My hunch: If marijuana were traditionally consumed in liquid form — as a tasty beverage with or without a tiny paper umbrella protruding out the top — it would be legal today. Although it continues to be illegal in the vast majority of U.S. regions, some cities, and even the entire state of California, have rethought or are rethinking it’s legal status.
Over the past decades a big argument against legalization was the claim that marijuana is a “gateway” drug. That it leads to the use and possible addiction to harder, more physically and socially injurious drugs.
Is marijuana a gateway drug? The answer to that question depends upon what studies you consider. From some research the logical conclusion would be, seems so. From other research, maybe not.
A recent study falls into the second category.
New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that the “gateway effect” of marijuana – that teenagers who use marijuana are more likely to move on to harder illicit drugs as young adults – is overblown. [source]
Reading and thinking carefully here, the use of the word “overblown” suggests there may be a small link, a minor influence of marijuana use on whether or not an individual later uses other, more truly dangerous drugs.
Oh darn. Damn those precise scientists! Can’t give us a completely black or completely white answer! We’ll have to go to a preacher or politician for one of those.
Additionally, the small gateway effect appears transient.
[O]nce young adults reach age 21, the gateway effect subsides entirely.
Drug use is a complicated subject. A couple other variables that seem involved were exposed by this study. The first being employment. When gainfully employed, individuals are much less likely to “move on” to the use of harder drugs.
And then there was this surprising finding (at least to me) -
The researchers found that the strongest predictor of other illicit drug use appears to be race-ethnicity, not prior use of marijuana. Non-Hispanic whites show the greatest odds of other illicit substance use, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans. [emphasis added]
Hmm. Now that’s food for thought. No, not hash brownies. Regular food. At least not until you punch-out on Friday.
This study on painkillers blunting social pain screams for follow-up. But it intrigues nonetheless:
Over-the-counter painkiller may help ease emotional slights, UF study finds
Why does it scream? No, not for lack of emotion-easing acetaminophen. Because it was one study with a limited number of subjects. And I’m not sure about the measure of the second variable. The social pain part. Here’s some of the specifics -
By random assignment, nearly half the participants, 24 women and six men, took a 500-mg pill of acetaminophen immediately after waking up each day and another 500-mg pill one hour before going to sleep, while 24 women and eight men took a placebo. Each night the participants filled out a survey to assess their level of hurt feelings during the day.
Throughout the three weeks, those who took acetaminophen reported significantly fewer hurt feelings on average than participants in the placebo group, Webster said. In addition, they showed much less activity in areas of the brain linked with emotional feelings, such as hurt and rejection, he said.
Random assignment . . . placebo group. Good. But what is “significantly fewer hurt feelings” — in other words, how large was the effect — and how was it measured? The “much less activity in areas of the brain” was gauged via use of fMRI technology. So that seem solid. But it brings to mind another question: Was the reading of the fMRI scans blinded?
One thing I don’t question much, to quote study co-author Gregory Webster, is “[t]he possibility of this link between physical and social pain systems.” That possibility is highly plausible, judging by what is already understood about human psychology and physiology. Yes, as Webster pointed out, “we live in a dualistic society where people see the mind and body as being very separate.” But that’s changing. I think. I hope.
I do not find this science headline surprising: Brain study shows that thinking about God reduces distress — but only for believers.
There is nothing magical about thoughts associated with something positive inducing a more positive emotional state. I imagine that for lovers of “Mom” or “long walks on the beach” thoughts of these would likewise reduce stress.
But there were a few elements in the article I did find surprising. In a disappointing way. There were two common assumptions repeated, and by association with science, perhaps given greater legitimacy.
First, “God.” Co-author of the study wrote, “Eighty-five percent of the world has some sort of religious beliefs.” That is beliefs, plural. Yet in this and so many other studies we read of God, singular. As if all people around the globe and even within this one country believe in the same god.
The very first sentence to the article -
Thinking about God may make you less upset about making errors, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. [all emphases mine]
Um. Thinking about which god? Does Shiva count? Did Christians think about Allah and Muslims about Jesus and the triune god? I doubt it. In the very least, the piece should have better highlighted that individuals did not think about “God” so much as they likely thought about “their god.”
Second, the researchers found this bit noteworthy:
Interestingly, atheists reacted differently; when they were unconsciously primed with God-related ideas, their ACC increased its activity.
Those atheists — they get upset by “God-related ideas.” So negative.
How much do you want to bet that were the researchers to measure the Christians’ response to Allah-related ideas they would discover an increase in anterior cingulate cortext (ACC) activity.
The paragraph in question continues:
The researchers suggest that for religious people, thinking about God may provide a way of ordering the world and explaining apparently random events and thus reduce their feelings of distress. In contrast, for atheists, thoughts of God may contradict the meaning systems they embrace and thus cause them more distress.
Okay, that’s the second stupid assumption. That atheists have distinct “meaning systems” about their atheism. Do people who don’t believe in the Loch Ness monster similarly have no-monster meaning systems? Please.
Perhaps atheists simply associate religious ideas with negative experiences they have had. Like being preached to or otherwise having someone else’s “God” shoved into their lives. You think?
The final two sentences to the article are real winners. Stupidly condescending and worse -
Atheists shouldn’t despair, though. “We think this can occur with any meaning system that provides structure and helps people understand their world.” Maybe atheists would do better if they were primed to think about their own beliefs, he says. [emphasis added]
Wait. The researchers couldn’t possibly be stating that, when primed with religious ideas (god-related), atheist would be better off thinking about their own beliefs?
I think my brain is bleeding.
So all you atheists out there, from now on when someone says God, think freedom, or science, or even rainbows. Then you could be happier. And then absolutely everyone could believe in God.
New research out of Brigham Young University has found something that runs counter to what they likely would have preferred to find. The study authors from this Mormon school — home of the Flourishing Families Project — did not find that parental influence “protects” children from mental illness. Instead, as the title to the news release tells it . . .
Siblings. Not parents. Well, at least the variable is family-related. Or is it? The lead sentence is appropriately tentative. See if you can spot the very important term -
Something about having a sister – even a little sister – makes 10- to 14-year-olds a bit less likely to feel down in the dumps.
Yes, “something about having a sister” (more dolls? more time in social play? etc.). Why the essential tentativeness? Due to the nature of the data, as described here -
Padilla-Walker’s research stems from BYU’s Flourishing Families Project and will appear in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology. The study included 395 families with more than one child, at least one of whom was an adolescent between 10 and 14 years old. The researchers gathered a wealth of information about each family’s dynamic, then followed up one year later. Statistical analyses showed that having a sister protected adolescents from feeling lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious and fearful. It didn’t matter whether the sister was younger or older, or how far apart the siblings were agewise.
Brothers mattered, too. The study found that having a loving sibling of either gender promoted good deeds, such as helping a neighbor or watching out for other kids at school. In fact, loving siblings fostered charitable attitudes more than loving parents did. The relationship between sibling affection and good deeds was twice as strong as that between parenting and good deeds. [bold and italics added]
With statistical analyses, and whole host of variables involved, you have to make conclusions cautiously. As for the terms “protected” and “promoted” . . . mmmm, I wonder. For the variables of sibling and mental health were statistically associated. This was no controlled experiment.
Also notice that “Brothers mattered, too.” But they didn’t matter in terms of the variables listed in the previous paragraph. They mattered in terms of yet other semi-scatter-shot variables.
While I think it is wise to be skeptical of this finding — not to outright reject it, but to ask questions, await further findings, and to refrain from prematurely and whole-heartedly accepting it.
Why, I wonder, was the relative lack of parental influence not the highlighted finding? I would bet my bottom dollar that the study authors looked for it. But it wasn’t there. Is that not important news? Of course it is. But null results too often get swept under the rug. Ignored.
As for parental influence in general, many studies and lines of research over the past couple decades or so have strongly suggested that it is much less than supposed and perhaps desired. Instead, much of the personality and behavior of children can be chalked up to genetic and peer influence. Among other things.
Sure, parents can and do influence their children. But not as potently as assumed in previous generations. Nor as potently as preached by politicians, talk-show hosts, and clergy who wish it were simplistic so.
In the arts, rain often symbolizes sadness. Especially with darkened skies. Hollywood loves to add the sight and perhaps sound of rain against a window to accentuate a sad turn of events. A lover leaves, a heart is broken, and look, it’s raining outside. The classic Zoloft advertisement campaign, too, equated darkness and rain with depression. Thanks to science, it now appears there is a real reason for this. A recent Eurekalert news release contained this statement:
Scientific findings now lend empirical support to this representation of depression that everything looks gray when you feel blue. [emphases mine]
Researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany . . .
[F]ound dramatically lower retinal contrast gain in the depressed patients, regardless of whether or not they were receiving antidepressant medication. There was also a significant correlation between contrast gain and severity of depression, meaning those with the most severe symptoms of depression also had the lowest retinal responses. The electrophysiological signal of response was sufficiently consistent to distinguish most depressed patients from the healthy subjects. [source]
For “contrast gain,” think photo processing. Or video screen settings. High contrast gives things visual pop. Low contrast washes out boundaries between things and diminishes their distinctiveness.
No, when we are sad it doesn’t literally rain inside. Sure, sometimes tears will fall. When it rains outside, thick clouds dim the natural lighting, decreasing the visual contrast. With this new study we find that depressed individuals may have an experience akin to diminished light when you and I stand in bright sunshine. Very interesting.
Now I better understand why it rains in Hollywood so often. At least on film.
I wonder: Do individuals from high rainfall regions equally equate rain with sadness? And what of their retinal contrast gain when depressed or not: Is it similar to individuals from high-sun desert regions? I would presume so, but a cross-cultural (geographic region) replication of the study would provide better answers.
I love science. First, because I love to learn and understand how things work. Second, because I love puzzles, and at the frontline of every new finding there is a new puzzle, or three, to contemplate. Third, because I like intellectual surprises. Hey, I wasn’t expecting that!
Science is frequently portrayed as the sterile act of collecting data to “prove”/support (test, really) already held ideas. Hmm. Variable A seems to be linked to B, let’s find out. Yet scientists frequently bump into variables of the C, D and even Q sort. Hey, what is that doing here?! Oh, yes, science involves quite a bit of head scratching.
Consider some recent research described this way [all emphases mine]:
In a longitudinal study of recovery patterns of children affected by Katrina, researchers at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center and the St. Bernard Parish Public Schools looked at 400 mostly White elementary- and high-school-aged children (from ages 9 to 18) between 2005 and 2008. The children lived in a New Orleans school district that was heavily damaged by the hurricane.
In paragraphs about the findings, I encountered a couple “Q” variables: things that caused me to scratch my head and ask questions.
But this work in progress also found that more than a quarter of the children continued to have significant trauma symptoms of post-traumatic stress and depression three years later. Children who reported these symptoms were more likely to be younger, female, have seen a mental health professional, and also report family or school problems. They also reported being exposed to more traumas.
That’s a bit of a surprise tucked in there. More symptoms associated with having seen a mental health professional? Why is that? I can think of a few reasons.
Male and female teens who experienced the hurricane showed distinct patterns of behavioral stress as well as gender differences in how they regulated physiological stress, the study found. Specifically, compared to the children who weren’t exposed to Katrina, girls who survived the hurricane were more depressed and boys showed lower levels of aggression and higher levels of confidence. Heightened stress hormonal reactions were likewise associated with depression in girls and confidence in boys.
Huh. Following the stress of the hurricane and living in a devastated region, girls were more depressed. And boys had lower levels of aggression and higher levels of confidence. The girls part is understandable, perhaps predictable. The boys’ increase in confidence . . . now that’s a surprise. And it raises all sorts of questions and possibilities.
And so I am left eagerly awaiting more . . . science.
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Source: Hurricane Katrina’s effects on children: Resilience and gender
