Well yeah, the results are never 100%, but you can get dam close to it.
Holy crap Teenagers really should not smoke weed
- Thread starter shadyspace
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Its getting on my nerves that weed has become this sort of miracle cure for everything, but any mention of potential side effects are quickly swept under the rug with "well its not as bad as X". I have a family member who uses in order to alleviate seizures, and she does this because standard meds are fucking horrible. Weed is great for mild pain relievers and people with cancer or physical brain issues, but for a whole lot of other people there really arent any benefits. Its like there arent a whole lot of benefits to getting drunk.
LegendofLex
Member
No, they are implying correlation. Even if it's not "the cause," if the evidence suggests a dependent relationship between those factors (and therefore statistically significant grounds to make predictions), isn't that a phenomenon that's worth investigating?
After all, it's the data that shows that graduation is "less likely" for those who smoke weed daily; it's not the conclusion.
From the source:
If there are other shared factors, what would they be?
But it is. If a study says iPhone users are likely to get a higher paid job, should everybody go out and buy an iPhone? This is the kind of study that's used to drive an agenda. There's no science behind it.
njean777
Member
Tbh 25 should be the legal drinking/smoking age. Our brains are not fully developed until then. In the end it wouldn't matter because teens can still easily get Mary Jane and alcohol.
Whitechocolatekrispies
Banned
People think that just because it doesn't kill you it's perfectly safe.
Weed makes you lazy and apathetic. That won't kill you, but it'll destroy your ambition and make you fail at life. Is that worst than death? No, but it's not worst than nothing.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
There is no doubt that some drugs can be developed from cannabis. Canaboid receptors and its effect on other neurotransmitters is very pinteresting. The research is still preliminary as a result of its absurd schedule status.
But it has become somewhat of an exaggeration of how it can be beneficial. A lot of pseudoscience involved.
Eddie Griffin
Banned
I think no one should smoke weed, I do not know any actual non-medical reason why people should smoke it. Even then, medical reasons don't even involve smoking.
Thanks for sharing?
The real science is to get 100 teens that fall within the same arbitrary range of productiveness. Make 50 of them smoke weed daily. And ban the other 50 from smoking weed. Let them continue this for 2 years. Catalog what each student has accomplished in those 2 years and compare.
Yup, it comes a time when you have to use Occam's razor and put the blame on the happy herb. "Maybe people that are genetically predisposed to develop lung cancer are naturally drawn to smoke tobacco!" Yeah, "maybe", but is a long shot, so we chose to control the dam thing.
Is 'because it's fucking great' a good enough reason?
ReturnOfTheRAT
Member
Moderation is not somthing you can expect of them.
Medical reasons don't involve posting on NeoGAF either. What's your point?
NEOPARADIGM
Banned
Imagine that. Please see dat first post.
So it's like alcohol and tobacco then, and should be treated as such. Yeah, I think I've heard that argument before.
Because all pro-MJ folks have been arguing kids should start smoking it at age 5.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Stuff that no study can reasonably control for, such as "made friends with the wrong crowd" and such.
I'm not advocating for marijuana or any kind of drug use, but conclusions like this always kind of bother me. The implication always seems to be that because they found a correlation in the statistics of a population look at over a period of time, that also means that those findings can be extrapolated to the larger population and it can safely be said that there is a risk of dropping out of school or killing yourself associated with smoking weed.
Bulbo Urethral Baggins
Banned
The NIH is about to begin a study on 10,000 teens at the cost of $300 million to look at the effects on brain development. There are several studies showing it fucks with development.
The bad thing is we'll have to wait at least 10 years for the results.
The bad thing is we'll have to wait at least 10 years for the results.
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
What research are the people waving the "correlation =/= causation" doing? Would it be prudent to dismiss the findings of this research based on the fact that one could argue "correlation =/= causation" after reading a summary article having (what I assume to be) little to no professional research experience?
I know quite a lot of people who started smoking weed early, I'm talking as early as 12. My biggest fear for young smokers is not motivation, but future mental health problems. I know so much guys who are in their twenties now who are suffering from pretty severe psychological difficulties and they were all pretty heavy weed smokers at an early age.
I do remember some previous studies in the UK on these dangers?
I do remember some previous studies in the UK on these dangers?
Hmmm, I knew plenty of people at that age that weren't smoking every single day (that's an insane amount). Although I guess I agree moderation probably is a problem for most youth. Ideally teens shouldn't be using drugs at all (as I said, development period of the brain etc. Study's have already shown that it's bad to use certain drugs during this period, especially in excess).
Maybe if we didn't approach drugs like abstinence education with sex, then actually educating people on why it's bad to over use would make things better. Instead of this JUST SAY NO bullshit. Because realistically, kids are going to use drugs, just like they are going to have sex.
I would be willing to guess that most youth don't actually know the physical damage drugs can cause during their brains development period, and are instead just told to stay away from drugs. Well, that's not going to convince them.
Huh? That can be controlled.
Extra Sauce
Member
.
It's bad science to see the result of people's lives and arbitrarily associate the cause of those results to any particular thing. You need to have a starting base that is similar from the start and observe how introducing marajuana changes the group versus the control.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
That would get so laughed out of an ethics board.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
Weed makes you lazy. But that's the point, then, isn't it?
Moderation and all that.
Moderation and all that.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
LegendofLex
Member
Sure, but without knowing what behaviors actually indicate whether someone is associating with the wrong crowd, it's pretty impossible to introduce that as any kind of control. It seems to me that you'd need information like how marijuana use impacts graduation rates to even make a determination about what the "wrong crowd" would even be!
To put it more simply, doesn't this study seem to indicate that teens who smoke weed might actually be the wrong crowd? (Alternatively, it might not have indicated this at all!)
That's study is not ethical, though. But lucky for us, statistics have developed greatly since Fisher's. Nowadays we can get pretty dam good results even if a "proper" experiment isn't feasible.
They don't have to. Background studies exist. The percentage of kids that are good enough to "hide" all their activities from their parents (or even lie on a form) can be tested and controlled.
DocTarHeel
Member
This article was published by the Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals. People in this thread are way to quick to dismiss it because "causation=/=correlation". If you read the article you see that the study accounted for 53 confounding factors and still found a strong association. An RCT would be the gold standard here obviously, but that would never be approved by an ethics committee.
Agreed, but that would be incredibly difficult to carry out, especially with weed use being illegal for underage people. Many of the 50 sober kids would smoke anyway, and there might be other factors concerning which families allow their kids to take part in the study.
A group of latter-day hippies who don't push their kids academically might be more willing to participate than a high-intensity immigrant family.
John Kowalski
Banned
I guess me and my friends are lucky we could never find anything but shitty hash during HS then.
I know. Just saying that's what would yield a conclusion that is scientifically valid.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
Because people don't understand the epidemiological meaning of risk.
http://health.knowledgeblog.org/2011/07/22/basic-statistics-for-epidemiology-risk/
There is a difference between indica and sativa. Some weed may make you lazy.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Obviously there are perfectly functioning high school students that do it and obviously pot alone can't be singled out as there are a wide number of factors, but I hope if it's ever legalized en masse it has a bar set for at least 18 years of age.
I think by 18 most people still don't have a good grasp on what moderation means but at least it's likely more than what they had at 16.
I think by 18 most people still don't have a good grasp on what moderation means but at least it's likely more than what they had at 16.
But isn't this how they test out any drug? For example, when they released those studies years back that said SSRI users committed suicide more often. It was frequent enough that I think it's listed as a symptom now.
The only thing we can hope for is that the study is as impartial as possible and considers other factors.
And I think most of us have anecdotal evidence where we know somebody who is addicted to it and never amounted to anything. There are some who can be constantly high and seem to function somewhat normally, but they are few.
The key is moderation. Every drug is bad for you if you consume too much.
No, that's wrong. Or are you arguing that studies that concluded that tobacco is a risk factor for cancer aren't scientifically valid? Since they are of the same type.
While it is true that weed increases my enjoyment of certain foods, it should never be a god damn requirement to smoke before you eat(unless you have a medical condition, of course).
PaperFlame
Member
Yea I don't really understand these studies. It isn't drug that's an issue it's the people that use it.
If you take away weed from a lazy person, he's most likely still going to be a lazy person.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
OK. I'll continue to take it with a grain of salt if that's the level of control you think is sufficient.
I'm sure their findings for the group they studied are reasonably accurate. That still doesn't say anything about a person's "chances" of having these things happen to them if they start smoking weed as a teenager.
Unfortunately, that's the direction they went with the conclusion: "the results suggest that there may not be a threshold where use can be deemed safe."
It's a good starting point from which to form a theory that needs to be tested. No one should make conclusions and recommendations solely from epidemiological studies.
If you choose a random sample (of big enough size), the odds of all of them being a "lazy person" is very small. The distribution of lazy persons on your sample will tend to follow the distribution of laziness among the population at large.
Much better than establishing policy by gut feeling or personal anecdotes.
BossLackey
Gold Member
Boom. You got it.
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