Narco Polo comic: Marijuana Promotes Creativity

Here's the latest Narco Polo comic by Rob Arthur, a a former inner-city teacher and public defender and author of one of my favorite books, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos.

The astronomer and author, Carl Sagan, attributed numerous insights to marijuana and has defended this inspiration from those who call it illusory. (5) To read his entire treatise on the cerebral benefits of marijuana use go to this link.

The psychologist, Susan Blackmore, has written, “I can honestly say that without cannabis, most of my scientific research would never have been done and most of my books on psychology and evolution would not have been written.” (1)

The Science

One way in which creativity can be described is the ability to find new and novel connections between concepts. In scientific terms the ability to find connections between words is called semantic priming. A 2010 study published in Psychiatry Research found that the use of marijuana induces a state of hyper-priming. (9) When presented with an activation word, subjects reacted faster to distantly-related words when high than when sober. (For a neuroscience journalist’s take on this study go here.) The flow of loose associations promoted by marijuana is a real phenomenon.

Marijuana Promotes Creativity: The Evidence

• [bcsizemo]

  I’ve heard the same thing can be applied to LSD…

• [Chevan]

  Kevin Smith’s podcast is REALLY funny, but his recent stuff on Batman was not all that great. Marijuana is a “mileage may vary” thing; it doesn’t ALWAYS improve your output.

  • [SarahKH]

    Indeed, it depends on the strain of Marijuana.  I can’t remember their names but lets call them chemical’s A & B.   A is considered to have the effects described here, B is considered to be the one that makes you high and ‘dopey’. 

    Some strains of marijuana have higher A than B and others the reverse.  If you want to get high and no more you obviously wants lots of B, if you want to get creative you want lots of A in your gear.  As with any drug, prescription or otherwise, it’s best to do your research before randomly taking a quantity of it even if your doctor insists it’s good for you.

• [Paul Renault]

  We need to know the ratio of non-creative stoners to creative stoners.  And the ratio of non-creative non-stoners to creative non-stoners.

  /One study does not a finding make.
  //I wonder if Bach smoked dope.

  • [Calimecita]

    A serious statistical approach is the way to research this, even though given the subject, it would be extremely hard to get reliable statistical data.
    And I know personal experience is simply anecdotal, but I know a lot of people who smoke, and none of them are especially creative (though perhaps I’ll discover that they were geniuses all along, 30 years from now…).

    Chemicals (natural or artificial) may enhance connectivity, but shouldn’t there be something to interconnect in the first place? Metaphorically speaking, no matter how you combine the few items in an empty brain, the results won’t be that impressive.

• [sata blank]

  During the times I’ve been high before and around other people my ability to make associations becomes so distant and loose that no one knows what the eff I am even going on about.   Your mileage may definitely vary.

• [Paul Renault]

  Forgot  a counter-example: Frank Zappa.

  • [lukane]

    “I’ve smoked ten marijuana cigarettes in my life. And they’ve given me a sore throat, a headache, and made me sleepy. I can’t understand why anyone would wanna use the stuff. It seems such an impractical pastime as you can get sent to jail for it”. 

    • [Phlip]

      When you smoked, were you furtive, smoking bad stuff, in a car, drinking alcohol, at a party, around other smokes, full of junk food, or under the influence of any other of societies downers & depressants?

      Now that your liver is prepped, try a brownie first thing in the morning, when you are rested, completely fresh, and have _nothing_ to do. If it doesn’t work, I’l personally give you your money back!

    • [D Wyatt]

      “I’ve smoked ten marijuana cigarettes in my life. And they’ve given me a sore throat, a headache, and made me sleepy.”

      You smoked the crappy stuff plain and simple.  Mine smells of blueberry muffins and leaves your mouth and throat tasty.  Dont even need a whole joint, just a small puff or two. Never had a headache  either. 

      • [Phlip]

        Point – sry I forgot it. If your grower cheats and dries with a hair drier, nitric acid builds up. But if they hang the buds upside down at room temperature for a week, the buds “cure”, and squeeze out their last bits of resin. Pure clean smoke – if it’s cool enough – doesn’t hurt your throat.

        BTW, some further thoughts on the subject: http://zeekland.zeroplayer.com/Uncle_Wiggilys_Travels/2

  • [querent]

    Neither necessary nor sufficient.

  • [Phlip]

    And the counter-counter example is his parallel-nemesis, Cap’n Beefheart. C-:

    Anyhoozle, the answer to Garrett Eaton’s post, below this one, is simple. Human brain synapses have custom transmitters & receptors for each neurotransmitter the brain produces. AND many of our synapses also have one more transmitter-receptor set, for a neurotransmitter than our brain does NOT produce.

    Your liver turns cannabinoids into that neurotransmitter, so getting high is like suddenly having extra brain cells.

    Note that this, by itself, does not make you “smarter”. Everyones’ first few highs are usually giggly regression to babyhood, as untuned synapses run riot with their new neurotransmitter. However, a chronic stoner will then start learning their “extra brain wires”, and pruning the pathways. That’s why chronic stoners will never recover the giggling innocence of their earliest stonings, but they _can_ learn a new skill set while under the influence. Think of Keith Moon drumming, for example.

    Another good reference is by the non-stoner and noted skeptic Jane Roberts; her book /The Nature of Personal Reality/, with the chapter “The Soul in Chemical Clothes”.

• [Garrett Eaton]

  Correlation/Causation anyone?  Could it just be that certain brilliant and “creative” people also smoke pot?  Still, I suppose no one can deny its importance in some people’s creative output.  Then again, people often have other weird superstitions/rituals associated with their work: can’t start writing till you have that cup of coffee, can’t hit a line drive till you obsessively re-velcro your batting gloves..  And no, I’m not stoned right now.

• [VincentVonDudler]

  The end of federal prohibition is right around the corner. We just need your voice and every other person that cares about these civil liberties to speak up. NOW is the time. Tell the federal government to leave the decisions up to the states. They will listen or be replaced.
  Tell your representatives: http://pvox.co/CdiFqY
  Tell the Obama administration: http://wh.gov/gDQ

  “[Prohibition] attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.” – Abraham Lincoln

• [Frov]

  As a doctor who works in the psychiatric ER of a major hospital, I’d like to add that along with the anecdotal few visionaries, THC also promotes psychosis, paranoia, depression, homelessness, broken families, unemployment, and more. Contrary to wishful thinking, THC also does cause brain damage as seen on fMRI scans.

  • [Mark Dow]

    fMRI can’t show or demonstrate brain damage. Typically fMRI is used to estimate blood oxygenation changes during simple tasks, an indirect measure of neuronal activity.

    I know of no studies that link THC and brain damage. There are certainly short term effects on brain chemistry and activity, and it would be good to know about long term effects and their consequences.

    • [Phlip]

      “working in an ER, I see lots of people banged up within 24 hours of eating bread. Someone should look into that!”

      Even the urban myth that “pot kills brain cells” is thoroughly debunked. A quack scientist once asphyxiated monkeys in smoke, to return a result the gov’t wanted. 

      Tee Shirt “Pot won’t kill you. But the DEA might!”

    • [John Ya-Ya]

      Here’s your studies linking THC and brain damage:

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=cannibis%20brain%20mri

      • [Mark Dow]

        I am familiar with many of these references and was involved with the data analysis of one, “Functional MRI evidence for inefficient attentional control in adolescent chronic cannabis abuse”, 2010 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20600341 . But functional differences between users and non-users do not equate to brain damage.

        There are many common activities and conditions associated with differences in particular brain structures and function. It is difficult to show that these changes are outside of the normal range of variability, that the activities were a cause of the changes, or that the changes have negative or positive consequences. I don’t deny that there may be significant negative consequences of cannabis use — I expect there are.

        The recent meta-study “Structural MRI findings in long-term cannabis users: what do we know?” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20590400), is a good overview of how little is known about structural differences associated with cannabis use. But again, structural change is not the same as brain damage. Excercising (or not) can also result in structural changes, but it is disingenuous to claim it causes brain damage.

      • [wibbled_pig]

        Dude, you’re harshing my buzz!

      • [Phlip]

        THC changes brainwaves and MRI response. So do theta rhythms (dreaming), dancing, screwing, eating, etc. This NOT “brain damage”, and you only play the fear card when you blag on it.

        In the late 80s, when many people were addicted to gov’t funds for mindless “just say no!” programs, I once saw a TV PSA with an electroencephalograph. The narration was “this is the normal brainwaves of a normal 14 year old.” Cue ominous music. “This is the brainwaves of a 14 year old high on pot.” The signal appeared softer and muted.

        Now note that means nothing; many physiological processes cause harmless alternate ECG traces. But the PSA did indeed inspire me. It inspired me to yell at my (stoner) roommate “I want to know who was the lucky 14 year old kid who got to get high on the gov’t's dime, huh?”

        Yeah, dude. Brain damage. Go with that one. Bob Marley’s Exodus album is ranked as one of the most influential albums in history. Imagine how much more awesome he’d have been without his terrible addiction. Sheesh…

  • [Moriarty]

    Both things can be true. To use the obligatory comparison, alcoholism has certainly destroyed countless lives. Yet most of us (even most doctors!) consume alcohol at least occasionally, and most our lives are not destroyed by it.

    The fact that THC use is usually necessarily secretive and the fact that your job is to deal with it when things go very wrong would necessarily impart an enormous selection bias in your view of its effects, no?

    • [Guest]

      I think you’re saying “maybe it’s that weed makes a destroyed life more bearable?”

      • [Phlip]

        > weed makes a destroyed life

        You ain’t kidding, man! I had to get a full time job as a Computer Scientist, just to support my habit!

        If I had it all to do over again… >sigh<

  • [Rindan]

    As a doctor who works in the psychiatric ER of a major hospital, I’d like to add that along with the anecdotal few visionaries, THC also promotes psychosis, paranoia, depression, homelessness, broken families, unemployment, and more.

    Finding a strong causal link to any serious side effects has been a pet project of every up tight authoritarian since the stuff was made illegal.  They have thrown billions of dollars at the project and the best they have been able to scrape together suggests that if you are stupid and smoke like a fiend while you are still growing, there is a possibility that it might have subtle negative consequences for a small portion of population.  That puts in the same class a wheat glutton and nowhere near alcohol.

    I can show you a brutal and in your face causal link though.  The war on drugs promotes “promotes psychosis, paranoia, depression, homelessness, broken families, unemployment, and more.”  Its effects are trivial to measure because they are so strong.  Wherever the “war on drugs” goes, human misery, suffering, broken families, and death follows.  I’ll take the absurdly small and unproven side effects of marijuana over the expensive and brutal human suffering that the “war on drugs” has brought us.

    I should also point out that the last three presidents have all been tokers (along with 50% of the population)… which just brings into sharp focus the extreme hypocritical nature of the drug laws.  The executive branch… the assholes in charge with enforcing the law, have all knowingly violated the law.  It is great to know that they have the moral “flexibility” to enforce a law they themselves have violated.

    • [sugarsails]

      Drug laws are outrageous, but that doesn’t discredit negative side effects of smoking.

      For one, I can see the paranoia side effect in many of my friends who smoke consistantly, and it’s not related to the fear being caught with an illegal substance.

      • [Phlip]

        That “paranoia effect”, the Evil Eye, is caused by our endemic Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Weed just brings it out. Personal experience, here.

    • [John Ya-Ya]

      Because he’s doctor and saves lives he’s uptight and authoritarian? Your logic needs some polish. OR, maybe you could just open up and admit that you’re trying to justify your lifestyle choice. 

      And I’m also not uptight nor authoritarian. I’m a fucking scientist. I’ve also “inhaled”; big deal. I could care less what you do with your brain, it’s yours. But here’s some “brutal and in your face blah blah blah”, with references:

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=cannibis%20brain%20mri

    • [Paul Renault]

      I should also point out that the last three presidents have all been tokers…

      Stop right there!  That alone is justification enough to eradicate marijuana from the surface of the Earth!

  • [Phlip]

    “broken families, unemployment”. 

    Hey, the 1920s called. They want their Prohibition back.

  • [Tim Morton]

    I suspect you have a lot of catching-up to do, on recent peer-reviewed studies. In your position I would be ashamed to make the statement above.

  • [Daniel]

    As a doctor who works in the psychiatric ER of a major hospital, you’ll appreciate the importance of citing peer reviewed research when making claims about health science.

  • [librtee_dot_com]

    Cannabis is a poorly understood substance. It potentially has dozens of canninaboids in it, with varying effects. The focus is all on THC, and many growers focus on producing as high a THC count as possible, often up to 30%. This is at the detriment of the other canninaboids, such as CBD, which have much more positive effects, and works to curtail the psychosis potential of pure THC. 

    The solution, of course, is legalization: this would allow scientists to study it openly, discuss it openly, and for companies and growers to advertise exactly what was in their product, so people could actually trace positive and negative effects to specific strains and brands.

    • [Bruce M Campbell]

      Yeah, except under the current economic system, what would get marketed would be the cheapest, quickest active agent found in the specific strain of plant (quickly GMOed so that the crops could be predictable in hardiness and productivity), and all kinds of quack research done to support whatever the companies desire to be marketed, ie, the thing that maximizes profit & productivity.

      Kellogs cereals, with niacin, thiamine & riboflavin, persuaded millions of North American consumers to purchase the products because the words sounded all sciencey. It’s pretty hard to really get decent research done, what with all the vested interests controlling the funding for said research.

      • [librtee_dot_com]

        There’s a sucker born every minute. The beauty of an economy is that there are also dozens and dozens of genuinely healthy cereals you can buy as well. I haven’t tasted any General Mills shit in 20 years…

  • [SarahKH]

    [Citation Needed]

    There is a counter argument that people with the issues you describe are drawn to Marijuana because of their situation rather than their situation being because of their consumption of the substance.  In much the same way people fall in to alcoholism, it, or at least they perceive it, helps them to deal with the situation.

    I am not aware of clinical trials or studies proving anything either way.  I am however aware that the UK governments own scientific advisory body reported, that Alcohol, Tobacco, Caffeine are all much more harmful in terms of damage caused and ease of addiction than Marijuana, when consumed on its own, is.

    Also how the hell did you come to the conclusion that their is brain damage solely from using an fMRI?  It’s not designed to be used for what you just used it do.

• [Jon Bakos]

  Andrew Weil is a ‘scientist??’

  • [MatthewWeir]

    Came here just to say that.  Putting Andrew Weil in the same class as Carl Sagan is so ridiculous that it borders on insulting. 

• [Jonathan Badger]

  Pretty strange examples. Mailer wrote one good novel, the WWII epic “The Naked and The Dead” and spent the rest of his life trying to live up to it and failing. Carl Sagan, although I love the guy as a prototype of the “New Atheist” ethic before it was cool, was really more of a science popularizer than a scientist of note. I hadn’t even *heard* of Andrew Weil but Google tells me he is a physician into psychedelic  mushrooms and newage nonsense and not a scientist at all.

  • [Phlip]

    >” New Atheist”.

    Sagan, well aware that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, was agnostic, not atheist. Though he has since doubtless updated his belief portfolio. C-;

  • [Les Milton]

    This is simply false.  Sagan was an active scientist who published more than 600 scientific papers.  

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Scientific_achievements

    • [Jonathan Badger]

      Yes, Sagan was a real working scientist, publishing papers and mentoring grad students and all,  but he wasn’t a scientist of note in the sense that even within the scientific community his fame rested on his scientific advocacy rather than on any groundbreaking discoveries he made — it’s not like he was a Nobel laureate or even a member of the Academy.

      • [rymdraketen]

        what about crick and watson? real scientists? they used lsd…

    • [Phlip]

      sry, noted. I just guessed based on his other accomplishments.

• [jnordb]

  Kevin Smith is an artist? Really?

  • [Daniel]

    Uh, yes, film directors and comic book writers are both artists and Kevin Smith is both of those things.

    Some of his films are even good.

• [taras]

  Now it’s OK to smoke pot. Knock yourselves out! Have fun gang :-)

  • [Phlip]

    > Now it’s okay to smoke pot…

    uh, AFTER u have a career path (and/or rich parents!). C-;

• [pharmavixen]

  I work in addiction treatment, and THC is considerably lower risk than the legal drug Oxycontin, which has destroyed more lives and killed more people in the past 20 years than THC has in two-hundred. It does cause paranoia in some vulnerable persons, putting them at risk of frank psychosis. I disagree with promoting its use by everybody, but I also hope to see the end of prohibition, at which point THC can be judged on its own merits/pitfalls, liberated from all the hyperbole around the lure of the forbidden and political activism.

  • [SarahKH]

    Hear Hear!

• [Jack Majewski]

  I have no idea whether this is accurate or not, but I do laugh at the need for people to justify their fun. 

  • [Guest]

    it’s not justification, it’s an invitation to reexamine potentially misinformed notions.

    Personally I laugh at people who laugh at other people, thinking it demoralizes them.

  • [Mark_Frauenfelder]

    I watched the YouTube videos of you laughing at the need for people to justify their fun. They were awesome!

  • [Daniel]

    Why should people have to justify their fun?  Do you see me advocating to legislate against things that you find fun?

  • [librtee_dot_com]

    They feel a need to ‘justify their fun’ because our current system punishes that fun with, potentially, years of imprisonment and gang rape. (yes, there are still places where you can be put in prison for possession or growing a few plants).

    Which is more psychologically damaging: smoking pot every day, or being raped hundreds of times and subjected to sexual slavery while in prison?

• [Mister44]

  All well and good – but let’s look at the BAD things marijuana did to these people:

  Norman Mailer: Freakishly large left ear

  Brian Wilson:  His face morphed into the visage of a 30 something female librarian, and he wore two upside down white birds around his neck.

  Dr. Weil: Weird white fungal growth consumed half of his face.

  Carl Sagan: He’s fucking dead.

• [PurpleWyrm]

  Shouldn’t that read “Brian Wilson revealed that marijuana helped him write Pet Sounds, then he went crazy as a loon”?

  Of course, (as so often mentioned in this thread) correlation does not equal causation, but after having a close friend completely destroy his life smoking pot, I do have to wonder…

  (Note: I also have numerous other close friends who smoked – and continue to smoke – just as much as he did and they’re completely fine.)

• [Aaron Brown]

  I am not surprised that the quack Dr. Weil was high when he came across his “ideas”. I did throw up in my mouth a little, seeing him in the same drawing as Norman Mailer and Carl Sagan.

• [Phlip]

  Speaking as both a stoner and an influencee of Sagan, I feel (soberly) compelled to point out that A> Sagan wasn’t a scientist, he was an author & lecturer, 

  …and B> that you can get that “free association” thing simply by forcing yourself to try. That’s why refrigerator magnets of words are so popular. Practicing randomizing your brain now and then is good for your art (AND science!).

  Trivia Question: Did Sagan write a 1970s Scientific American article “Marihuana”? The one that pointed out doctors need to research exactly why the bud is so popular among musicians? Parallel research has determined that music opens new neural pathways in our brains.

  Now I’m going to get high and wail on my banjo…

• [shutz]

  I remember watching a TV science show, maybe 5-6 years ago, that showed that THC could trigger psychosis in otherwise “normal” people, but that only a small percentage of the population was susceptibe to this particular effect (I have 1% as a figure in my memory, but I’m not sure if it’s right.)

  I would rather see Marijuana legalized, and then have more serious studies done (for instance, to figure out what conditions need to be there for someone to be at risk of psychosis caused by THC) than to keep the current prohibition situation that is hypocritical (considering the legal status of alcohol and tobacco and their relative negative effects compared with marijuana) and which causes more harm than good (by criminalizing something that’s, at this point, considered socially-acceptable by the majority of the population.)

  One thing to keep in mind: if you’re stupid, marijuana probably won’t make you suddenly brilliant.  It’ll just make you weirder and possibly less-coherent and more random.

  I get the feeling that the reason THC leads to a “hyper-priming effect” is simply that it disables many of the brain’s filters, leading to a more free flow of ideas.  That’s also why creative people who suddenly become a lot more creative after smoking marijuana (or even after consuming LSD) often tend to stay more creative, after the effects of the drug have dissipated: before the effects, your brain has all sorts of filters that dismiss all sorts of ideas as “wrong”, “bad”, “lame”, “stupid”, etc., whereas after, since your brain has learned not to immediately dismiss things, you can make more associations and have more ideas.  More ideas eventually leads to better ideas, once you start to consciously dismiss any trains of thought that lead to dead-ends.

  It’s kind of like brainstorming sessions: for an initial brainstorming session, you don’t want to censor anything, and you probably want to kick out anyone who dismisses or just disses on some ideas, because you just want to have as many ideas as possible.  A very stupid idea can lead someone else to a brilliant idea, but if you dismissed the initial stupid idea, you never get to the brilliant idea.  THC just acts as an “anti-filter” that just lets ideas flow more freely, and prevents your brain from dismissing certain ideas before they can be used as building blocks to more ideas.

  • [rymdraketen]

    A pretty serious theory about “creative” people is that they have a more accepting filter for weird ideas. Even before they do any drugs the filter is less active than with non-creative people. There was an article about this in an issue of Scientifican American MIND a couple of months ago.

    I also agree that some drugs can possibly make this filter even more inactive. And that some of the effects experienced during highs can last for years after. That is somethings thats confirmed by loads and loads of anecdotal stories, but maybe not in hard science…..yet. 

• [William George]

  Man, the makers of Doritos will become more powerful than Goldman Sachs if we made pot legal.

  The Cool Ranch Crash of ’29 would be scary!

• [Ian G]

  Mmm… yeah I think this definitely falls into the “solution looking for a problem” category. I think the people cited as being made more creative with pot were pretty fucking creative/awesome to begin with. 

  And just because you’re “more creative” when you’re high doesn’t mean your creativity is worth anything. When people make this argument, I always think of Lois and Peter singing “In God’s Eyes, Everyone is Hot” (note the actual lyrics to the song) http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/(In_God%27s_Eyes)_Everybody%27s_Hot”

  Classic

  • [SarahKH]

    True enough, however you’re making the assumption that ‘creative’ equals ‘writing book’ or ‘making music’ or similar.  I’ve written some, to me, blinding bits of code whilst under the influence.  Come up with very creative solutions to problems I’m facing and such.

    I suppose I could write a book whilst high but I doubt anyone would buy 300 pages of “I AM A FISH”.

• [gwailo_joe]

  Lookie here; weed has at times enabled my creative flow…it has also deeply hindered it at times.  (I can say the same about alcohol, but more so on the bad side…)  

  Still: those examples not sufficient?  What about The Beatles?  Even if you think the Mersey sound is corny and dated; whatever band or musical group you like today has those four guys to thank for ~something~.  George Harrison: “Rubber Soul was the first one where we were fully fledged potheads.”

  And if you want to counter that Magical Mystery Tour is an example of Drugs Are Bad; I raise you Abbey Road and Revolver…

  (also smoking pot calms most folks…keeps me from attempting to chase perceived evil-doers with ice hooks and cleavers…)

  Legalize It!

  • [Daniel]

    What?  Magical Mystery Tour is the best Beatles album by a fairly wide margin.  “Hello, Goodbye” is the only bad song on there.

• [RyonRyon]

  specific to the creativity, yes, crazy idea after crazy idea would pop out, and some of them were even valid ideas, buy my mileage found me unable to garner the willpower to follow through and bring any of the brilliant ideas into focus in any media other than “hey I’ve got this great idea, man”
  LSD once made me reaaalllllyy good at calaculus, don’t quite know how that worked.

  • [librtee_dot_com]

    That’s what pencils and paper are for.

• [ackpht]

  I used to have a neighbor who was mentally subnormal but who was creative enough not to take on too many odd jobs around the neighborhood because the gov’t would cut his disability payments if they found out about that work/income. I guess that creativity came from all the pot he smoked.

• [D Wyatt]

  MARIJUANA
  Has been illegal for 75 years this year, before that it was safely used for over 10,000 years for everything from food to fuel, health benefits and healing, clothing and heating, relaxing and thinking, down to the very (toilet) paper the constitution was written on.  Judging by the way the American Constitution is disregarded almost completely. 

  Americas FOUNDING FATHER Thomas Jefferson himself grew, smoked and sold it.  During times of war farmers were REQUIRED to grow it to boost economy and lower costs for war.

  AMERICA
  Has only 5% of the worlds humans.
  Has over 25% of the worlds prisoners.

  The end is NOW. 

• [Matt_B]

  This will always be funny.

  • [Phlip]

    I like “Fuck, sir, I am EXTREMELY high”. He obviously is in the picture, too.

• [Andrew Percy]

  Anyone who claims that cannabis (or LSD) is an aid to creativity clearly hasn’t listened to a Hawkwind album.

• [IRMO]

  Could we not call Andrew Weil a scientist, please? He is the opposite of what that word means. 

• [freshacconci]

  Of all the musicians to point out for the positive effects of pot, he chose Alanis Morissette?!? Sure, Brian Wilson (although I’d say his drug use was more along the lines of self-medication). But for chrissakes, you could have pulled any artist out of your ass and come up with a better example than Alanis Morissette. I don’t know, how about, Dylan? The Beatles? Just about anybody who recorded something in the 1960s (Sonny Bono and Frank Zappa notwithstanding).

  • [Phlip]

    David Bowie: “Time and again I’ll tell myself / I’ll stay clean tonight / but the little green wheels are following me / Oh no not again / I’m stuck with a valuable friend” –Ashes to Ashes.

  • [noah django]

    came here to say something similar, but why stop at the sixties?  Nas, for example, is a better poet and performer than Alanis; and in my opinion a better writer than Robbins, whom I dislike greatly. 

    opinions aside, the people he cites as examples are puzzling and limited in scope, for sure.

    I’m pro-legalization, but this comic reads like it was written by a sixteen-year-old.

• [Trey Roady]

  I’m actually kinda bothered by this comic. I usually think more of Boing Boing, but this is a bit much.

  I would like to establish, for the record, that I am in favor of legalization. This, however, doesn’t really help the case.

  These are all examples, and many quite loose, of individual connections to marijuana and creativity. There’s very little to explain that marijuana was the *cause*of such events. I’ve seen studies (don’t have immediate reference, but they can likely be found) that say it’s largely a difference in personal preferences.

  All in all, these aren’t solid, evidence-based arguments and actually go farther to hurt the real case of legalization. Those on the other side will see it as half-stoned rambling by comparison to hard numbers (which are pretty convincing). Anything less means easier time refuting with the “dangers” of marijuana without hard numbers.

  If you’re looking for anecdotal evidence of drug use mapping to creativity, consider Paul Erdos and his heavy use of meth-amphetamines (not to mention his attempt to quit taking them). He was the most prolific mathematician out there, but I don’t see arguments trying to legalize meth-amphetamine.

• [Cocomaan]

  This is a comic, nothing more nothing less.

  You seem to be looking for something else. Maybe you want something peer reviewed? Either way, stop complaining.

  • [Trey Roady]

    I’m looking for something that doesn’t equate to:  a few people (some of dubious achievement) credit their creativity to drugs. It’s the same logic we use to verify homeopathy.

    It’s encouraging a fallacy in our thinking and our argument.

    • [Cocomaan]

      There’s absolutely nothing wrong with anecdotes, or qualitative evidence. Decrying this is a watse of your time. If you want a clinical trial, start one.

• [grandmapucker]

  Get Weil out of there and put in Gandalf, then you got yourselves a list.

  • [Phlip]

    Sorry, Tolkien’s liner notes clearly identify “pipeweed” as tobacco.

    Anyone discuss Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, yet? (And his “hookah smoking caterpillar” in all our children’s stories?)

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Sorry, Tolkien’s liner notes clearly identify “pipeweed” as tobacco.

      Actually, it says, “a variety probably of Nicotiana.”

• [rymdraketen]

  I think crick and watson used LSD when they “discovered” the DNA structure…they didn’t confirm it, but they didn’t deny it either…
  freud was a heavy user of cocaine…
  most early 19th century writers and poets used opium…
  and so forth…

• [rymdraketen]

  …and it’s funny that most people who say that drugs can’t boost creativity are people who: 1) never tried any drugs and 2) have a creativity comparable to a snail…

• [Daniel]

  I wish marijuana was legal so I could give complementary joints to the drunks who rage up and down my street breaking bottles and screaming that they’re going to kill each other.  Or we could just ban booze.  What do the anti-marijuana folks think?

  • [Phlip]

    “I wish marijuana was legal so I could give complementary joints to the drunks who rage up and down my street breaking bottles and screaming that they’re going to kill each other.”
    Pick a random cop and ask them to chose between controlling a crowd on alcohol, or weed.

• [Festus]

  No question that pot is excellent for writers block. You may get some unusable garbage, but it has saved my book more than once.

• [MarlboroTestMonkey7]

  Unless it turns you into a Leonardo I think I’ll pass.

• [Kimmo]

  I know how to subvert BoingBoing’s critical faculties even further:

  Include some steampunk in your dodgy pro-legalisation webcomic featuring Carl Sagan.

• [Gabor Molnar]

  The problem with this is very simple. You need talent, or some kind of a basic creative spirit that the dope can enlarge or extend, it does not work just taking dope and became creative. This information can be useful for those who understand how THC will effect their imagination, but those who don’t will only be red eye – slow motion – don’t know what’s going on droid. So, be careful what and how you explain.