Trigger warning: Drugs

[Ben Shapiro]

I love how he said in his youtube address that prolong use of pot made someone dumber, and drop IQ points. 
Disregard Carl fucking Sagan smoked the shit out of pot.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23291209

If the findings from this study are accurate, legalization should have a heavy impact on sales of synthetic cannabinoids.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

These were interesting as well:

http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc84283/m2/1/high_res_d/thesis.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23043552
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14659891.2013.770571

[AFK]

Interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23291209

If the findings from this study are accurate, legalization should have a heavy impact on sales of synthetic cannabinoids.

How do you come to that conclusion? 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I love how he said in his youtube address that prolong use of pot made someone dumber, and drop IQ points. 
Disregard Carl fucking Sagan smoked the shit out of pot.

To be fair, it's absolutely true that heavy marijuana use that begins during adolescent years is correlated with a greater IQ loss by age 38. The main problem with the study that found this, however, is that they failed to control for socioeconomic status or a host of other potential confounds, so we really have no way of knowing whether heavy marijuana use is a cause or an effect; the authors saw the correlation and declared causation, which is scientifically irresponsible. More research is called for.

http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/15/new-research-questions-marijuanas-impact-in-lowering-iq/

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23291209

If the findings from this study are accurate, legalization should have a heavy impact on sales of synthetic cannabinoids.

How do you come to that conclusion?

Users report a strong preference for natural over synthetic cannabis.

But like I keep saying, I'm not making predictions, because we don't have the data yet. Just guesses based on what we do have. Can you stop looking for a fight?

[AFK]

Discussion =\= a fight.

I can do this even-keel, can you?

That study is clearly looking at people college students who were experimenting with the drug.  And they are asking about past 12 month use, which is going to capture the experimenters and anyone using it more regularly.

So based on that, it seems clear to me that the sythetics weren't being used as an alternative to natural marijuana and most likely, amongst this population, just out of curiousity. 

The profile of the habitual user of synthetics has been, on average, older white males, early 30s - middle aged males.  They are seeking this kind of high, but not as a legal alternative to weed.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Discussion =\= a fight.

I can do this even-keel, can you?

That study is clearly looking at people college students who were experimenting with the drug.  And they are asking about past 12 month use, which is going to capture the experimenters and anyone using it more regularly.

So based on that, it seems clear to me that the sythetics weren't being used as an alternative to natural marijuana and most likely, amongst this population, just out of curiousity. 

The profile of the habitual user of synthetics has been, on average, older white males, early 30s - middle aged males.  They are seeking this kind of high, but not as a legal alternative to weed.

Are you talking about the same study? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23291209

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, can you provide links when you make a claim? Otherwise, it's me posting sources and you saying "nuh-uh", which isn't really a discussion.

[AFK]

Interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23291209

If the findings from this study are accurate, legalization should have a heavy impact on sales of synthetic cannabinoids.

You used the above study to support your opinion that legalization would have a heavy impact on the use of synthetics.  But in this study 99% of the respondents who indicated using the synthetic cannabinoids also reported using natural.  So it clearly wasn't being used as an alternative.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23291209

If the findings from this study are accurate, legalization should have a heavy impact on sales of synthetic cannabinoids.

You used the above study to support your opinion that legalization would have a heavy impact on the use of synthetics.  But in this study 99% of the respondents who indicated using the synthetic cannabinoids also reported using natural.  So it clearly wasn't being used as an alternative.

I am not sure how you would come to that conclusion; the fact that almost all users have used both is not an indication one way or the other about availability of either at any given point in time.

But it does say this:

Natural cannabis was preferred to synthetic cannabis by 93% of users, with natural cannabis rated as having greater pleasurable effects when high (t(930)=-37.1, p<.001, d=-1.22) and being more able to function after use (t(884)=-13.3, p<.001, d=-0.45). Synthetic cannabis was associated with more negative effects (t(859)=18.7, p<.001, d=0.64), hangover effects (t(854)=6.45, p<.001, d=0.22) and greater paranoia (t(889)=7.91, p<.001, d=0.27).

That is what I am responding to when I say that if the data in this study is accurate, my guess is that legalizing marijuana should reduce sales of synthetic marijuana substitutes.

But that is just a guess, as we won't have data for a while.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You seem to take issue with me guessing that. I'm not sure why, since it doesn't change anything or affect anything. We will probably have data on whether actual usage rates change in a year or so. I will be surprised if it turns out that usage of synthetic cannabinoids remains the same after legalization of marijuana. That's all there really is to me having made that guess.

[Faust]

Tigger warning on a drugs thread, also known as the starting pistol on a race to 100 pages

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Tigger warning on a drugs thread, also known as the starting pistol on a race to 100 pages

[Faust]

Whoops. I can't post a single coherent message any more without typos.

Actually a tigger warning sounds like an awesome thing and would guarantee a I click a thread.