International study reveals that marijuana users are more likely to be 'losers'

An international study followed subjects from birth to age 38 and compared those who used marijuana regularly with those who did not. Among the findings:

• Persistent marijuana users are more likely to be confined to low-paid jobs that demand few skills and have little prestige.
• They are more likely to experience relationship difficulties and to engage in violence and controlling abuse against intimate partners.
• Those who smoked on four or more days a week over a period of many years were relegated to a lower social class than their parents.
• Marijuana users are more likely to be mired in debt.
• They exhibit more antisocial traits at work, including theft and lying.
• They are more prone to exhibit the above problems than even heavy alcohol abusers.

The study also found that marijuana users were worse off even when the study's results were corrected for other factors, such as depression, IQ, socioeconomic history, problems with law enforcement etc.

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Simple logic: To have a job you have to pass a drug screen that tests for THC metabolites that exist in urine around 30 days. This makes a marijuana user less likely to get a job and keep a job.

As long as possessing and consuming marijuana are criminal by legal definition, the consumption of marijuana will always have a correlation with other criminal activity, whether such behavior is a direct effect of the drug or not.

well yeah, the wake and bake crowd are screwed, the same goes for the alcoholics and the ones doing opiates everyday.

that still does not mean i'm not going to drink a beer or two on the weekends.

drugs are bad m'kay.

Still people out there trying to demonize marijuana. Ah well I guess common sense is not so common, as they say :( I think if people knew just how widespread and prevalent marijuana use is, they'd be surprised; the national rate is over 10%, and depending on where you are, it can be as high (teehee...) as 17%. Among young folks, I see it happening a helluva lot more; then again I might be biased because I live in NorCal where pretty much everyone partakes.

People from Michael Phelps to Martha Stewart and many other people in "prestigious" occupations that make money and smoke a lot of pot. And, as @Johnny-n-Rogersaid, as long as we have this needless barrier called drug testing preventing intelligent, hard-working pot smokers from getting good jobs, the statistics will always be skewed. Drug testing has already proven a bust for welfare recipient qualifications, I wonder when we can finally prove it is pointless for work? I think the question we need to ask is not why do we drug test, but what are we preventing by drug testing? Fortune 500 CEOs? Incredible athletes? The next Steve Jobs? Scientific breakthroughs?

Drugs aren't bad, mmkay? Over-consumption is bad. You want a few hits from the bong after a long day? Great! Do you need to wake and bake every single day? Not so good. People need their vices! Might as well make it a harmless one like pot :)

Time to end prohibition.

Not very surprising, but of course the same can be said about alcoholics I'm sure. The question is how casual smoking affects us, since that's what most users would likely be, as with alcohol or other drugs.

It's easy to "prove" the harmful effects of marijuana on society when you relegate marijuana users to being individuals who have a hard time finding and maintaining a job and are criminals by nature. These are harmful effects that would exist even in the absence of any psychoactive effects.

The problem with marijuana prohibition is that it always boils down to the circular "It's bad because it's illegal. It's illegal because it's bad".

I'm not surprised. I have nothing against weed, in fact I think it should be legal everywhere. It's less harmful and addicting than alcohol. It all depends on the individual though. I just know more lazy smokers than productive ones.

What marijuana prohibitionists don't realize is that you can't argue the dangers of marijuana without defending the dangers of alcohol.

When you extend the frame to include alcohol they immediately try to deny the attempt by either saying "we're not talking about alcohol" or more disingenuously "I don't think alcohol should be legal either.

You have to bait them into bringing alcohol into the frame. Once it's in the frame, take marijuana out of the context and you're left with the absurd argument of defending legalized alcohol which is an even harder stance to debate.

• If they bring up "driving", throw DUI casualties at them.
• If they bring up "addiction potential", throw the fact that alcohol is one of few addictions that can actually kill you through withdrawal.
• Bring up alcohol related overdoses and the complete lack of overdose potential of marijana

They will start to cherry pick stories of someone being high and committing a murder or marijuana being given to a child.

• Keep asking questions. Don't defend this absurdity or engage it directly. Ask them about other, more prevalent acts of violence and whether or not marijuana was involved. Once its established that similar violence occurs in absence of marijuana, make them feel stupid for implying that marijuana should have prevented the act of whatever cherry picked nutcase they're using as their defense.
• If they cherry pick an instance of a child being given marijuana, ask them personal questions. "Do you have children and keep alcohol in your house", "would you serve your child alcohol" "have you ever consumed alcohol around a child", etc. Get them to strongly assert the importance of personal responsibility. This is the best stance for advocating decriminalization / legalization.
• Deny them the opportunity to take pre-existing social issues and attribute them to marijuana use by focusing on the underlying issues. By keeping marijuana out of the discussion you force them to resort to being patronizing bullies incapable of rational thought. Exploit their irrationality by playing the victim.

No surprise.

Don't omit good ol' Carl Sagan from that list!

From Carl's Wikipedia entry:

Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym "Mr. X", he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered. The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan's works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences.

Furthermore, his wife, Ann Druyan, was once president of the board of directors of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

But (and, like Kim Kardashian's, this is a rather large but!), Carl Sagan used marijuana as an adult.

As cited under the heading "Long Term Effects" in this article, there does seem to be scientific evidence that marijuana is more harmful to the brains of teens and young adults than to the brains of mature adults.

... a study showed that people who started smoking marijuana heavily in their teens and had an ongoing cannabis use disorder lost an average of eight IQ points between ages 13 and 38. The lost mental abilities did not fully return in those who quit marijuana as adults. Those who started smoking marijuana as adults did not show notable IQ declines.

Perhaps marijuana use should be legal, but restricted to people above a certain age (e.g. 21).

But I'm a loser and I've never even tried marijuana :|

Right, exactly. My dad is like that; kind of an old-school way of thinking, plus he was in law enforcement. Doesn't matter "why"; if it is illegal, it is bad. No questions. The problem is it doesn't stop there, it is almost like an indoctrination of sorts. The subject has come up between the two of us and he stands his ground but he gets really, really defensive and starts using arguments like "Why do people need to do it? They obviously have a problem" or "It's a drug, and that's enough for me to think it should be illegal". I generally drop the subject cuz, well, he is my dad and he gets really agitated lol.

He, and others of similar thinking, are not dumb. They should know better. But they don't. I think a lot of people raised on fear and the whole "Reefer Madness" generation still hold the reins to a lot of power in the US. I don't know. I think deep down he really could not care less, but he has lived so long as this kind of person that when he goes to vote, he will vote against it.

I think they are shown too many one-sided correlations, i.e. "someone smoked pot and robbed a bank". No one shows the guy that drank a cup of coffee and ate pancakes the morning he robbed a bank; caffeine-syrup madness! Bet that happens a lot more lol.

Of course to much of anything is bad for you.

So whats your point?

The study itself.

http://cpx.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/16/2167702616630958.full.pdf?ijkey=PjD9gu0wSdxIDI9&keytype=finite

The article is misleading since the study itself points out that cannabis use isn't necessarily a cause but a sign of social and economic problems.

@Stesilaus: lol that is pretty cool! Good for Sagan and his ol' lady.

As for the "negative" effects, yeah there are some. I mean, hell, I like pot because of the negative effects; I need to slow my mind down, get a little lazy. I generally work 50+ hours a week at a very tough, very stressful job and I'm the kind of guy that will lie in bed for hours thinking about how my day could have gone better, what I did wrong, who I might have upset. Next thing I know it's 2AM and I have to get up for work in 2.5 hours.

I used to take meds with pretty terrible side effects. Now I just eat some medicinal honey, a small square of medicinal chocolate, or a few hits from a pipe. Easy, natural, organic, local, sustainable farmed, readily available. I mean, the stuff literally is a weed, it will grown just about anywhere lol.

I'd never advocate it's use for a child unless that child was severely sick; there are also forms of marijuana (CBD, specifically) that can be isolated and incorporated into different things (syrups, candies, honey, etc) that have no euphoric effect (aka the "high") but are incredibly useful for pain relief, insomnia, and so forth. I tried it for a whilbe ut, well...I like the high lol. I never day-smoke, though, only before bed or on rare occasions when I have nothing planned and just want to watch a movie or something.

Just going to leave this right here, too

The problem is that older generations had faith in the economy, legal system, and politics. It's a deep faith almost indistinguishable from religion. His anger is likely his refusal to accept that the moral code by which he structured his entire life was based on a series of lies.

I don't even smoke marijuana, but I hate prohibiting its use because of the fact that its criminalized status was perpetuated by pure non-fact.

By making laws that protect people from the "personally irresponsible" you're not making people more responsible. They'll just be illegally irresponsible or irresponsible with something else. The only end-game scenario for making laws prohibiting anything that is dangerous if not used responsibly is to essentially prohibit human interaction altogether.

I don't know about you guys but personally I'd rather be a high loser then a sober loser.

Yeah, i think it also said if they removed alcohol, the herb smokers were fine. It was alcohol that was the real problem experts say.

so much win here! Truer words never spoken.

Funny thing is that the term loser is often not seen as being derogatory. The person using the term "loser", however is seen as a bully. And we all know bullies are bullies because they're miserable and can't stand someone not being as miserable as they are. Maybe a marijuana consuming nation is better than a finite resource consuming nation. Just a thought.

It's a renewable resource that consumes more greenhouse gases while growing than it produces while burning. :-)

For my part, I have no objection to the legalization of marijuana, provided that:

1. Access is restricted by age, in much the same way that access to alcohol is restricted by age.
2. Its use in public/shared spaces is controlled sufficiently well to ensure that people who don't wish to inhale it aren't forced to choose between inhaling it and forfeiting use of the public/shared space.

1. Like alcohol

2. Smoking is smoking. This is already illegal with tobacco. I would go a bit further and say that it should be held to the same standards as alcohol. You can't walk down the street with an open bottle of liquor.

New studies:

Sky Blue!

Water Wet!

This makes me think of one of the most brilliant things I've heard about marijuana; "while it may not be inherently harmful, it's just a waste of time that could be used to learn a new skill or hobby".

That's where being a loser comes in. As simple as it seems, people simply become losers because they waste time and money getting high that could be used productively. Money spent on pot and time spent on getting high could be used to study, or money spent on classes.

The opposite is true. Bullies are happier and more successful.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/30/bullies-are-happier-have-more-sex-appeal-says-study/

This, however, requires that people cannot be productive and smoke marijuana on their spare time, while also assuming that everyone is constantly seeking opportunities and knowledge in lieu of smoking marijuana. No, they're watching Netflix. Others are getting high and watching Netflix. If you have disposable income to use on marijuana that you would otherwise use to purchase alcohol or some other shit you don't need, then you're really not changing your economic outcome.

Not surprising.

Those who are down on their luck are more likely to use marijuana.

As I expected.

@Stesilaus: I looked at the more detailed study notes, and at no point was there even an attempt to rule out cannabis as a cause for any of these claims in reference to other variables within one's environment. Cannabis users have lower paying jobs, therefore cannabis is the factor in making them get lesser jobs. I'm sorry, but that study is absurd.

Lets go through the claims you brought up

• Persistent marijuana users are more likely to be confined to low-paid jobs that demand few skills and have little prestige. (Absurdly broad, and takes no other environmental factors into play)
• They are more likely to experience relationship difficulties and to engage in violence and controlling abuse against intimate partners. (Pot causes more anger? That's the first I've heard of that)
• Those who smoked on four or more days a week over a period of many years were relegated to a lower social class than their parents. (Most people are in a lower socio economic state then their parents, I think THE ECONOMY might have something to do with this.....)
• Marijuana users are more likely to be mired in debt. (Absurd, and doesn't take into account the perhaps millions who smoke, but do not reveal this, nor any other socio economic variables)
• They exhibit more antisocial traits at work, including theft and lying. (Another obscenely broad, and clearly biased claim)
• They are more prone to exhibit the above problems than even heavy alcohol abusers. (I'm gonna call bullshit on this one. That is absolutely insane.)

Life is far more than a maximizing of productivity. I am not at all shunning hobbies and skills (kind of like railing against eating vegetables), but look at your day to day life. How many of the things you do everyday contribute to nothing but your happiness, with nothing to offer in terms of productivity?

"Ruling out" is critical. By establishing a base of "pot smokers" and deriving statistics on this base of individuals with complete disregard to demographics, mental health, pre-existing social issues, and beyond all else, the fact that not everyone is honest about their consumption of marijuana because it is illegal, they're being intentionally disingenuous.

Allow me to add:

• It also undermines the "choice" factor in which someone who is overqualified for an unskilled job may experience excessive amounts of boredom and resort to smoking marijuana.
• Is this past or post tense. It's impossible to draw a direct correlation due to the fact that marijuana users often use it for "therapeutic" reasons, or to alleviate stress. If they are in a stressful relationship, they are more likely to smoke marijuana to alleviate that stress. If you want to argue that alcohol or benzodiazepines are safer alternatives, I will engage on that.
• As the "social classes" are constantly being redefined in terms of income while wages remain stagnant, I would say that most people belong to a lower social class than there parents whether they use any illicit substance. You could say that "insert activity here" has the same effect.
• Or are those mired in debt more likely to use marijuana for therapeutic reasons. My ability to more-or-less apply this circular form vs. function argument illustrates a stance with poorly established points with subjective data as the only supporting evidence.
• Because they asked everyone and everyone is honest? Maybe marijuana users are just more honest.
• Bullshit as well. There are actually statistics to refute this.

When someone makes a claim that A. Cannabis causes people to become violent, more so than alcohol, and B. The societal effects are worse than alcohol, they have betrayed their poor standards of scholarship. Alcohol is by any dimension of comparison, far worse to the individual, and to the society, than cannabis.

And this is another critical point in which maybe marijuana users are more satisfied with a lesser standard of living. Is this bad? Do people not buy shit they don't need and are overtly burdened with stress as a direct cause of our consumerist society that tells you what you need to buy to make you happy? If one could transcend this burden by simply smoking marijuana then it would be society's blessing.

How many people's lives completely revolve around getting high?

Wouldn't know personally, but people rarely smoke a joint and disappear. People can do shit while their high, contrary to what some may believe. Smoking marijuana isn't a hobby.

Quite certain the "problem with Law enforcement" is the overall reason who many needs to settle with lower paying jobs and is a "lower class" then their parents. For the simple sake that any criminal record tends to have businesses decline your application and only one that might hire you are very small and lower paying businesses.

When an article is headlined:

"The more cannabis you smoke, the more likely you are to be a loser, finds international study"

I can't possibly see how it would be biased. I mean it's not like the term loser isn't a clearly defined non-subjective generalization.

Drug addicts don't do well in life, who would have known?

Who said anything about drugs. We're talking about marijuana.

Me too.

Like I said, drug addicts do not perform well in life.

Without saying. Kind of off topic though.

I still don´t understand the "need" to use drugs.

It's on topic.

It relates directly to this.

People who use marijuana are drug addicts.

Drug addicts don't do well in life.

I don't understand why money needed to be spent to show proof of something we already knew.

The effects of alcohol are even worse, yet it's legal.

I don't smoke it though. :(

@mrbojangles25 said:

@Jaysonguy said:

@Johnny-n-Roger said:

@Jaysonguy said:

@Johnny-n-Roger said:

Who said anything about drugs. We're talking about marijuana.

Me too.

Like I said, drug addicts do not perform well in life.

Without saying. Kind of off topic though.

It's on topic.

It relates directly to this.

People who use marijuana are drug addicts.

Drug addicts don't do well in life.

I don't understand why money needed to be spent to show proof of something we already knew.

I don't think he was a troll, I just think he didn't understand what I meant.

Is really is easy. Both should be legal. Both should be taken very sparsely or not at all. Don't do drugs kids, legal or otherwise.

right, don't do drugs...kids.

Adults, have fun, just keep it in moderation.