Overcast and chilly this Wednesday evening here on California’s north coast — winter’s about here…

Beyond our aggravating political circus, this afternoon I spied a couple of new studies on marijuana, both furthering normalization.
First one was about conduct — as more US teens now smoke cannabis then cigarettes, new research indicates pot use won’t turn the kids into criminals — in bucking previous studies, the reaction is apparently the other-way around:

“Cannabis use in and of itself does not appear to lead to conduct problems or increasing attraction to peers who use cannabis,” said coauthor Dan Romer, research director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC).

Although, there’s a chance of what’s called ‘cannabis-use disorder‘ — according to the study, ‘less than a quarter of youthful users‘ develop the so-called problem.
The entire process is also hinged on pre-existing conditions which could amplify/contract behavior:

Cannabis use in adolescence does not appear to lead to greater conduct problems or association with cannabis?using peers apart from pre?existing conduct problems.
Instead, adolescents who (1) increasingly affiliate with cannabis?using peers or (2) have increasing levels of conduct problems are more likely to use cannabis, and this cascading chain of events appears to predict cannabis use disorder in emerging adulthood.

Another weed myth gone…
The second study was another in the widening medical-use field — pot is even better-good health-wise, a much noted medicine for a lot of ailments.
And this research breaks weed down into a genetic map — from the study’s Abstract, published earlier this month:

Cannabis sativa is widely cultivated for medicinal, food, industrial, and recreational use, but much remains unknown regarding its genetics, including the molecular determinants of cannabinoid content.
Here, we describe a combined physical and genetic map derived from a cross between the drug-type strain ‘Purple Kush’ and the hemp variety ‘Finola’.
…
The chromosome structures are similar to those in grains such as wheat, with recombination focused in gene-rich, repeat-depleted regions near chromosome ends.
The physical and genetic map should facilitate further dissection of genetic and molecular mechanisms in this commercially and medically important plant.

Pot is one of the most-maligned things in recent history — and even in a short space.
Another study and the low-brain mentality. Via PsyPost on Monday:

A new study has found that apophenia, or the tendency to see patterns or causal connections where none exist, is associated with receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit.
The findings, which appear in the European Journal of Personality, indicate that people high in apophenia have trouble distinguishing truly profound statements from pseudo-profound statements.
“Since a young age, I’ve enjoyed dissecting different interpretations of ambiguous statements. This interest was revived with the pseudo-profound bullshit statement (PPBS).
“The strangely alluring sense that they should mean something, while not meaning anything, made PPBS incredibly interesting to me,” said study author Timothy Bainbridge of The University of Melbourne.
…
“Given the connection between PPBS and paranormal beliefs, for example, it may follow that these types of beliefs are accepted, not because people will believe anything, but because people sometimes find it difficult to distinguish such beliefs from those that are more reasonable or likely.
To be sure, some of the effect is likely a greater bias toward believing these types of theories, but an inability to discriminate seems to play the larger role.”

Followers of the T-Rump to some extent. Jeff Sessions, maybe.
Which reminds me — I need to do another bowl…

(Illustration above: ‘Cannabis,’ by Michael Creese, found here).