Prompted by “Here’s Why We Hear So Many False Claims About Cannabis”: http://drugscience.org.uk/blog/2015/09/08/heres-why-we-hear-so-many-false-claims-about-cannabis/
The following parts of the prompting piece sets things up nicely here.
And more ink has been spilled about cannabis than any other drug, perhaps because it’s the most widely used illegal drug and the subject of intense debate concerning its regulation.
Because my research focuses on neurological function, I often come across claims about cannabis’ impact on the brain. You’ve likely heard them too: claims that cannabis use lowers IQ by up to 8 points, that use of the drug causes schizophrenia, and that it impairs cognitive function in the long term. What’s fascinating about these claims is that they’re almost always “based on the scientific evidence.” But is that really the case?
A recent example, often-repeated, is that cannabis causes drops in IQ, of up to 8 points – which was the major finding of a 2012 report from Duke University. But, these results were based only on one study and the 8-point drop in IQ was observed in only 38 individuals (3.7% of the total sample). Just last year, a University College London report was published that re-examined this issue in another group of young people, with a sample size over twice as large as the Duke study, and taking into account alcohol use, cigarette use, maternal education, and other potential confounders. The result? The authors found no association between cannabis and IQ at all, not even among heavy cannabis users. It is clear that we are some way off from a final answer to the question of whether cannabis is ever harmful to intelligence.
So given the conflicting findings on this issue, why does this claim continue to circulate as if it were unequivocally true?
The end result is too often that the many scientific corrections, refutations, and re-interpretations of the evidence just get swept under the carpet. We don’t want to believe we have been mislead for all these years.
There’s one more important reason, I believe, that reporting on cannabis science tends towards the negative: money. Scientists examining the health and social impacts of drugs are usually funded by government agencies, and they often highlight the negative effects of drugs to justify their own source of funding. If a scientist can show that a drug is harmful, then they can show that it’s important to do more research on the topic to protect society. The more harmful the drug appears to be, the more critical it is to fund research on it, so their funding is perpetuated. By contrast, if use of a drug appears to have only benign effects, then why would the government bother spending more research money on it? This cycle has perpetuated a scientific industry intent on demonstrating the harmful effects of drugs like cannabis, precisely because doing so allows the industry to justify its own existence. Of course, one of the major consequences of this cycle is that research on the potential benefits of drugs gets sidelined, for example with not nearly enough government funding for studies on cannabis’ health benefits.
There is a massive and growing scientific literature on cannabis. And yet, for all its complexities and contradictions, we only tend to hear about the most negative study outcomes. When people state with conviction that cannabis causes a loss of IQ points, or causes schizophrenia, they are wrong in their certainty. The evidence on these questions is ambiguous and contradictory. Whilst the evidence accumulates, we need to remain open-minded to the possibility that cannabis does not impact IQ or cause schizophrenia, just as we should remain open-minded to the likelihood that heavy cannabis use in adolescence can cause serious harm to some.
If you examine areas acknowledging cannabis legality (or check out the Leafly database), you’ll see a large offering of cannabis strains (basically hundreds of them).
The size of that offering clearly reveals one fact that you unfortunately find only mentioned by yours truly — strain differential is a critical factor in determining the psychological impact of cannabis use.
In other words, without scientifically factoring in that critical differential, the result cannot possibly be scientific (i.e. there really is no science with respect to cannabis’ psychological impact, at least to the best of my knowledge, because apparently no research scientifically factors in strain differential).
Cannabis is still too often demonized, because of one metaphorically applied object — a stirring stick.
Reality (according to mainstream physics, so not only eastern philosophy easily dismissed by western mentalities) is an ocean of energy that we’re all a seamless part of.
When you stir water in a glass, momentum forms and increases in strength with continued stirring. Stir instantly in the opposite direction against that strength, and you feel the pressing conflict causing dissonance like a traffic accident.
When you read pretty much anything I write here, you experience that dissonance to your likely displeasure, despite the firmly grounded and at least carefully authored logical path (a real “no spin” zone, because I believe abusive reasoning is unhealthy for all involved).
People popularly recognized as community leaders form that powerful momentum involving society, and most people (as part of that momentum) naturally instantly flow with that force (it’s all energy).
Might makes right. As is the case with planets forming within our solar system, for example extending outside the realm of human control, larger masses dominate.
People such as yours truly face a terrible dilemma. I clearly realize (and have proven) that gross corruption flows rampantly dangerously with increasing momentum, because community leaders too often abuse their position to benefit their own lives against public safety — and the only possible stoppage of that corruption (within humanity) comes from a sufficiently organized public pressure.
Because the human mind (to minimize unhealthy stress) generally dismisses contrary views against that powerful momentum (simple psychology), people such as yours truly suffer from the ‘first they ignore you’ point stated by Ghandi.
As you clearly read with each journal post, the inability to accrue enough positive feedback here for healthy societal impact doesn’t deter me, because I remain perfectly confident in not only the accuracy of my views, but the serious need for public scrutiny to validate them for the public pressure needed to expose and uproot that severe corruption (built upon rampant reason abuse). I cannot ethically give up.
The level of unhealthy stress occurring due to the corrupt form of might making right is mammoth. It forms poor communities, recklessly destructive opinions throughout the mainstream view (blaming minorities, etc.), terrible health impact (e.g. promoting wildly excessive fast carbohydrate consumption as positive, monopolistic healthcare system and consequently insane price-fixing, etc.), and all of the horrific violence forming more nasty energy currents (rippling against all of society), but the public call is for more traditional leadership power (like pouring gasoline on a fire to put it out).
In other words, corrupt leadership stirs against the fortunately still-strong-enough momentum of a healthy society (like the aforementioned traffic accident).
Unfortunately, like someone waiting too long to fix dietary issues leading to serious health complications (instead of applying a healthy solution upon first experiencing any warning sign to earliest address the then-relatively-minor issue), society presses on with little concern over the handful of ignored “elephants in the room” forming dramatic impact upon society.
I never want to be in the ‘I told you so’ position, but that’s precisely where society is heading on many serious levels (economy, health, law, and science immediately come to mind).
This isn’t scaremongering. This is fully factual point-making forming a firm warning that’s being excessively ignored.
When I say reality, I literally mean whatever happens. Effectively then, reality literally determines 100% of all outcomes (so is effectively the ultimate judge). Some may deify reality as a result, but I never do, because among those outcomes is reason abuse, theft, irrational and unethical discrimination, poverty, famine, disease, rape (including children raped by their own parents), murder, war, genocide, mass extinction, planetary destruction, horrific solar system disruption, galactic death, and so on into relative termination. Why bother worshiping a being needing that horror for its own sustainment (especially when each one of us is a seamless part of it all)?
Reality (logically speaking) is paying literally perfect attention to gross corruption, because reality literally inclusively is all of that corruption.
Reality (as with any system within reality) shows only signs (actually sines) of needing correction for balance and therefore stability. In other words, corruption (like all suffering) always needs a perfectly dominating correcting force for stability.
Nobody gets away with abusive behavior (even upon operating unseen within humanity), because reality (logically the ultimate power and judge) is fully aware of that abuse and by reality’s own necessity, must apply correctional forces — the metaphorical stirring stick not only crashes into dissonance against that corruption precisely as needed, but it does so with purely logically 100% ‘might makes right’ dominance.
That dominating certainty comes from the repeatedly experimentally proven fact that time is a spatial dimension, so all time occurs simultaneously (despite our inability to perceive it that way), and therefore no future place equals reality’s demise (therefore reality must be 100% dominant).
I can return to the anti-cannabis momentum as part of that corruption, so resolve this post nicely.
But anyone following the logic can clearly and only realize that this issue spans well-beyond the limits of even a wonderfully (or, when abused, dangerously) psychedelic plant.
Society (especially ironically the corrupt folks within) needs a new paradigm to prevent corrupt community leadership impact before it starts. That apparently can only happen by way of restrictive law upholding a self-evident and unalienable right to liberty (i.e. liberty — objectively, so fairly, so justly the condition of being free from restriction or control — limited only by the right itself for maximal societal flexibility and positivity).
For that right to become realized, a maximally strictly scientific definition of harm (i.e. not junk/pseudo/suggestive science) must become realized. I say maximally, because there’s apparently no hard-line distinction between harm and otherwise, but there’s a pseudo-objective distinction at which point any human being can only honestly conclude harm is occurring from an observed act (e.g. murder, theft, assault, slander, etc.)
Objectively understanding that reality always corrects for corruption is key to human evolution. That correction forms a fundamental governing quality naturally discouraging abusive actions when possible, so humanity (upon achieving that necessary understanding) can no longer justify the constant desperate cry for judicial interference against abuse (and all of the ironic abuses of power that too often result from that cry).
That understanding naturally reinforces voluntary support for the aforementioned right to liberty, because excessive comfort (e.g. from excessive resources) inevitably means balancing discomfort by reality’s need.
Or society can pathetically continue the continuous and complex abuse war — where human forces battle it out to subjectively define harm (often by defining risk) — and therefore liberty against its unalienable form — and consequently winners and losers in terms of supposed justice. That starts with community leaders (actual ones and childish pretenders) in the oligarchy powerfully influencing mainstream education (including mainstream entertainment) spreading out to convince the masses to follow their too-often selfish path.
Each post here is informational energy like a wave rising and crashing at the beach.
When I’m constantly repeating myself, it’s simply because that’s my often-challenging role in this cosmic ocean of energy (and with each wave, I learn and practice my expression).
You don’t need to read every informational wave, but repetition does reinforce points and your feedback can change the nature of consequent waves hopefully healthily rippling outwards to reach enough minds for positive leadership.
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
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