Marijuana rode into a recent post in Jonah Lehrer’s The Frontal Cortex. He told the story of an artistically blocked friend. Being blocked was not a good thing, as this friend was a fine artist.
To break the block, the friend decided that taking in a little THC might do the trick.
And he was right. Here is how he told it –
It unleashed what he wanted to express, by suppressing the analytic portion of his mind that was inhibiting him. I know this is the bleeding obvious to anyone who has a brain and an ounce of human experience but it is a truth we are somehow circumscribed from uttering in public. via Marijuana and Divergent Thinking : The Frontal Cortex.
Marijuana, it occurs to me, has been around for centuries and still seems to be a mysterious agent that can affect the brain in a multitude of ways. The artist above, obviously, benefited from use of the weed, or at least that is what his experience told him.
It’s a difficult drug to classify, and also one that is hard to put in either a good or bad category. Someone once told me that there are some philosophies that say there is no right or wrong, there are only consequences. That strikes me as a wise position to take with this and other illicit drugs.
While this may (or may not, who knows) have benefited the artist, it would be another story all together for the railroad engineer who used the drug and then either was caught with it in his system or, worse, had an accident while under the influence.
Or a truck driver.
Or a pilot.
Or any other worker where safety was involved.
So, what is the answer? How do we think about the use of drugs that “moderate” the way we feel and behave?
I think the considerations are to look at it from different angles.
What are the laws surrounding the drug?
What is the psychological make up of the user?
What is the past experience of he or she who partakes?
Where is the event taking place?
What are the rules of the game (in the workplace, for instance)?
And, of course, what are the consequences?
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