Researchers Say Pot Hinders Creativity Based on Tiny, Flawed Study

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He should pack that bowl.

Despite overwhelming cultural evidence against them, researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands say that pot hurts creativity instead of helping it.
Really.


The study actually is quite amateur and seems to be slanted from the start. Just ask lead researcher Lorenza Colzato:
“The improved creativity that [cannabis users]believe they experience is an illusion,” Colzato says in a news release. “If you want to overcome writer’s block or any other creative gap, lighting up a joint isn’t the best solution. Smoking several joints one after the other can even be counterproductive to creative thinking.”
The study took random marijuana users, broke them into three groups and put them in a room. One group vape 22 milligrams of THC, another got kind of high with 5.5 milligrams and the third didn’t get high at all. Researchers then asked the groups to come up with the most creative uses for a pen in a certain amount of time.
The group that was the most high had the fewest uses.
They also tested the convergent thinking of the groups, seeing how long it took them to answer the question: what is the link between the words “hair”, “time” and “stretching”. (the answer is ‘long’).
In other words: the subjects failed a controlled, limited test on creativity while stoned in an environment that probably didn’t promote creativity in the first place, while asking a question unrelated to anything substantial. Never mind that the subjects may not have even identified as being so-called “creative types” in the first place (that wasn’t a factor in the selection). Also, “creativity” is a very broad term that might apply to many other areas besides thinking of uses for a pen. And we won’t even get into the fact that they only smoked one strain of herb other than to say that it easily could have been a sedative indica meant more for nap-taking than having creative bursts.
Now, we’re also not saying pot makes everyone a creative genius and smoking a joint isn’t going to turn you into Steve Jobs — we don’t need a research study to tell us that. But cannabis has also clearly been aiding in the creative process of some of the world’s most prolific artists and minds over the last century (like the entire musical genre of jazz, for example).
We think this whole thing was summed up years ago by the brilliant mind of cannabis-using comedian Bill Hicks:

“You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. ‘Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years were real fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.”

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