Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), reports at AlterNet:
A new study identifying minor differences in the brain imaging of habitual marijuana consumers compared to non-users may be ideal for stimulating sensational headlines (e.g., "Regular pot smokers have shrunken brains, study says," Los Angeles Times, November 10), but tells us little in regard to whether pot poses actual health risks.
Specifically, an MRI scan revealed less gray matter in the orbital frontal cortex of pot-smoking subjects compared to those who had never used the drug. Researchers also identified increased connectivity between certain regions of the brain in regular marijuana users compared with non-users.
So precisely what do these findings tell us in regard to pot use and health? Not much. Since the study design is not longitudinal, investigators cannot determine whether these differences are caused by subject's cannabis use, whether these differences existed prior to subjects' ever trying cannabis, or whether these differences persist when users' cannabis consumption ceases.
Most importantly, investigators in this study failed to determine whether any of these differences are positively associated with any measurable adverse performance outcomes, such as cognitive performance or quality of life. It may be that these cannabis users are functioning in their daily lives in a manner that is indistinguishable from controls, in which case the imaging differences may hold little if any real-world significance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 12 2014, @05:34PM
Yes. And when the modern humans came, the Neanderthals immediately recognized that they don't want to live in a world full of people that stupid, and therefore decided to die out.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 12 2014, @09:36PM
Not immediately - they tried to breed the stupid out of us first, though it obviously didn't take. I suspect it was the inane pillow talk that finally led them to embrace extinction.
(Score: 1) by Wierd0n3 on Thursday November 13 2014, @12:47AM
I think this could be a skit on robot chicken.