The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

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Dear Julius:

Will smoking make me stupid?

Thanks,
tokejoker

Hey tokejoker (nice screenname) -- you'll be pleased to know that the answer is a resounding no.

As we've talked about before, responsible marijuana use will not make you any less intelligent. Even if you smoke regularly, there will be no long term effects on your overall intelligence level. "That's all well and good", one might say, "but what about in the short term?"

Previously, it was thought that marijuana made you less intelligent -- at least you were "stupid" in the common sense of the word when stoned. As it turns out, that's not quite true. According to Columbia University and New York State's Psychiatric Institute, experienced marijuana users can be just as capable when stoned as they are sober. From the article:

Volunteers completed the Gambling Task once sober and three times after smoking cannabis or placebo.

Though cannabis intoxication increased the time required for subjects to complete their tasks, volunteers' accuracy was not adversely impacted by pot.

So the overall verdict? Marijuana will certainly make you slower, but it won't make you stupider.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Health/Medicine, Q/A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.