Pot and Its Impact on BB IQ?
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Come to my classroom of HS freshmen and I’ll expose the supposed non harmful effects of pot. Many of my kids smoke, and while there are also other factors contributing to their being years behind academically, pot and it’s impact on the cities is clearly demonstrable. See you in E507 Monday morning at 7:10!
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@HawksWin You know opium and marijuana aren’t the same thing, right? And drugs weren’t why the British won the Opium Wars.
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I recently heard someone throw out an old term I have not heard since the '70s… “the Colorado Acapulco Golden Buffaloes”… Boulder has been known as a major party town probably my whole life. I wonder if they raised it a notch since the State gave local municipalities the right to sell and possess?
Imagine if Colorado was still in the B12? I bet we always had a stricter team curfew policy in Boulder (and maybe Austin) then other places in the B12. What would it be like today? Players can step in a legal shop and buy without fear of legal problems. But what about school and team policies? I wonder if teams think about it and update their drug policies these days before wandering in the State of Colorado for a game?
And what about the schools in Colorado… Can Colorado athletes lose their scholarships over marijuana use from within their borders?
I spent 20 years of my adult life in a society where pot was legally tolerated and sold openly in coffeeshops. From a societal point of view, after the “buzz” wears off on the novelty (and profits drop off on the black market) use drops below other societies where it is illegal. It does seem like more people use it there because it is visible in public (whereas it is not so visible in societies where it is illegal). Pot is non-toxic. No one has ever OD’d from smoking or eating pot or pot products. There are studies that suggest different impacts on the body over time, none are anywhere close to the toxic effects of alcohol. But there are typical effects from continued use that can be detrimental to one’s life. A typical effect is a reduction of motivation in areas relating to productivity. Some users have issues with memory loss and the inability to organize things mentally.
From a recreational perspective if someone wants to criticize marijuana use then they can do so because it tends to slow down productivity and while high, opens up risks in operating motor vehicles, boats, and everything else that can become an instrument of death and pain if not used responsibly. That will remain the argument for those on that side. There really isn’t an argument when comparing it as a recreational substance versus alcohol. Alcohol has all the same negatives plus many more. First, it is a toxic substance that brings people to a numb state only through a process of poisoning. Many thousands of people die every year from the physical effects of alcohol. People literally drink themselves to death. It has a much higher rate of addiction, too. It is also a depressant and often has the effect of creating aggression in people. How many people get in fights from drinking? How many from smoking? Right…
The real question is; do people have the right to numb out? If we don’t like people using pot we definitely shouldn’t like people using alcohol either.
Do we restrict it all? None of it?
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BBQ is AWESOME when you’re high!
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Really strange thread. We can call this thread “The Ganja Theory”.
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@KUinLA BBQ is always awesome.
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Or maybe it’s the alcohol that we legally sell on every street corner in America that’s lowering the IQ. I swear one time I saw Naadir so drunk he posted a picture of himself drunk on Twitter and got kicked out of the best program in D1.
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@Blown The alcohol comparison is excellent, but demonstrates the flawed logic of the potheads.
The best argument that potheads have is the comparison to alcohol. But alcohol is one of the scourges of society. It has destroyed millions of lives. It has exacted a tremendous toll.
Yet, “it’s no worse than alcohol” is what we hear from the moral equivalency crowd. And it’s a relatively valid point on the surface. If this, why not that?
But of course, that’s how our society has continued to go down the rat hole.
The only reason alcohol is legal is because it has a much deeper cultural history of legality. In fact, but for the brief period of prohibition, it’s always been legal. It’s the cultural history that makes it different than pot.
Pot, on the other hand, has really always been illegal. Further, the typical, historical pot crowd fit the stereotype. That didn’t inspire any change in thinking regarding legality.
What has changed is that our society in general has deteriorated.
The fact is, our society, our lives, everything else, would be much better without pot or alcohol.
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"Yet, “it’s no worse than alcohol” is what we hear from the moral equivalency crowd. "
The real crowd for pro-pot says “it is far superior than alcohol”… very different argument. And if you look at the health statistics concerning alcohol use and the devastating impact it has on millions of people, you will understand that from a medical perspective it isn’t even close.
I’ve had to deal with very close friends, many of them, that have had problems from using alcohol and pot. Some using both. I’ve buried a couple that relied on alcohol. I am convinced there is addiction for both substances, but it is far worse for alcohol. And watching someone destroy his liver is a devastating experience… something you won’t experience with a pothead. Also… diabetes is prevalent with alcoholics, too. Another super killer!
I’m not advocating anyone to become a pothead.
“The fact is, our society, our lives, everything else, would be much better without pot or alcohol.”
That seems like a true statement, because we don’t seem to see a benefit from either substance within our society. But the truth is we don’t know if that would be the case, because alcohol and pot have always been in our society, when they were legal and illegal. These substances can be considered “coping substances”… question is… how does our society “cope” when they don’t have substances to cope with? I doubt we will ever know this answer because it is unlikely these substances will ever vanish from circulation. Heck… even guys in prison score substances…
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@HighEliteMajor Marijuana was actually made illegal in the US in the early twentieth century.
Not that it matters. The fact is neither one provides any real benefit to anyone’s life. People who say that there’s nothing wrong with getting high everyday are the same people that point out that people like Bill Gates never went to college, therefore, they don’t need to go to college either.
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Don’t you think the real question is whether or not it is a benefit to our society if people have something they can turn to when they want to “take the edge off?” Does that outweigh the negative side?
There are plenty of people out there that use alcohol and pot in a responsible way and we never hear about these people because they don’t attract attention to themselves… they aren’t getting in fights in parking lots, filling our medical system with their liver issues, or just being a “wasteoid” on the couch. What happens when you cut off the relaxation method of millions of productive people? Do they just become more productive? Or do they suddenly let things build up inside and vent? I don’t think mankind is a machine only put on earth to work. It seems like even productive people need or want to “lubricate” themselves while socializing or doing things like watching movies. If that is taken away, do they turn violent?
Do we always have to bring our culture down to the lowest common denominator?
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@HighEliteMajor Agree with your points. That has always been my contention…don’t tell me that Pot is no worse than alcohol…we know alcohol is bad for society…tell me what would be good about legalizing the stuff.
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One issue that is often overlooked is the fact…yes, it is a proven fact…that just about every heavy drug user started with pot until it was not enough and then graduated to the heavier drugs from which there is no way back. Pot is a “gateway” drug. Yes, there are many recreational, occasional users that go no further than pot, but for many, it opens the gates to heavier drugs and that is a real issue. I would be curious to see how the number of heavy drug user will increase over the year in Colorado now that pot is legal.
I remember an interview (60 Minutes years ago) with a doctor that started with pot and then graduated to cocaine and heroine and got fully addicted…he said… there is no divorce from drugs, only a temporary separation…those words have stuck with me ever since since it is the best explanation of what drug addiction is.
By the way, the Governor of Colorado. John Hickenlooper is on the record as saying: If I could’ve waved a wand the day after the election, I would’ve reversed the election This was a bad idea.
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@JayHawkFanToo The biggest drug problem in the country today is the addiction to prescription pain killers. The “best” of the pain killers are opioids. They are also the most dangerous from an addiction standpoint. Opioids are a class of powerful drugs that includes morphine, heroin and brand names such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet. A doctor prescribes OxyContin, as an example, and the patient becomes addicted. People are now turning to heroin because these drugs are very expensive and after a while they cannot pay for the legal variety.
Now the question is: what does this problem have to do with pot? Aunt Mildred is buying street heroin to feed her addiction originally caused by an automobile accident. The thought of buying pot never occurred to her but there she is. How could this possibly have happened as she never ingested cannabis? Well unfortunately it happens every day to many people.
Why don’t we stick to basketball which everyone here knows something about?
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@HawksWin What did you say? Im too baked to understand your logic.
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@drgnslayr Very good point. I should qualify my statement by saying dependence on either provides no benefit, which is what I was thinking, rather than making it sound like anyone who touches the stuff turns into a monster or a loser.
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Sorry, a cut and paste:
The “gateway hypothesis” or theory refers to the idea that one substance — marijuana, in this case — leads users to subsequently use and/or abuse other drugs. If Christie’s point is simply that the use of marijuana tends to precede the use of other drugs, then he is correct — but that’s not the whole story. Though studies of large populations of people have indeed found that those who smoke marijuana are more likely to use other drugs, these studies show a correlation without showing causation — a commonly misunderstood phenomenon in science. In short, just because marijuana smokers might be more likely to later use, say, cocaine, does not imply that using marijuana causes one to use cocaine. A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences, laid out this issue clearly (see pages 100-101): “In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation into the use of other illicit drugs, it is indeed a gateway drug. However, it does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse; that is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association.”
Just sayin’.
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The addiction to illegal drugs is more than 10 times the amount of prescription drugs. Yes it is a problem, a growing problem, a big problem, but the abuse/addiction of/to illegal drugs is one order of magnitude larger. Let’s keep things in perspective.
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Good point. Marijuana doesn’t turn people into heroine addicts. It just so happens that most heroine addicts have tried pot, alcohol, and even water!
I like the idea of raising tax dollars with it. In the long run, by legalizing it we will end up having fewer users (if you believe what has happened in Europe over the past several decades). Take the big money out of the black market and pot isn’t “pushed” any longer. Plus… the mystique is gone. I had been around it for 20 years and I don’t even notice it.
I’d rather have the sell of pot benefit road construction than just line a dealer’s pocket. Seems every State (including Kansas) is broke now. That bothers me a lot more than pot.
Are there 10 times more addicts using illegal drugs than prescription drugs? I would think it is the other way around, but I don’t know those numbers. I just saw a documentary about the drug problems in rural areas and how the doctors out there had started writing pain killer prescriptions too freely and turned a big part of the rural community into opiate addicts. Then the law stepped in and roped the legal sell down and those people then turned to illegal opiates on the street.
The one fact on all of this stuff is that certain people (whether it be because of genetic reasons or other reasons) have a strong addiction tendency to one or more things and it is something very painful to witness and it costs are society a fortune to try and deal with all whether it be directly and indirectly. Very sad topic.
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Gee! This took about 3 minutes to do. This is like getting Facebook notices from friends about some terrible thing circulating on the net. A simple internet search shows otherwise. I am quite sure, however, that nothing will change your mind and that’s ok because it is after all your mind.
http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-biggest-drug-problem.html
http://blog.naturalhealthyconcepts.com/2014/09/18/painkiller-abuse/
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Gee! it just took looking at your own post and links you cited and from your own second link:
You can see that the illicit drug use (23.9M) plus marijuana use (18,.9M) is considerably larger than the prescription drugs abuse (6.8M).
Like I said, prescription drugs abuse is a big and growing problem but compared to the other illicit drugs is not nearly as big. BTW, that is the largest number cited I have seen for prescription drug abuse and most other surveys have it in the 2-4 million.
I am sure we both can find other statistics to support our assertion but in the end, it is irrelevant. Can we just agree to disagree on the numbers and agree that drug abuse of all kinds is a big and growing problem in this country? I, for one, would prefer to get back to talking KU basketball.
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@JayHawkFanToo Amen to that! I had no idea this posting turned out this way. Simply wanted some thoughts on how pot and other chemical are/could effect our young growing players from learning in today’s much shorter time frame (1-2 years) all the while having to shorten their learning curve when other distractions like alcohol, girls, etc. are enticing them and their time. Think today’s players are under much more stress, and their world more complex compared to earlier decades. Let’s get back to KUBB. Enough info on pots/drugs that my brain is fried.:)
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One of the most intelligent chat locations I’ve ever seen --a true gift to a KU fan in Montana who never gets to see any games live. So kudos to you all. I don’t disagree with your concerns about bad influences on b-ball, whether it be the AAU, shoe companies, or the failure to teach boys how to teach free throws. But as a former China prof at the U, I’m afraid I have to be a jerk and correct the historical claim. It was called the Opium War and not the “Pot” War for a reason: Opium is of the heroin family, yes? hoplessly addictive. and thus a whole different ball game from any more casual drug. The war was not about opium nor lost because of opium use, but it’s impact was huge. England’s use of opium (the gift that kept on giving) to counter their problems finding any other exports the Chinese wanted from England create tensions that soured relations. No less important, becase so much silver left China to pay for Opium, the tax rate --set in silver–tripled overs some years for millions of peasants who never even heard of opium. Warning: do not use fun facts like this unless everyone in the room is drunk enough to remember… However, I do find reminding myself that “1.3b Chinese don’t care” is helpful when some otherwise devastatingly good 18 year old decides to enroll at Kentucky.
Again, my sincere thanks for great insights.
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@JayHawkFanToo Amen
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@HighEliteMajor really not sure how to interpret the post because I wasn’t saying that “hey alcohol is legal, so marijuana should be, too”
I was simply suggesting that the “Reefer Madness” propaganda is still very present today. Marijuana is treated like the bogeyman, when in fact, there are so many daily behaviors that can be highlighted that demonstrate bad decision making.
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Is everybody that drinks alcohol a “Drunk” like everyone who consumes Cannabis is a “pothead”?
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“Is everybody that drinks alcohol a “Drunk” like everyone who consumes Cannabis is a “pothead”?”
Good point! Lots of good conversation in here. I like keeping it to basketball but I have to admit we needed something in here to keep it going and we were just grinding back and forth on recruiting.
I think this week we’ll have a lot to talk about again concerning Kansas hoops.
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I’m certainly no pot head. Although I did try marijuana in my early twenties I had terrible experiences with it, I have never felt the slightest compulsion to try it again. That said, I have never once heard a compelling reason for either the prohibition against its use, nor the demonization and misinformation that seems to surround the topic in some circles.
If you find the argument that marijuana is “no worse than alcohol” an uninspired moral equivalency (although it isn’t a moral equivalency, but an empirical one), how about we substitute fast food or football? If that seems flippant, may I point out that marijuana is not a chemically addictive substance, so the comparison to fast food addiction or something like pornography addiction is apropos. These substances don’t alter the function or make up of one’s brain in order to cause their addiction. They merely feed the dopamine engine (our natural reward center in the brain). Literally anything that does this can become addictive to a person, and that means literally anything one finds pleasurable.
Never the less, the fact of the matter is that in a free society, the default position for any activity is always one of permissiveness. We allow people to consume things or participate in activities that have little morally redeeming value and can quite literally kill them because we supposedly value the right of the individual to make an informed and responsible decision, and to the extent that a minority cannot, we tolerate that in order to respect the autonomy of the majority. Were it not for that, any measure of restrictions that today we would find to be draconian at best might seem to be reasonable in the light of preventing harm to ourselves and to society.
But even if appeals to freedom and personal responsibility don’t persuade you, I would point out that since 1971 when Richard Nixon fired the opening salvo in the war on drugs, we’ve invested over a trillion dollars (that’s $1,000,000,000,000) in fighting drug use (primarily marijuana, which accounts for about 40% of all drug related arrests), and yet the marginal rates of marijuana use in this country have been relatively stable over the past 30 years. About half of all people in this country are in my camp; people who have tried marijuana in their lifetimes. Yet only a very small percentage of people continue to use throughout their lives (predictably, usage peaks in the late teens/early twenties, before dropping off precipitously as people reach their 30s and beyond). In other words, we’ve invested a ridiculous amount of money fighting a problem that doesn’t actually exist. The only thing that we do have to show for cracking down on marijuana is that we’ve doubled the arrest rate for marijuana related crimes since 1982 (90% of which are for mere possession) and we’ve got the largest prison population (both in real terms and per capita) in the western world.
Marijuana definitely isn’t harmless and definitely shouldn’t be treated as such (and no one who wants to pursue professional athletics should have anything to do with it), but the policy for dealing with this social ill that has existed these past 45 years is a colossal failure and is more a blight to our society than pot use ever was. And for anyone who truly believes that our society is running down the tubes, I’m sorry, but that’s a self-serving delusion. Despite the problems we face today, the world, and this country especially, has never enjoyed greater wealth, health, prosperity, and freedom. Today people live longer, have more choices, and are less likely to die violent deaths than ever in human history (even with ISIS/Al Queda, Mexican drug cartels, etc). Don’t romanticize the past just because it seemed simpler or better to you at the time. Every era has had its struggles. Today is the greatest day to be alive.
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@HighEliteMajor said:
our society, our lives, everything else, would be much better without pot or alcohol.
Wine is a sacrament in my religion. And Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine.
Addendum:
“alcohol is one of the scourges of society. It has destroyed millions of lives. It has exacted a tremendous toll.”
I would posit that it is not alcohol, but the abuse of alcohol, that is one of the scourges of society…and has destroyed millions of lives. And has exacted a tremendous toll.Do you really think alcohol is the demon, or is the demon within the individual? Do you think banning alcohol would solve the problems? We tried that and it didn’t work. In fact, it spawned even worse problems.
If a man plays Russian Roulette and loses, do you blame the gun?
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@KUinLA Wine is sacred in my family for many reasons. Let’s just say they’re religious! Ha!
Totally agree with your points by the way. The reasoning is flawed. We want to blame drugs (which includes alcohol), not the abusers. Yet on an entirely different, yet parallel issue such as guns, we wish to blame the abusers and not the guns. I find it illogical.
Interestingly enough, we hail from a state with a fierce and often violent history of progressiveness, perhaps best demonstrated by way of alcohol and the prohibition of it (Carrie A. Nation). Kansas led the way on the moral topics of that era, be it abolition or prohibition.
