Last Updated on January 29, 2020
President Donald J. Trump is under scrutiny from marijuana advocates for a small sound byte from two year old video of the president, recorded by Len Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giulianai, who currently is the focal point of the Ukraine scandal that resulted in the sham of an impeachment that has still yet to make its way through the Senate.
President Trump faces criticism from marijuana advocates and drug addicts alike when he claimed, “It does cause an IQ problem.”
While organizations such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse maintains “studies did not support a causal relationship between marijuana use and IQ loss,” there are many including President Trump who understand that constant use of marijuana may cause decline in cognitive ability.
In an article published by Very Well Mind, and approved of by board certified psychiatrist Steven Gans, MD there is research offered to provide a direct link between frequent marijuana use and “lowered intellect levels.”
Numerous scientific research studies have shown that heavy marijuana use can negatively affect a person’s learning abilities and social skills.1 The studies suggest that a person who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a reduced intellectual level even during periods of brief abstinence.
The 2018 video, now over two years old, was released by Joseph Bondy, who is also the leading attorney in a lawsuit challenging the restrictive status of marijuana under federal law.
Unlike many other drugs that appear on the category one drug list, the effects of long-term daily use of marijuana can begin to be reversed after four weeks, which makes recovery way less daunting to those who may want to get help with compulsive daily use.
The upside is after four weeks of quitting the drug, in most cases, people who had used marijuana for long periods of time could recover their cognitive abilities.
Marijuana is considered among most politicians to be a major draw to the voting booth for youth modern youth voters, so many left leaning individuals will try to take this opportunity to create a divide between the youth vote and President Trumps long line of policy making that is largely in line with that of those int he medical and legal marijuana communities.
The Boston globe acknowledges this in an article released Monday.
But while the president’s IQ claim came as a disappointment, there were other aspects of the secretly recorded dinner conversation that cannabis reform advocates see as positive.
The media relations director for the National Cannabis Industry, Morgan Fox, told Marijuana Moment that despite the fact that he is frustrated by the insinuation that there is a correlation between frequent marijuana use and low IQ, he is optimistic about Trumps views on federal reform of marijuana criminalization.
“However, this clip suggests that he is in a fairly good position or at least heading towards one on the issue overall,” he said. “I think it is pretty clear that he understands that prohibition is a failure from an economic standpoint, that states should be free from federal interference, and that reform could help with the opioid epidemic.”
Marijuana activists took the bait from 2018 video immediately as they quickly jumped to defend their lifestyle and denounce President Trump as out of touch for calling their IQ into question. Even the executive director of NORML, Erik Altieri, uses manipulative language to mislead the public of President Trumps quote in the video.
“If President Trump truly believes that responsible marijuana use by adults leads to a loss of IQ points, we suggest he immediately consults his physician to see if he is suffering from this affliction or at the very least consults the wide body of available research that debunks this old talking point,” Altieri reported to Marijuana Moment.
Altieri and others in opposition of the idea that marijuana can lower cognitive function seem to religiously refer to the same handful of studies, while ignoring so many other with legitimacy that indicate serious social and intellectual declines with excessive marijuana use, especially in those who start in adolescents.
