| They call me the sloth… |
A questionable U.K. study claiming that marijuana is linked to laziness is being passed around like it’s the gospel this week – even though the researchers in the study question whether “a syndrome exists” and admit that they only studied cannabis users who admitted to previously having “psychotic-like experiences”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/marijuana-motivation-longtime-use-pot_n_3534031.html?ir=Healthy+Living
Not only that, but the study comes out of marijuana-paranoid U.K. These are the same people who think “skunk” is a new type of marijuana and that it can cause you to go insane and hurt people or yourself. Seriously, it’s like they read Nancy Reagan’s notes from the 1980s on WikiLeaks or something.
Anyway, this half-assed study from the Imperial College London looked at the brains of 28 people, with 19 being heavy ganja smokers and the other 19 saying they didn’t partake at all. The scans apparently showed that the marijuana users had less dopamine in their brain.
Dopamine is your body’s chemical way of “rewarding” certain behaviors. It’s what makes you feel good about accomplishing things like being a top performing athlete, rocket scientist, multi-billion dollar computer company owner and even President of the United States – you know, all things people who have smoked herb have done with their lives.
The study says that the user group all began between the ages of 12 to 19 and all had had at least a few psychotic episodes while on cannabis that included hallucinations and extreme paranoia. (See, there’s that cannabis psychosis thing I told you about). They say that usually people who experience those symptoms have higher levels of dopamine in their systems than normal. Not lower, like the had.
The study reeks of anti-pot propaganda. Even though the researchers say they can’t prove it was the cannabis as opposed to other life factors, they make a point in a press release to say that their research links cannabis to other drugs like cocaine and heroin. They also tie it in with other “studies” that show an increased link between cannabis use and schizophrenia (which, like this study, also ignore other life factors in the study participants).
“It has been assumed that cannabis increases the risk of schizophrenia by inducing the same effects on the dopamine system that we see in schizophrenia, but this hasn’t been studied in active cannabis users until now,” said Dr Michael Bloomfield, head researcher, in a press release.
And then comes the kicker:
“Although we only looked at cannabis users who have had psychotic-like experiences while using the drug, we think the findings would apply to cannabis users in general, since we didn’t see a stronger effect in the subjects who have more psychotic-like symptoms. This needs to be tested though.”
Yes, it does. Because as any ganja smoker can tell you: Cannabis doesn’t make you lazy. Being lazy makes you lazy.