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  • When talking about weed people usually just say it's "safer than alcohol," but is that

  • true? New science looked at THAT QUESTION and their findings might kill your buzz.

  • Howdy 420 familiars, Trace here for DNews. Recently, the University of California-Davis

  • announced the first results of a nearly 40-year long study exploring if marijuana was worse

  • for you than alcohol. According to their findings, “People who smoked cannabis four or more

  • days of the week over many years ended up in a lower social class than their parents,

  • with lower-paying, less skilled and less prestigious jobs than those who were not regular cannabis

  • smokers." To put it as simply as I can, after following over 1000 people from birth until

  • age 38, and controlling for every variable they could think of, people who were supposed

  • to be here, were here - and the only correlation they could see as to why they weren't here

  • -- was pot. Yah, I know, you're already down in the comments, but let's break this down

  • and explain why this study is super important to science.

  • Firstly, let’s go back to thatfour or more days per week, over many years." The

  • researchers weren't trying throwing shade at pot users, they were drawing a box around

  • "heavy use" and how that affects their life. Heavy use categories are those who are consuming

  • more of a drug than the average. Heavy use for alcohol was determined ages ago, as5 or

  • more drinks in day, 5 days in a month. Once they know what heavy use is, they can see

  • how lifestyles of heavy users are affected by their drug of choice.

  • Secondly, sociologists have been studying social class for decades with tens of thousands

  • of people from across the globe; researchers are able to predict what level someone with

  • specific social upbringing, opportunities and personalities should reach. So, that’s

  • where these researchers started from. They KNOW people who are say, middle-class SHOULD

  • clear certain social and economic hurdles -- remaining in the middle class UNLESS something

  • changes. So they followed a bunch of people for almost four decades to determine what,

  • if anything, changed.

  • The interesting thing about this, is researchers wanted to know what specifically affects people

  • over time. So they looked at absolutely everything: credit rating, debt, net worth, what jobs

  • they've taken and the successes and troubles at said job, food security, relationship quality

  • or abuse, whether they were on welfare or unemployment, missed credit card payments,

  • traffic violations, childhood IQ, childhood achievement, ethnicity, level of self-control,

  • and information about their parent or parents! This study was crazy.

  • After all that they put the data into a computer program and started looking for correlations,

  • findingperhaps surprisingly, a connection between heavy pot use, and a drop in expected

  • class. Super intriguing, right? People don't normally just, drop in class for no reason

  • so they wanted to see how, and whyIt looks, based on this data, a lot of the drops had

  • one thing in common: the people were smoking pot four days a week or more. AKA, heavy use.

  • So, to bring it back: is pot worse for you than alcohol? More research is needed. This

  • study didn't look at health, or driving, or whether you raise kids well, or creativity,

  • just at how regular, heavy pot use over time affected people's place on the economic and

  • social ladder.

  • With the legalization of marijuana comes more scrutiny. The scientists for this UC-Davis

  • study now say marijuana is not, quote "safer than alcohol." And, in fact, the data indicates

  • "persistent cannabis users constitute a burden on families, communities, and national social-welfare

  • systems." They went on to say heavy use of pot did not cause less harm that heavy alcohol

  • use when it comes to people's social and economic livelihood.

  • And if it was good, scientists would definitely say so! They have! Studies done with thousands

  • of twins found marijuana didn't negatively affect IQ! And because opioids are habit-forming,

  • cannabis may be a "safer" choice for pain management, just to name a couple.

  • Scientists simply want to study pot use to find out what it does to people. Because alcohol

  • is legal and heavily studies we know it can affect personal lives, work, relationships,

  • driving, et ceteraWe don't have definitive answers about all this when it comes to weed,

  • yet. Use pot, don't use pot, that's up to you, but either way, when it comes to heavy

  • use and socioeconomic effects, now we know.

  • If you're thinking about pot and saying, YEAH! AND IF YOU SMOKE POT, you'll go through some

  • gateway into harder drugs! Is that true? We looked into ithere.

When talking about weed people usually just say it's "safer than alcohol," but is that

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