Middle-Aged Drug Users Have Sharper Minds: 50-YR-OLDS WHO TOKED-SCORED HIGHER ON MEMORY TESTS

[Uncle Joe]

23. You make some good points, Peace Patriot.

"As for the substance of this study, that's likely what the manipulators of the Corporate Press want us to restrict our discussion to. Is it harmful? Is it not? (It's possible they are setting up the researchers to be dissed or discredited later on--another possible hidden motivation.) What we should really be talking about is the "war on drugs" and the criminal misuse of this "war" by the U.S. government as a tool of aggression and, if my suspicions are correct, a flipover into vast crime (by the Bush Junta). Whether a drug is harmful or beneficial, or whatever, really isn't that important. How society handles problems such as drug use, drug addiction or the desperate poverty that drives people into illicit trades is the heart of the matter.

So maybe what the Corporate Press motivation is here is distraction. They are quite aware of the legalization movement in Latin America, and the medical marijuana movement here, and they are publishing this NOT to add information and enlightenment to the discussion, but to draw people off into a side issue. That is yet another Corporate Press tactic to look out for.

There is evidence of honesty in this study, in that the researchers admit that "The middle-aged tokers may have scored higher than others because the drug users tended to have a higher education level than non-users." That makes intuitive sense to me (though I don't have any numbers), having lived through much of the history of this medicinal herb as it was demonized by thuggish or cowardly politicians and turned into an excuse for fascist oppression. Intelligent people saw through this and some of society's brightest were in fundamental rebellion against the war machine when marijuana smoking became a synonym for living peacefully. Indeed, that is the first thing that occurred to me, when I read the headline--that many smart people took up marijuana smoking and maybe that skewed the numbers. Well, they admit it, so that's good. On the other hand, you have to wonder about taking up such a stupid study--that is, a study with such a huge "chicken and egg" question at its core. What does it matter, in the end, whether marijuana impairs memory, or benefits memory, or is neutral? The REAL issues are, a) individual freedom, and b) TRILLIONS of dollars WASTED on the "war on drugs." Why didn't they do a study instead on the assholes instigating wars? (Oh, wait, that might harm the cocaine trade!) "