HN Reader

What is the point to have better cognition if you can't remember anything?

Anecodtal evidence I know but all the long term daily cannabis user I know seem to have memory issues.

From the article:

> However, another brain region saw lower volumes – suggesting the impact cannabis has on the brain is complex and nuanced, requiring further investigation.

I see the drugs are bad crowd are out in force. I'm sure they'll treat any negative stories about drug users or the effects of drugs with just as much scepticism, prejudice, and criticism as they demonstrate here. How wonderful it must be to be powered by objective reason and free from confirmation bias.

How can a study like this be reliably conducted in the UK where it's illegal?

> In the UK Biobank, people were asked to estimate how many times they’d used cannabis over their lifetime, choosing from a set of ranges. We ended up grouping people into no use, moderate use, and high use, based on the number of times they'd used cannabis. And of course that's an imperfect way to group people, but it did allow us to approximate dose-dependent effects.

Ah ok, so completely BS as expected.

Buying big clothes causes you to be overweight.

to conclude the article. We still donw know how the brain works.

Cerebral edema?

This appears to be a perfect case of correlation vs. causation.

Off the top of my head I can think of many socio-economic confounding variables, and also survivorship-bias.

Cannabis is a difficult thing I think for people to talk about. There are people who think it's great, there are people who don't care, and there are people think it's awful. Each will latch onto news like this and use it for what they want. I think it's great, I'm not a regular user, and really don't see it as any better or worse than any other drug, from alcohol, to food, and beyond, that people are using. Most things are fine in moderation. I don't think we need to twist ourselves over whether it's going to make us smarter, dumber, or whatever, unless we can divorce it from our personal opinions on the substance. That has been IMHO the hardest part

If only it was legal, I'd happily replace my alcohol use with cannabis, and I don't think I'm alone in my age group. Not a big surprise that that yields improved brain health.

I have a hard time believing this

Forgot to account for survivor bias.

Without accounting for that this is just bad science. It adds too many variables to make meaningful conclusions outside of feel good nonsense.

n=1 but I've picked up a daily chess hobby over the past couple of years and I noticed a big negative correlation between my chess rating and my weed use to the point that I've stopped using weed after a 20 year habit. I'm talking 100-200 elo drop that would last several days.

So Devo was high!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pegs3LFf6t8

users have larger brains likely to be addicted to cannabis

Unfortunately, most of it is already occupied with conspiracy theories.