You can call it any name you like. To those of us in the scientific community, that's a basic foundation of real experimental science. You can make assumptions on two seperate pieces of data but unless you have unquestionable evidence with all relevant controls, you're not going to stay employed for too long. Unless, of course, your job is to cite uncorrelated, uncontrolled data to the media to push the government's agenda on people that don't think scientifically.
For example: Yes, less-intelligent students and people with mental illness are more likely to break rules and become addicted to nearly anything. This is an obvious correlation, but there is not a shred of evidence of causation that their activity caused the stupidity or illness. I often tutor elite high school students for their AP courses and maintain close relationships. When I ask them how many of their peers consume cannabis, the percentage is always high. The answer is always 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 among kids in their elite class. These are the kids with weighted averages of over 100% and near-perfect attendance. Yes, there are always dropouts but they were behind since elementary school.
As a refugee from the USSR, I’ve researched government abuse nearly all my life. Cannabis prohibition was one of the greatest. I’ve read nearly every piece of published scientific literature and studied it in depth for 10+ years. Including having a library of rare pre-prohibition, pre-agenda articles/books. Not to mention receiving real-world input from people that actually use cannabis, addiction treatment personnel and law enforcement. To date, I have not seen a single scientifically satisfactory proof or even evidence that shows regular smoke-free cannabis consumption to be harmful in any way. I would be killed if I used such tainted evidence to declare a conclusion that impacted millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars.
You, and many others, have been scammed. Just read the transcript of the 1937 senate debate to tax(backdoor ban) cannabis – the “scientific” lies highlighting its dangers would be laughed at today. Today, the lies are less funny and the reasons for the war are worse - 1) Erode the rights of liberty, property and privacy through false hysteria. 2) Create/maintain an artificial market for special interests to profit. 3) Create a huge black market to raise prices and take revenue at will. Legal cannabis could never be taxed at this level. 4) Prevent cannabis use from cutting into alcohol taxes. 5) Maintain the market for addictive synthetic and opium-based painkillers. 6) Allow anyone to be imprisoned and marked with a scarlet letter for simply possessing an easily palmed object. Yes, I have first-hand experience of law enforcement planting items.
No evidence is ever good enough for potheads: from brain scan imaging to potheads defecating in parks.
Show me what you keep referring to. We know very little definite information about the brain and the way most “brain scans” are presented is pure rubbish. In fact, the very idea of a “brain scan” was still under debate last I checked. There is a park down my block where high school kids have smoked for almost 40 years and I’ve never seen any poo. Where is this evidence that all smokers defecate themselves?
We know very little definite information about the brain and the way most “brain scans” are presented is pure rubbish.
AustralianConservative claims that such studies exist but he will not or cannot ever produce them for examination. He has followed that pattern on numerous threads that he has initiated. Essentially, he is the red herring and straw man master.