Alex Berenson’s Tell Your Children is wrong on marijuana, psychosis, and violence - Vox - German Lopez, Future Perfect:
January 14, 2019 - "Alex Berenson’s Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence ... [has] gotten widespread favorable coverage in CNBC, the New Yorker, Mother Jones, and the Marshall Project, and landed op-eds from Berenson about his findings in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"His central argument is best summarized in a few brief lines later in the book: 'Marijuana causes psychosis. Psychosis causes violence. The obvious implication is that marijuana causes violence.'
"I could have found this argument persuasive.... I’ve written about how there are risks to marijuana that are worth taking seriously, even if one thinks that legalization is ultimately a better policy than prohibition.... But as I read Berenson’s book, it was impossible to escape that, while a compelling read written by an experienced journalist, it is essentially an exercise in cherry-picking data and presenting correlation as causation.....
"In one example, he cites a recent, massive review of the evidence on marijuana’s benefits and harms from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, claiming the report, on the link between marijuana and psychosis, 'declared the issue settled.' But I read the report and wrote about it for Vox when it came out.... [T]he National Academies’ report was extremely careful, cautioning that marijuana’s — and marijuana addiction’s — link to psychosis 'may be multidirectional and complex.' Marijuana may not cause psychosis; something else may cause both psychosis and pot use. Or the causation could go the other way: Psychotic disorders may lead to marijuana use, perhaps in an attempt to self-medicate....
"'In certain societies,' the report noted, 'the incidence of schizophrenia has remained stable over the past 50 years despite the introduction of cannabis into those settings'.... Berenson doesn’t mention any of this. He cites only the parts of the report that are favorable to his thesis....
"And this is representative of the book as a whole.... [T]he further I got into the book, the more it seemed like Berenson was imitating the strategy he’d meant to mock. Tell Your Children is Reefer Madness 2.0.
"There are concerns about marijuana and how legalization is playing out. As the National Academies’ report makes clear, there is still a lot about cannabis that we just don’t know, including its harms and benefits.... But Berenson’s book, with its sensationalist claims and shoddy analysis of the evidence, doesn’t genuinely address those concerns. Tell Your Children claims to inform its readers of the 'truth' about marijuana, but it instead repeatedly misleads them."
Read more: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/14/18175446/alex-berenson-tell-your-children-marijuana-psychosis-violence
'via Blog this'
January 14, 2019 - "Alex Berenson’s Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence ... [has] gotten widespread favorable coverage in CNBC, the New Yorker, Mother Jones, and the Marshall Project, and landed op-eds from Berenson about his findings in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"His central argument is best summarized in a few brief lines later in the book: 'Marijuana causes psychosis. Psychosis causes violence. The obvious implication is that marijuana causes violence.'
"I could have found this argument persuasive.... I’ve written about how there are risks to marijuana that are worth taking seriously, even if one thinks that legalization is ultimately a better policy than prohibition.... But as I read Berenson’s book, it was impossible to escape that, while a compelling read written by an experienced journalist, it is essentially an exercise in cherry-picking data and presenting correlation as causation.....
"In one example, he cites a recent, massive review of the evidence on marijuana’s benefits and harms from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, claiming the report, on the link between marijuana and psychosis, 'declared the issue settled.' But I read the report and wrote about it for Vox when it came out.... [T]he National Academies’ report was extremely careful, cautioning that marijuana’s — and marijuana addiction’s — link to psychosis 'may be multidirectional and complex.' Marijuana may not cause psychosis; something else may cause both psychosis and pot use. Or the causation could go the other way: Psychotic disorders may lead to marijuana use, perhaps in an attempt to self-medicate....
"'In certain societies,' the report noted, 'the incidence of schizophrenia has remained stable over the past 50 years despite the introduction of cannabis into those settings'.... Berenson doesn’t mention any of this. He cites only the parts of the report that are favorable to his thesis....
"And this is representative of the book as a whole.... [T]he further I got into the book, the more it seemed like Berenson was imitating the strategy he’d meant to mock. Tell Your Children is Reefer Madness 2.0.
"There are concerns about marijuana and how legalization is playing out. As the National Academies’ report makes clear, there is still a lot about cannabis that we just don’t know, including its harms and benefits.... But Berenson’s book, with its sensationalist claims and shoddy analysis of the evidence, doesn’t genuinely address those concerns. Tell Your Children claims to inform its readers of the 'truth' about marijuana, but it instead repeatedly misleads them."
Read more: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/14/18175446/alex-berenson-tell-your-children-marijuana-psychosis-violence
'via Blog this'
No comments:
Post a Comment