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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ig who wrote (732161)	3/15/2006 9:57:06 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Interesting headline... but perhaps somewhat 'thin' research. This cautionary quote is pulled from the Forbes article: "The study doesn't definitively link marijuana use to the cognitive problems, and it's possible that other factors could be to blame. Prior research has also offered conflicting findings about the mental effects of marijuana." It seems from the article, that researchers were attempting to suss out effects on memory (I see short-term memory testing referred to in the piece... possibly testing for long-term memory was also attempted). One possible glaring issue seems obvious though: it's been well established in the psychological literature that, for many substances that affect mental functioning, memory functioning has a positive correlation between the mental state of intoxication when items are learned, and the self-same mental state when they are attempted to be recalled. (I.e., testing has FREQUENTLY shown that if one is using caffeine, nicotine, THC, etc., WHEN THE MATERIAL IS BEING LEARNED, recall rates are higher if also under the same chemical influence when tested --- and LOWER if in a different mental state because not under the same influence. The effect is also well known with alcohol. NOTE: this is NOT to say that none of these substances have any deleterious effects on mental functioning, or on memory systems in particular, but that is a separate question. It would appear --- from the article's mention that memory recall testing was performed '24 hrs. after use' --- that this one, well known effect could potentially explain 'negative' test results. (Although it's fair to also note that the actual statistics are never reported in the article... leading to obvious questions about how the results were characterized.) OTHER confounding factors could well be at play in this study as well (multiple drug use by the drug addict participants selected for this study, is just one of the most obvious.) The link to N.I.D.A, at the end of the article also does not draw much confidence to the reported results --- for example, was this an N.I.D.A. funded 'study'? :)