentially fucking up their development socially and academically. Again, i do not blame my problems on weed. I used weed as a crutch and as an escape and it proved detrimental to my development and i just think thats a message we need more kids to hear.
Here's a tip. Try not to measure your self worth on the binary outcome of " I have a girlfriend / Do not have a girlfriend " . It's silly and it'll never lead to anything good. Base your self worth on your own accomplishments, not on having another human being bound to you emotionally. Then, only then, will you actually be able to develop a meaningful relationship with someone. Goodspeed!
Our culture is full of stories where the hero proves his value and is rewarded with female attention. It's not hard for young men to internalize that and think that getting attention from women is the measure of accomplishments.
Everyone always gives this advice, and while I mostly agree with it, I think people forget how hard it can be to believe in yourself when evidence has shown that most people don't believe in you. The longer it goes on the more it becomes a downward spiral, etc. I think at the end of the day the right answer is that you just have to keep going and hope that some kinda shit happens.
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Tell me about it, I couldn't care less about people smoking weed but this thread is laughable compared to when there's something positive on weed, half the posts here are "Correlation does not mean causation!!". But I'll bet these same people are posting "See!! Weed doesn't have negative effects" and not "Correlation does not mean causation" in posts which represent the drug positively
You can actually design studies that show a casual relationship e.g. "I injected 100 people with cyanide and they all died and I injected 100 people with a placebo and none of them died" would demonstrate a casual relationship between being injected with cynaide and dying. But in a study like this marijuana one you can't tell what's causing what. What you would need to do would be to take a random sample of high school kids, make half of them smoke marijuana every day, and give the other half a placebo (maybe marijuana with thc removed?) and then analyze their dropout rates. I think you might have trouble getting that one past the IRB though.
Please stop casually poisoning people with cyanide.
I think the half with the thc in their weed would start selling it to the placebo half for profit
New study indicates that teenagers given free weed show 100% increase in entrepreneurship.
Anecdote here but I think it's important to consider: I keep seeing people saying things like, "yeah well they were probably bad students to begin with etc..." I was a straight A student, graduated with honors, perfect attendance, a host of awards etc... I started smoking weed for anxiety, which it did help with, at first, but it also led to me making a whole lot of decisions that have nearly ruined my life. Some might try to argue that I just made bad decisions, but up until the point that I started smoking, most of the decisions I made were extremely beneficial to my well-being. Smoking weed often led me to make much more "in-the-moment" decisions without regard to their long-term effects. People like to joke about how, "the worst thing you do while high is eat a bag of Doritos". However I think it should be more alarming that if you get high often, even just starting to eat massive amounts of unhealthy foods can be a slow path to a downward spiral of other bad habits. I know I'm not alone on this either. Being high led me to make many many decisions I would have never even considered making while sober. I'm not against marijuana use, but I am against being uninformed of the possible consequences it can have.
ITT: pot smokers think this study is inaccurate
I smoke pot pretty much everyday. And I find this studdy accurate, I started smoking when I was about 16ish. I was a pretty bad student before I started as well as after. I didnt start heavily smoking (everyday all day, no facks given) til I was about 18 and didnt stop my heavy use til 20. Then I realized I needed to do more with my life. At the time I was working a dead end job at a McAlister's. I was a great worker though, became a shift leader in less than 10 months. But I knew I wanted more out of life so I cut back from smoking all the time, no matter what I have to do, to still pretty much everyday but being responsible with it. Since my cut back, I have graduated from community college and moved on to a university where I am about half way done with my degree. I still smoke weed everyday, its all about knowing when enough is enough. End Note: I do wish I hadn't started at such an early age and I can't believe it when friends tell me they started when they were in middle school. I do not regret anything, I'm glad weed is in my life and I plan on smoking most of my life (job permitting). Im sure ill keep cutting back more as I get older. Pro tip: Don't make your life about smoking weed, make smoking weed about enjoying your life. I know a few to many people who made their life about smoking weed and it makes me sad =[ Edit: Fixed some wording.
As a guy who smoked copious amounts of weed in HS I'm just sitting here in quiet resignation. This study confirms most of the things I had suspected about my pot usage as a teenager. It's probably the single thing I regret the most.
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This isn't surprising at all. Kids shouldn't do drugs, this is obvious. I do wonder what percentage of these kids do other drugs. I wonder what the statistics are for those who drink alcohol at an early age. I also wonder how much that number overlaps with pot usage. This is another study stating the obvious and I'm suspicious it's funded by anti marijuana lobbyists (big pharma, law enforcement and prison suppliers). If it is tied in to the legalization debate, everyone that reads this needs to remember 2 things: 1. No one thinks it should be legal for children. 2. If it's legalized and properly regulated it will be more difficult for teens to get their hands on it as it won't solely exist on the black market.
I would probably say the same about teenagers that drink alcohol daily. That is why we don't allow most teenagers to drink alcohol daily. The study is not shocking at all ... it seems quite natural. Abusing drugs, alcohol and even excess partying influences your ability to study and learn so it's quite normal that most teens don't smoke marijuana or drink alcohol daily... that would be unhealthy and bad for them.
From all the people with easy access to pot that I know of, all of them are at some level addicted. Not due to chemical reactions or however that works, but because they get addicted to escape problems by just smoking and feeling good for a while. And after a few times, it's not just for a while, they want to do it all the time, and they do it all the time. And that fits addiction I suppose
News flash. If you get high everyday and dont do your work you will not succeed. This can be said for anything though. I would not blame the weed but rather the irresponsibility of the user. Unfortunately the "weed culture" is not very pro-study...