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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Neuroscience Reinforces Racist Drug Policy
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/how-bad-neuroscience-reinforces-racist-drug-policy/371378/?n72mf8
A recent neuroscience study from Harvard Medical School claims to have discovered brain differences between people who smoke marijuana and people who do not. Such well-intentioned and seemingly objective science is actually a new chapter in a politicized and bigoted history of drug science in the United States.
The study in question compared magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 20 young adult recreational marijuana users (defined as individuals 18 to 25 who smoke at least once a week but who are not dependent), to 20 non-using controls (age-matched individuals who have smoked marijuana less than five times in their lives). The researchers reported differences in density, volume, and shape between the nucleus accumbens and amygdala regions of the two groups brainsareas hypothesized to affect a wide range of emotions from happiness to fear, which could influence basic decision-making.
Researchers did not make any claims about how marijuana affected actual emotions, cognition, or behavior in these groups; instead; the study merely tried to establish that the aggregated brain scans of the two groups look different. So, who cares?
Different-looking brains tell us literally nothing about who these people are, what their lives are like, why they do or do not use marijuana, or what effects marijuana has had on them. Neither can we use such brain scans to predict who these people will become, or what their lives will be like in the future.
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How Neuroscience Reinforces Racist Drug Policy (Original Post)
xchrom
Jun 2014
OP
Shivering Jemmy
(900 posts)1. Article is really defensive
Almost worthless
intaglio
(8,170 posts)2. Seems to be a very poor study
Pretty obviously the sample size is far too small but it is also likely to be a group selected from students, given the age range. Next it does not say how they controlled for the abuse of other substances such as tobacco and alcohol nor does it compare such abuses.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)3. Phrenology 2.0.
Mountains of speculation built on molehills of fact. Just a little more contrived and we could be talking about subjects "simian characteristics", as though being sort of apelike was a strange thing for humans.
Just because you can measure it, that doesn't mean that it means anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
xchrom
(108,903 posts)4. that was exactly the thought that crossed my mind. nt