Althouse: "You have to focus on brain maturation... This generation of kids wants good brains; they want to get into better schools."

August 19, 2014

"You have to focus on brain maturation... This generation of kids wants good brains; they want to get into better schools."

"Talk to a junior or senior about whether marijuana use shaves a couple points off their SATs, and they will listen to you."

24 comments:

The Drill SGT said...: Maybe that argument works on 5% of the kids; 8/19/14, 10:33 AM
The Godfather said...: Well, we don't allow kids to use alcohol, and that works well, so we can legalize pot for grownups and just tell the kids to wait.; 8/19/14, 10:37 AM
Beldar said...: Wonderfully ambiguous "I'm skeptical" tag, Prof. A.; 8/19/14, 10:40 AM
Ambrose said...: One generation got old,
One generation got soul,
This generation wants good brains to get into better schools,
Pick up the cry!; 8/19/14, 10:41 AM
Alexander said...: You know... this could work for a lot of things. If we just tell children that certain things are "bad for you", just think of all the negative behaviors that will disappear off the face of the earth!

I don't know why nobody ever thought of this before.; 8/19/14, 11:07 AM
madAsHell said...: "The Well Column"

This column is written for women. No?; 8/19/14, 11:13 AM
MadisonMan said...: Studies in New Zealand and Canada have found that marijuana use in the teenage years can result in lost I.Q. points

Not that is does. That it can.

As if a kid is going to listen to some old fart about this.; 8/19/14, 11:14 AM
rehajm said...: In high school I knew a guy that hung out with kids that smoked weed, but refrained from doing so himself in order to maintain his 'political viability'.
Pre-Clinton, btw...

Not sure that would work today, either.; 8/19/14, 11:19 AM
Henry said...: I got a laugh from this quote: “Every passing year, science unearths more health risks about why any form of substance use is unhealthy for young people.”

Young people must watch out for any form of substance. Good warning.

On the other hand, despite the almost comically handwringing by the quoted experts, this seems like a perfectly straightforward way to approach the issue. Treat marijuana like alcohol. It's not such a hard concept.; 8/19/14, 11:25 AM
traditionalguy said...: A brain in a healthy body is a terrible thing to waste. This shows that the current generation are realists, unlike the free drug and free love experimenters of the 1960s and 1970s.

Exercise is the drug of choice now.; 8/19/14, 11:39 AM
Fernandinande said...: I'm pretty sure these people are all billionaires.

The brain is still wiring itself during adolescence, and marijuana — or any drug use — during this period essentially trains the reward system to embrace a mind-altering chemical.

The brain is always "wiring itself" and any experience with positive or negative rewards of any sort during any period essentially trains the reward(/punishment) system to embrace and repeat (or reject) the experience.; 8/19/14, 11:41 AM
MayBee said...: It may work and it's a good thing to try.

But most kids know the super smart kid who smokes pot every day and is still going to get into Stanford.; 8/19/14, 11:42 AM
David said...: My youngest son must have been Einstein before he clambered down into the weed. But even he was not smart enough to stay away from weed. Now that his IQ is diminished, he won't touch the stuff.

Weed is dangerous to your health and your life. Other than that it's a great thing to do.; 8/19/14, 12:11 PM
lgv said...: I love the I'm skeptcal tag.

In a show of hands, 100% of kids said they waned better brains and to get into better schools. It's kind of meaningless.

An SAT is an event. Smoking enough weed to kill brain cells is an ongoing behavior. Good luck with that. Thank God no kids smoke or drink any more.; 8/19/14, 12:34 PM
lgv said...: I love the I'm skeptcal tag.

In a show of hands, 100% of kids said they waned better brains and to get into better schools. It's kind of meaningless.

An SAT is an event. Smoking enough weed to kill brain cells is an ongoing behavior. Good luck with that. Thank God no kids smoke or drink any more.; 8/19/14, 12:34 PM
rhhardin said...: Mothers used to use that to get kids to eat tuna fish.; 8/19/14, 12:52 PM
Rocco said...: A mother walked on on her teenaged son masterbating.
"Stop that," she shrieked, "or you'll go blind."
He responded, "Can I do it just until I need glasses?"

I think smoking weed would be similar.; 8/19/14, 1:14 PM
SteveR said...: Its not the same pot of 40 years ago when many who smoked it couldn't handle the balancing act of things like school or a profession and getting high. Most could with only minor consequences, Bs that could have been As kind of stuff.

So the pot is stronger and the academics are more competitive (and more expensive), good jobs are harder to get/keep. Maybe its ok for young folks to get high, I sure did, but I really didn't understand the risks beyond not getting busted. I don't know that its part of the calculus now. Smoking pot now makes me feel happy, but stupid.; 8/19/14, 1:21 PM
Anonymous said...: "Talk to a junior or senior about whether marijuana use shaves a couple points off their SATs, and they will listen to you."

These would be the same juniors and seniors who are fighting tooth and nail for the valedictory spot in their graduating class. Then there are the other 98% of students where 1 or a 100 points won't make a difference in where, or if, they go to school.; 8/19/14, 1:37 PM
Tari said...: The kids this will work on are not the ones we should be worried about.; 8/19/14, 3:34 PM
Jaq said...: "But most kids know the super smart kid who smokes pot every day and is still going to get into Stanford"

My daughter is off to college in a week or so, and she has told me that the weed smokers she knew in high school are pretty much the joke they are made out to be in movies. I don't preach to her about drugs either. I think it is counterproductive. Just sayin'; 8/19/14, 5:53 PM
Anonymous said...: By this same token, they borrow each other's Adderall to add a few points.; 8/19/14, 7:49 PM
The Godfather said...: I was in college when Timothy Leary was beginning to evangalize for LSD. The grad student who led the small section in the Soc Rel class I was taking (presumably to satisfy some requirement) brought in a friend who was one of Leary's LSD acolytles to explain to us what it was all about. Within 5 minutes it was clear that his brain was completely fried. If I had ever thought of dropping acid, or using any other psychedelic drug, that experience ended it for me.

As far as I know, the occasional recreational use of marijuana is not going to have that kind of dramatic effect, any more than the occasional recreational use of alcohol will. Parents are going to have to do the hard work of teaching their children, as they grow up, to violate the rules sensibly as regards pot, as they have (I hope) been trying to do as regards booze, sex, driving, and a lot of other things. The libertine-arians aren't making it easy.; 8/19/14, 9:01 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Yeah... I think the author is mistaking his own demographic (a tiny one) for the whole.

Overarchievers aren't going to do drugs anyway.; 8/19/14, 9:43 PM