Pot correlated with making teens less likely to graduate college/HS, more likely to kill selves.

[jberryhill]

10. People who decide to engage in an illegal activity more likely to have other problems

What these kinds of reports fail to take into account is that smoking pot is an activity which is illegal in the first place.

There is no question that the "population of people who smoke pot" is inclusive of the "population of people willing to engage in an illegal activity".

That has nothing, actually, to do with what is the activity in question.

In other words, let's say that you have a group of people in which the incidence of some form of social pathology is 10%.

You then say, "Okay, I want everyone who has jaywalked in the last month to sit on the left of the room, and everyone who has not to sit on the right of the room."

It is guaranteed that among the groups now sitting on the left of the room, the incidence of whatever social pathology you want to name, is now going to be significantly greater than 10%.

Why? Because jaywalking is illegal. No, you are not Charles Manson if you jaywalk, but the "group of people who jaywalk" is going to more likely include the raging sociopaths than not.

It's an unsurprising result.