Bad Reporting, Not Email, Worse Than Marijuana

MoNickels writes "Turns out, those endless news reports and blog entries in April about "texting makes you stupid" were inaccurate. As linguist Mark Liberman at LanguageLog now reports by way of apologizing to Wilson, it wasn't Wilson's fault, but that of "rotten science journalism." Psychologist Glenn Wilson was reported to have done a study said that chat and email, as the Guardian put it, "are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than taking cannabis." But Wilson says, "This...is a temporary distraction effect—not a permanent loss of IQ. The equivalences with smoking pot and losing sleep were made by others, against my counsel, and 8 [subjects] somehow became '80 clinical trials.'" The original Slashdot story was covered back in April."

Re:really that bad?

[khayman80]

I've got another journal article (from the American Journal of Epidemiology) regarding this topic: http://www.ukcia.org/research/CannabisUseAndCognit iveDecline.html [ukcia.org]

Long story short: a study involving repeated IQ tests of nearly 1400 participants over a time period of 12 years showed absolutely no statistical correlation between marijuana use and cognitive ability.

Re:Worse than this? The horror....

[Kickboy12]

Haha. Seriously. It's pathetic how uneducated people really are to the effects of cannabis [cannabisnews.com].

Mod this up

[HTL2001]

a great summary of the history of drugs. I remember specificly why for opium, its because the chinese were able to work insane hours taking jobs away from whites. Given most are very harmfull, but as it was said by someone else commenting... it depends on who does the study. there is only one study that says pot smoking reduces intelegence... I speculate that its just the way the person is REGARDLESS of weather they smoke pot or not

BTW I don't do any drugs, but I hate misinformation

Re:What's wrong with Pot?

[rebelcan]

Marijuana wasn't made illegal because of Mexicans. It was made illegal because the president who passed the bill to make it illegal was endorsed by companies that manufactured paper and harvested cotton. At the time, hemp products were in a position to take the market away from the cotton and paper industries.

Don't have any links to verify, because I read it in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader [bathroomreader.com]. But here's another link for you ( don't know how acurate it is ): http://www.cannabis.com/untoldstory/hemp_2.shtml [cannabis.com]

Re:Not only Carl Sagan

[fafalone]

I don't know what kind of scientific conferences you go to, but I suspect they were before longitudinal studies on marijuana's effects on IQ were published. For example, Fried et. al. concluded in a peer reviewed article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (166, p. 887) that marijuana use does have an effect on IQ; a negative impact for heavy use, and a positive effect (and more positive than not smoking even) for light use; it also showed there was no deficit for former users who had not smoked for more than 3 months.
"Results: Current marijuana use was significantly correlated (p 0.05) in a dose- related fashion with a decline in IQ over the ages studied. The comparison of the IQ difference scores showed an average decrease of 4.1 points in current heavy users (p 0.05) compared to gains in IQ points for light current users (5.8), former users (3.5) and non-users (2.6)."

Re:What's wrong with Pot?

[fafalone]

Opium and marijuana use in the Chinese culture (and cocaine use in South American cultures-coca leaves) was just as acceptable as tobacco and alcohol in European culture, and dates back thousands of years as well. They just weren't socially accepted institutions for the ruling white Europeans, and therefore were outlawed. That's clearly racism, your incredibly narrow view and failure to consider other cultures history makes you sound like one of those government anti-drug propaganda people, whose flimsy arguments against drugs embarass them everytime they debate people who've bothered to study the topic with a neutral, open mind.

Point Of Order: The Nixon Report

[Gamerider]

The Report of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse [druglibrary.org] Effects of Short-Term or Subacute Use [druglibrary.org] "No subject reported any adverse effects from smoking. The subjects were generally able to conduct their usual daily activities including jobs. However, they reported they did not function completely up to par during the several hour duration of the acute drug effect. There were no effects which persisted for more than three to five hours and cumulative effects were not noted day to day. No persistent decrements were seen in behavior, mental status, EEG, heart, rate, short-term memory, or psychomotor function tests. In sum, daily marihuana smoking for 21 days was well tolerated by well-adjusted graduate students." "No abstinence syndrome or physical dependence was observed after abrupt termination of smoking. Signs of mild to moderate psychological dependence. were possibly seen in the heavy [users] group but no evidence of psychological dependence was seen in the casual users." "Urinalysis, complete blood counts, cell morphologies and differentials, and blood chemistry determinations (calcium, phosphorous, glucose, blood urea nitrogen, uric acid, cholesterol, total protein, albumen, total bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase, lactic dehydrogenase, and serum glutamic oxalacetic transaminase) were unaffected." "Normal body temperature was not altered. No significant change, in pulmonary function (decreased. vital capacity or acute broncho spasm) was observed during the marihuana smoking period." "No signs of neurological abnormality were observed. No cumulative effect of marihuana to cause, impairment of cognitive function was noted on a battery of tests sensitive to organic brain function." "Both groups [heavy and light users] became progressively more convivial and less task-oriented in group discussions. They offered less suggestions in problem-solving tasks but continued to efficiently solve the problem." "Finally, repeated use of marihuana over the 21day period did not decrease motivation to engage in a variety of social and goal-directed behaviors. Almost without exception, every subject earned the maximum number of points every day throughout all non-drug and drug periods. No consistent alteration in pattern of work could be related to repeated marihuana use. Subjects often performed very high work output while they were smoking marihuana and experiencing the maximum drug effects. Repeated marihuana use, did not decrease subject's motivation to complete the study. Nor was any noticeable effect observed on interest and participation in a variety of personal activities, such as, writing, reading literature, keeping up with current national and world events, and participation in both athletic and esthetic endeavors." Effects of Long-Term Cannabis Use [druglibrary.org] "Psychosomatic abstinence syndromes often reported were physical weakness, intellectual apathy, loss of appetite, flatulence, constipation, insomnia, fatigue, abdominal cramps and nervousness, restlessness, and headache. For most heavy users the syndrome of anxiety and restlessness seem to be comparable to that observed when a, heavy tobacco smoking American attempts to quit smoking. However, the psychological dependence appears to be severe as evidenced by the f act that one group of subjects were unable to cease their habitual use although the frequency of use, was only eight to 12 times per month (Soueif, 1967). This psychological dependence may have made some users claim physical dependence so that the government did not terminate dispensing them their drug. Studies in the United States using much lower doses for shorter periods of time have revealed little if any evidence of psychological dependence (Bromberg, 1934 Mayors Committee, 1944; Williams et al., 1946)." "Mann et a]. (1970, 1971) and Finley (1971) studied the effect

Re:What's wrong with Pot?

[kamapuaa]

No, that's not at all true, your post shouldn't be marked informative. Opium is native to areas to the North and Northwest of India. In China it has long been associated with corrupt foreign powers - first introduced by Portugese traders in the 15th century, and then becoming common (and pushed on the population at gunpoint when the government tried to ban it) by the English in the 19th century. Perhaps you're familiar with racist images of old Chinamen smoking away and think it's part of Chinese life, but that's not at all true. If you're caught with even a small amount, you're likely to go to jail for a long time. Marijuana has been known to South Asia and the Middle East for some time, but not in East China, don't know where you got that one.

Coca leaves and Cocaine are not the same thing. Coca Leaves are a very mild drug - the South American Indian words for "tea" often come from their name for "Coca Leaf Tea," because of their comparable effect. It just isn't absorbed by the body in a way that gets one high like Cocaine. Cocaine is an organic chemical derived (but not extracted) from these coca leaves. Claiming the two are equivalent is BS.

Cocaine is illegal in Africa. Marijuana is illegal in Mexico. Opium is illegal in China. Is it because China is racist against Chinese people? Mexico is racist against Mexicans? It must be comforting for people to believe that all the evil forces of the world unite to fight pet issues - greedy anti-hemp lobbyists, racist Southern sheriffs, etc. But holding these views up to even the lighest analysis shows both history and obvious contradictions being willfully ignored.