Bright sunshine and nearly-clear skies this Thursday morning on California’s north coast and supposedly will continue the rest of the week, the seemingly always present fog bank notwithstanding.
Rain this weekend — 20-30 percent, and looks a front spread out over a few days.
Marijuana back in the news with studies on use/abuse, or the lack of either. Weed has in creased in popularity the past decade: ‘Pot use increased dramatically over the past 10 years, and now 10 percent of the U.S. public uses the drug, as more Americans say it should be legalized, according to a study published Wednesday.’
(Illustration found here).
As marijuana knowledge increases, so some dumb remains. An often-use misnomer in the above quote, ‘…uses the drug,’ the word, ‘drug,’ being a nefarious-nuanced holder-over from the asshole years. Yet what about the worse ‘drug’ since forever — booze?
In another use-review from last July: ‘The study, published in the Journal of Health Economics, found — perhaps not surprisingly — that alcohol consumption spikes among people just over the age of 21. But it also found that marijuana use experienced a substantial drop at the same age.’
If there’s a pure-gateway drug, it’s alcohol.
Perception is reality to a shitload of people.
And some of the new studies seem to indicate pot abuse, but the findings actually prove otherwise — from seemingly an unlikely place, Forbes, in a piece this morning aimed at some new marijuana-related research:
Contrary to what prohibitionists tend to assume, the increase in marijuana-related problems following legalization may not be proportional to the increase in consumption.
It’s plausible that people prone to excess are less likely to be deterred by prohibition than people of more moderate habits.
If so, problem users may represent a smaller share of cannabis consumers after legalization than they did before, which means marijuana’s benefit-to-cost ratio would improve.
A study published yesterday by JAMA Psychiatry provides some evidence that as the number of cannabis consumers increases, the percentage who experience serious cannabis-related problems will decline.
That is not the way most news outlets presented the study’s results.
“Marijuana use has more than doubled in the U.S. since the beginning of the century,” NBC News reported, “but so have problems for users.”
Reuters’ gloss was similar: “As attitudes and laws in the US have become more tolerant of marijuana, the proportion of adults using and abusing the substance at least doubled between 2001 and 2013.”
Under the headline “Marijuana Use—and Abuse—in the U.S. Has Doubled in the Last Decade,” Newsweek declared that “marijuana use disorders are now a bigger problem than ever.”
These alarming reports not only exaggerate the bad news in the study; they overlook the good news.
Bottom reality: ‘Compared to other activities that Americans enjoy, such as drinking or skiing, marijuana use does not pose a great risk, and saying so is not the same as saying it poses no risk at all.’
Just do it right…