A neuroimaging study of the brains of marijuana smokers caused unwarranted frenzy.
The mainstream media launched into a reefer mad frenzy this week after researchers from Harvard University in Boston and Northwestern University in Chicago published the results of a neuroimaging study assessing the brains of a small cohort of regular marijuana smokers and non-users. The brain scans identified various differences between the two groups in three aspects of brain morphometry: gray matter density, volume, and shape. These differences triggered dozens of high-profile media outlets to lose their collective minds. Here’s just a sample of the screaming headlines:
CNN: Casual marijuana use may damage your brain; Science Daily: More joints equal more damage; Financial Post: Study proves occasional marijuana use is mind altering; Time: Recreational pot use harmful to young people’s brains; Smoking cannabis will change you. That’s not a risk, its a certainty.
Just imagine how the media would have responded if the study in question had included more than 20 actual cases — or if the authors had actually bothered to assess its subjects for demonstrable deficits in cognitive performance. Yes, that’s right. Despite the sky-is-falling rhetoric and the shock claims of permanent brain damage, a careful review of the study and its findings reveals little, if any, cause for alarm.
So what did the study find? In truth, not a whole lot.
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5 comments:
So keep on using it you fools, be sure to have your kids do the same, along with the grandkids The USA is going to pot anyway. As for me I say - No thanks, never used it and don't have any desire to start at 72. Perhaps you will have the courtesy to not drive while high.
My comment the other day was correct. The study was highly flawed. The results were in direct opposition to those of even government sponsored studies as old as 80 years. And the more we find out about the components of cannabis, the more we find good about it. No wonder drug companies wanted to supress it to sell their own excuses for treatments.
I agree 12:31, though I have smoked pot but it's been 20 or more years ago. Then I grew up. I rarely ever even drink alcohol. Never had a problem with overuse, because I never understood someone's reasoning that they need to be drunk or high and it feels good or whatever their reasoning is.
People who have to resort to putting something into their bodies that alters the mind to feel good have some deep rooted psychological problems.
Tobacco lobbyists and beer companies are going to do everything they can to promote fear over the dangerous Reefer Madness! The most dangerous thing about marijuana is fearing to be pulled over by a trigger happy cop.
deep rooted psychological problems?
A chemical imbalance of the brain doesn't mean someone is psychotic.
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