Early cannabis use NOT tied to lower IQ or performance

[-RC-]

http://reset.me/study/study-cannabis-use-not-predictive-of-lower-iq-or-poorer-educational-performance/

British investigators assessed the relationship between cumulative cannabis use and IQ at the age of 15 and educational performance at the age of 16 in a cohort of 2,235 adolescents.

After researchers adjusted for potentially confounding variables, such as childhood depression and cigarette use, they reported, “[T]hose who had used cannabis [greater than or equal to] 50 times did not differ from never-users on either IQ or educational performance.”

By contrast, teen cigarette smoking was associated with poorer educational outcomes even after researchers adjusted for other confounding variables.

Researchers concluded, “In summary, the notion that cannabis use itself is causally related to lower IQ and poorer educational performance was not supported in this large teenage sample.”

This was contrary to a former NZ study that tried to link cannabis with lower academic outcomes and IQ, in later life though I think.

Don't jump the gun and start with all the "Well teens shouldn't use blah, blah" because they are teens and don't give a fuck what you think about what they do, remember?

[wert]

if it wasn't for that bloody bong when I was 15 I could have been anything I wanted instead of a bong head for the next half of my life...

[ace1928]

If it wasn't for that bloody bong when I hit 18 I could have been a dropkick retail worker for the rest of my life...

Suppose different folks react differently to the herb

[-RC-]

If it wasn't for the bongs we'd all be vaping more and be a lot healthier, without the desecration of mixing with tobacco.

[Halcyon Daze]

All this high potency super skunk diesel bullshit is the problem.

Start with the natural organic varieties from high in the Himalayas and you wouldn't have an issue to deal with.

You'll prolly bring world peace while you're at it.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

How does one start with natural gear from the Himalayas? Share us ya hookup!

Edited January 26, 2016 by theuserformallyknownasd00d

[starling]

Not to start a shit fight, but that's a very badly designed trial at the methodological level not only does the span of a year not a longitudinal study make, but it doesn't qualify as a true multivariate analysis by my definition and the sampling frame is atrocious. It's actually amazing how very badly orientated studies like this find their way to publication as PR sources.

'By the age of 15, 24% reported having tried cannabis at least once'

So basically, to qualify as marker a participant had to smoke pot once. Once.

Academic achievement scores were collated somehow, at said time of having smoked (this would be an approximation, obviously) and the averages or median scores of said scores were compared after a period of on year to the achievement scores of one year.

Despite the studies' insistence that it accounted for confounds, it has not. Not even close. In case anyone who reads this doesn't know what a confound is, allow me to explain:

A confound is is some kind of phenomena which affects the outcome of a variable (subject or topic), and therein the statistical representation of that subject, which is not accounted for by the study. That is, it's something that the researchers hadn't considered--it didn't occur to them when drawing up the study. and therefore no measures were taken to stop it distorting the data.

It is actually quite impossible to eliminate confounds outside of material clinical trials--especially in a case such as this, which is a glorified social science paper. I have absolutely no idea how this turd of a paper made it's way into a pubmed que, but anyway, let's move on:

A) There are all kinds of social forces which might influence the outcome of a student's academic performance which are totally unrelated to critical phenomena such as alcohol and behavioral problems--so many in fact, that it's not even worth trying to exclude them all as confounds.

B)Although they may appear to be statistical in nature, Academic scores are actually themselves abstract concepts (unless we're talking about math scores). The study does not denote what subjects the scores were derived from. Were Art class scores counted? How about home Economics? History? Physical Ed? English? As such, we have no idea what kind of reasoning these scores are associated with--and even if we did, we would not expect to see a major decline in achievement after a period of one year of usage--especially if a participant smoked only fucking once!

C) A linear regression is completely meaningless unless we are allowed to see the way that scores are tallied.It's also completely overkill for a bullshit social survey such as this--which doesn't even tell us the method and how participants responded to the survey.

D) The sample population is enormous, which means an increase in error just as a consequence of pure arithmatec and was not randomized. There is absolutely no brief on how error was calculated. Maybe they just used standard error (0.02%) as is the case in psychology, which is a psuedoscience, the findings of which are, like this paper, almost entirely philosophical. What legitimates a real science is the ability to make accurate predictions about observable phenomena--which psychology cannot do. Ever.

E) Nobody starts a wake and baker. It's ridiculous to assume, and unnecessary to ask if, that someone who smokes pot once in the period of one year will report the same kind of intellectual decline as someone who has been smoking for more than one year...it's such a stupid fucking question, I can't even believe the researchers here have bothered to ask it. How about we see a longitudinal study over three of five years which denotes the rate of consumption among other factors.

In any case, don't read too much into this thing, people. It's a first-year grade lab report probably drawn up by entitled Gen Y'ers. Abysmal.

s

Edited January 26, 2016 by starling

[Sallubrious]

I have to admit I didn't read the pubmed study Starling ( I blocked them on my host list because of XSS issues I've had there over the years)

So the NORML article in the first link stated that the users had to have had 50 or more doses of Ganga, did the pubmed study show a different criteria ?

A lot of what you've said seems quite typical of that type of the dribble you see in a lot of pubmed publications - but with human studies it's hardly a controlled laboratory experiment, it's just a rough collation of data and then someone draws a conclusion that fits their objectives.

Unless you had multiple sets of identical twins and kept them all in a standard sensory deprivation bubble from birth until the end of the study, I don't see how you could draw any conclusions either way.

Did you crunch the numbers yourself and find any errors with their conclusions or do you just have misgivings regarding their methods ?

Edited January 26, 2016 by Sallubrious

[Cubism]

I have to admit I didn't read the pubmed study Starling

Having just read the article in full then rereading Starling's post......I'm pretty sure he also didn't read it (...or at least understand it).

[etherealdrifter]

all bong jokes aside, why did david bowie have to die before the rest of us.

Fuxk,

my limited experience shows that real chicks dig weed and dick

i've seen blokes turn to chicks after smoking real organic pot.

i thought he was gunna outlive all of of us think about it.

bowie did shit tilli he died, then in his death=bed , made the swansong album.

On ya Booooooooooooooo weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[starling]

Having just read the article in full then rereading Starling's post......I'm pretty sure he also didn't read it (...or at least understand it).

oh please--give me an excuse.

Care to elaborate?

[Yeti101]

I am not qualified to say what's wrong with the article, but I do note that articles republished on reset.me are often somewhere between optimistic and extremely selective when it comes to evidence.

[Distracted]

If it wasn't for that bloody bong when I hit 18 I could have been a dropkick retail worker for the rest of my life...

Suppose different folks react differently to the herb

I think the way to get people to stay in 'dropkick retail worker' jobs is to dose them out cannabis. It allows people to become comfortable about things that society says they should change.

Personally I think all retails workers should feel bad about the life choices they make, they're obviously a part of a lower social caste than us.