When it comes to arguments against cannabis it all basically bubbles down to two things; people smoking it get less productive in society and it reduces sperm count among males.
Those who argue for legalizing cannabis say that it reduces suffering greatly among patients.
People that don't use medical benefits as arguments say that it's less dangerous then alcohol, and that it's its up to each individual to decide what they take.
And third argument that is not used very much is spiritual use of cannabis.
I didn't do any research on what people would say about those that smoke cannabis but I would think that some of those thing would be that: They are slow, easily amused, can talk forever about something, since that is what we usually see on TV. This is not about my opinion on wether smoking cannabis should be legal or not but about those three thing mentioned above, slow, easily amused, full of ideas to talk about.
Now consider our memory as a graph, I know that it is a common practice to do that in psychology, but since I am not a psychologist I don't know to what extent that analogy goes. Think of the graph simply as a set of points connected by lines. Those dots are memories and new memories are added by relating to already existing memories those connections are illustrated as lines between dots, and the numbers above those lines are abstract representations of strength, that is how well you remember new knowledge. Over time those connections fade away if not used and if they are to weak people forget those things, that's why repetition is very important when trying to remember.
Recall now previous post about humor, especially the case where situations can arise that you are laughing alone in a room full of people, it is certainly not uncommon situation. This can be illustrated simply as people in the room don't have same momories as you to make the situation funny:
Now it is reasonable to assume that a person that smoked cannabis and is laughing in situations that other might not find funny is experiencing exactly the same thing. At the same time that person would not laugh in this situation without smoking cannabis, then it must be so that cannabis reinforces those connections between memories so that the person that is under influence of cannabis can relate to a wider range of situations, and those weak connections that were never thought of in sober state reappear.
It is not difficult to see that the same explanation holds for people that talk a lot under influence of cannabis. Since connections between memories get reinforced one gets full of ideas that one never considered otherwise, with unexpected twists that one never thought possible. It is therefore not uncommon that artists and writers use cannabis to help them in their creative work.
That is also the reason people get slow while under influence of cannabis, and it is not uncommon for them to disappear into their own thoughts while you are talking to them. As mentioned above connections between memories that are not used fade away over time, this result in a simpler graph containing only most used knowledge which is easily accessible, while if you smoke a joint and suddenly all those connections reappear the state space one have to search in order to come up with an answer in much greater, resulting in many more possibilities to consider, and naturally it take more time.
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