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Drugs Are Stoners Really Dumb, Or Do They Just Think They Are? Read More: Http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/18/are-Stoners-Really-Dumb-Or-Do-They-J


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http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/18/are-stoners-really-dumb-or-do-they-just-think-they-are/

 

November 18, 2010

 

If you’re acting stupid because you’re a stoner, you might just be playing to type. That is, it may be your expectations about marijuana’s long-term cognitive effects — rather than any real effect of the drug itself — that is to blame, particularly if you’re male, according to new research. The study, which was published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, explored the effect of “stereotype threat” — the idea that performance is affected by conventional images of minorities — on marijuana smokers. (More on Time.com: Best of ‘Stoner Cinema’)

 

Earlier studies of stereotype threat have found that when African Americans are asked to identify themselves by race before being tested, they tend to score worse than blacks who weren’t reminded of their race — in line with racist stereotypes about blacks doing poorly in school.

 

Explains study co-author Mitch Earleywine, professor of psychology at the University of Albany–SUNY: “The bottom line is if you get folks into the lab and prime them about the minority group they’re in, they tend to behave consistent with the stereotype. With Asian women, if you bring them in and say, ‘Oh, you’re a chick, you can’t do math,’ they tend to do lousy. But if you say, ‘Oh, you’re an Asian,’ they do well.” (More on Time.com: How to Make Legalizing Marijuana Smart)

 

Earleywine wondered if the same could be true of marijuana smokers. While there are obviously acute effects of the drug on memory when someone is high, the research on marijuana’s long-term impact on cognition, when not under the influence, is complicated. A meta-analysis that summed up the research found no clinically significant effects, but some individual studies have shown small but measurable cognitive differences between long-term, short-term and non-users. Is it possible that the studies that found a negative effect had cued marijuana users to the fact that they weren’t supposed to do well?

 

Earleywine and his colleagues studied 57 users, 30 male and 27 female. Half were given material to read suggesting that marijuana damages the brain; the other half read a research summary suggesting that the drug had no long-term negative cognitive effects. Then, all participants were asked to take cognitive tests after abstaining from marijuana for at least one day. (More on Time.com: See photos of cannabis conventions)

 

There was a marked difference in results — interestingly, between men and women. Men who got the negative information about marijuana performed worse than men who didn’t, but the women who were faced with stereotype threat actually scored better on tests of verbal skills and memory than women who weren’t given negative information.

 

“I think that the stoner identity reads differently to women,” says Earleywine. “They were like, ‘I’ll show you!’ It was funny to see that go in the opposite direction. They did better than those who read that [marijuana has] no impact, on three of four measures.” (More on Time.com: Is Marijuana Addictive? It Depends How You Define Addiction)

 

“It certainly seems plausible that if someone came up and told you that marijuana caused cognitive impairment and gave you some test that you might respond by showing some cognitive impairment,” says Dr. Harrison Pope, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has conducted studies of marijuana and cognition himself. “But what is odd is that women would have paradoxically shown better performance whereas men showed worse. I’d like to see it replicated.”

 

If the finding holds up, says Pope, “It would throw in yet another factor one has to consider when studying the effects of marijuana.”

 

More on Time.com:

 

Addiction Files: Recovering From Drug Addiction, Without Abstinence

 

Is Drug Use Really on the Rise?

 

The Marijuana Number That Was Too Good to Check

 

Related Topics: cognitive effect, Marijuana, mitch earleywine, slackers, stereotype threat, stoners, Drugs, Mental Health

 

 

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/18/are-stoners-really-dumb-or-do-they-just-think-they-are/#ixzz1lmMPM0YY

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Actually there was a study done where they refuted the idea that mj causes cognitive decline. It seems the orig scientists did not take into account two things.

The first was that the majority of those who used cannabis were men and secondly that when tested those people tended to have IQs that were 5 pts lower than comparable groups. When they readjusted fo these two things there was no cognitive decline present.

 

So sorry guys what was indicated was that yes stoners as a group are a little bit dumber than the general population. Whether it is true beyond that incidence I do not know.

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what this ariticle is stating, is Many tend to "PLAY THE ROLL" others put them in. IE you treat a blonde woman like a Dumb Blonde, she will accordingly portray a dumb blond woman. If you tell a Cannabis user he is supposed to be dumb, he ll act dumb, even if he has a 180 IQ.

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what this ariticle is stating, is Many tend to "PLAY THE ROLL" others put them in. IE you treat a blonde woman like a Dumb Blonde, she will accordingly portray a dumb blond woman. If you tell a Cannabis user he is supposed to be dumb, he ll act dumb, even if he has a 180 IQ.

 

So, if we treat Schuette like he's intelligent and caring he might actually act that way?

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Actually there was a study done where they refuted the idea that mj causes cognitive decline. It seems the orig scientists did not take into account two things.

The first was that the majority of those who used cannabis were men and secondly that when tested those people tended to have IQs that were 5 pts lower than comparable groups. When they readjusted fo these two things there was no cognitive decline present.

 

So sorry guys what was indicated was that yes stoners as a group are a little bit dumber than the general population. Whether it is true beyond that incidence I do not know.

 

Other studies show "pot smokers" tend to have a higher IQ than average so I don't know about that.

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Hey I am male and use mmj.......

 

The point was (why do I have to explain this?)that once the scientists realized that there were differences in the group they were studying and recalibrated for those differences then it showed no cognitive decline.

 

If any of you do not understand this it proves the point.

 

there certainly is a lot of contention about this issue. It has been established that getting wasted does lower iq during the time you are affected by the drug then it goes back to what ever it was.

 

Here is a study that shows that young men who smoke regular cigarettes are dumber.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100401151746.htm

 

I am sure we can find studies to contradict alsmost anything.

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Hey I am male and use mmj.......

 

The point was (why do I have to explain this?)that once the scientists realized that there were differences in the group they were studying and recalibrated for those differences then it showed no cognitive decline.

 

If any of you do not understand this it proves the point.

 

there certainly is a lot of contention about this issue. It has been established that getting wasted does lower iq during the time you are affected by the drug then it goes back to what ever it was.

 

Here is a study that shows that young men who smoke regular cigarettes are dumber.

 

http://www.scienceda...00401151746.htm

 

I am sure we can find studies to contradict alsmost anything.

 

 

You said

yes stoners as a group are a little bit dumber than the general population

 

So the study supposes that pot smokers have lower IQs and that male pot smokers have lower IQs than female pot smokers? That contradicts (numerous? Pretty sure I've been hearing about this for a while) studies that say pot smokers have higher than average IQs. There is one from the UK that just came out so that is evidence that your study is buullshiit. :lol: Anyway if they are studying cognitive decline they should have had data on the subjects from early in the study to which they could compare the later results. If they had done that they wouldn't have had a problem in the first place, would they?

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