I couldn't disagree more. I didn't know code at all and learned over 50% of what I know about code today high. Thousands of hours of high coding. I am now a full stack developer. I was actually the most productive of my entire life when I would wake up and smoke at 8AM every day and continue smoking throughout the entire day.

I would also regularly go into class high and have riveting conversations with my professors. I remember I went into Calculus and Chemistry in senior year of high school high every single day and I always asked the most questions in class every time.

I'm not saying that smoking weed is good or bad, but to say it is strictly bad for learning is false.

I will say from my experiences that it bothers me deeply that we don't unbiasedly look into this more. I wish we could study these things since we already have millions of people doing active experiments worthy of scientific study. And for some reason we are wildly comfortable giving our kids adderall to do homework, which basically is saying every time you have to critically think you will use this as a crutch. That is good, but weed is bad? That seems absurd to me and I would say the long term impact adderrall has on a persons ability to learn is potentially worse than marijuana. I'd also argue that the social stigma of asking questions has more impact on a persons ability to learn than any drug. People are so afraid to ask questions.

I agree with you that it needs more study. Were you prescribed Marijuana? If not, then it seems like you may have just coincidentally been one of the few people who's performance improved as a result taking this drug.

Let me give you another reference point. I know this teacher; I sat in their classes for years listening to them drone on and on about subjects I have no interest in. I listened to them explain to me that '[the next test] will determine my future'. This is the teacher that told me I needed to take 3 years of Spanish in high school or I wouldn't get into a good college.

I know this teacher well, because I was one of their students who started smoking pot.

I went to the beach. I dove in the surf, laughed with my friends, tossed a frisbee, smoked a bowl and fell asleep under the light of the stars listening to the waves crash in.

I went to a concert. A symphonic metal band opened my ears to creative possibilities that I had never before imagined.

I started hanging out with different people. I had previously associated mostly with high academic achievers; most of my new friends were on a different path. They were from the other side of town. They hung out in the school's computer lab, and so did I. They were also some of the most kind and loyal people I'd ever met, and I still count most of them among my closest friends.

At the beginning of sophomore year I was ranked 3rd in my class. I graduated 7th. This teacher was very disappointed in me.

I graduated college with a ridiculous job offer at a growing tech company building systems that save lives every day. Most of the students who slurped up what this teacher was offering didn't realize it was horse shit until they finished school and had to move back in with their parents.

I think this teacher should take this as an opportunity to examine what it is he, and the institution he works for is offering these students as an alternative, and consider the students are making rational choices that serve them better.

We know from the Rat Park study that rats in an enriched environment full of positive social engagement and freedom do not choose morphine. [1]

If the students are choosing drugs, it's because they are trapped in a bare metal cage.

For high achievers the do good in high school so you can go to a good college so you can get a good job track can be financially rewarding, but it is also stressful, often leads to burn out and depression and at the end a kind of existential malaise.

For average students this track means bleak economic prospects, low status, a boring monotony with high student loan debt burden.

Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds.

If his students are rejecting society's plan for them and choosing another, perhaps he should examine what it is he is offering. The conclusion often made from his sentiment is a reflexive authoritarian prohibition.

I know many high achieving friends that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to start lucrative tech careers, and started businesses that are building the future.

I know many other average students that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to live rewarding ski-bum lifestyles funded by bar tending, waiting tables, and small scale real estate investment.

The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

"Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds."

Do you have any stats to back this up besides anecdotal evidence?

"The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way."

This may be the case, but MJ use at an early age is pretty much known by the medical community to cause issues that will directly effect learning. I'm not sure why, if we are a community about learning, we should be encouraging this and spreading outright propaganda.

There may be people that are successful after smoking MJ for years at a time, but everyone that I know that smoked in highschool regularly never really accomplished anything and many are still in the same place (no career, always trying to make ends meet, barely an education).

Here is a good link on teen drug use and the effect on learning:

https://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug-facts/marijuana

It's really not something we should be encouraging.

I'm not encouraging teenage drug use. I'm pointing out how intellectually, emotionally and economically harmful modern high school is for young people.

Before and during alcohol prohibition, demonizing alcohol was the only way that society had to talk about the problem of domestic violence, because society could not address the problem directly. So alcohol was made the scapegoat.

I believe that we currently use drug use in teens as a similar scapegoat, because we can't talk about the reasons teenagers are in distress.

In my opinion the way we do modern education in its current form is harmful to young people. If it wasn't we wouldn't see such high rates of anxiety, depression and ADHD.

I can only offer anecdotes, but at my highschool the burnouts were burnouts before they ever touched pot

Frankly I'm very skeptical about the idea that people don't use drugs when fulfilled. There's always stress in modern life, and drugs are always attractive at some level

Yes, but it is much easier to do them responsibly if you have other rewarding activities to look forward to.

I, for example, spent almost six months high a couple of years ago and loved it. I stopped because the hippies I was working for ran out of money. I was about an inch away from homelessness before I managed to get a job as a software developer. I was sober at work, but I'd get fucked up as soon as I got home, later with friends, &c. Now that I'm working on my own startup my drug usage has declined even more. I still get high when I have the chance, but I have other highly stimulating activities to spend my time on now.

I wouldn't recommend my life choices to anyone else, but there are ways to responsibly partake of excess.

It's not just about dealing with stress. Some drugs offer transcendence, others escape, some enhanced creativity, or the potential to learn more about yourself or the world around you, or a greater bonding with people you love, or greater tolerance, understanding, and empathy, yet others are self-destructive.

A lot depends on who the user is, what assumptions, pre-conceptions, and goals they have, how and where they use the drug, and which drug it is.

Sure, some may use a drug for stress relief or to party, but others use them to expand their mind.

Unfortunately, escapist, ignorant, and self-destructive uses are all too common in modern societies. It doesn't have to be that way.

Sure, but that's sort of the point. They are attractive but if you have access to something better then you'd rather be doing that.

Edited for clarity

I think our modern education system has done more to blunt people the curiosity of young people then these drugs possibly could.

I see what you did there.

The biggest thing here is that like all drugs, not all people mix well with it. In fact I can't name anyone I know who was academic whilst high. Most people are of the mindset that to get the most out of smoking weed you need to do something fun like a concert, beach trip, movies etc. Now that I work full time, I smoke as a release after work, never before, it really clears your mind and helps you mentally disengage from even the most stressful work. When I studied, I always preferred to smoke and get stuff done, my last semester of university was my most successful and most influenced by weed. I've never met anyone else who's like this, but when you stop hanging around the people that "only reference the world in relation to the drug" you find it's less acceptable to talk about it openly with most "normal" people. Most of the people that I tell I was high as a kite for my entire tertiary study can't understand how I did the work and how I stayed motivated. If you can't retain cognitive skills whilst high, don't do it when you need to get stuff done. Several times I had to throw away my paraphernalia in order to stay on top of things, drugs are a very easy 'way out' when faced with a difficult decision, task or goal. It takes a lot of mental self control and will power to succeed in any field and for some people THC does provide a way to forgot the unnecessary and focus on the important.

did you intend to leave off the first two sentences of this post?

    I hate pot. I hate it even more than hard drugs. ..

i am trying to understand why this comment is on top for this article

the comment fail to address the linked study and instead quotes an unrelated third party,

the quote is truncated and anecdotal(One reference point) ,

the source of information for this teacher is eavesdropping on teenagers' bravado,

and the teacher seems to confuse his own conclusion seemingly for some rhetorical zing

   I hate when people say that it’s just experimenting. Because from what I’ve seen, it’s when my students stop experimenting.

the argument of 'just experimenting' i understood meant the kids were experimenting with the chemical processes of their bodies, but the teacher convolutes the term with all forms of experimenting

from this quote i recognise this teacher only references his world in relation to cannabis, and to be choosing which students he is friendly with based on how they talk about cannabis among themselves

I think this is a phase. It doesn't last past a few years. Marijuana becomes boring for people, just like other things.

Alcohol is far worse because you can become dependent on it in a way marijuana doesn't really allow.

> Alcohol is far worse because you can become dependent on it in a way marijuana doesn't really allow.

Well, I've seen more people become dependent with hash/pot than with alcohol. I'd say that's because it's much harder to be functional drunk than stoned.

There might not be physical cravings or withdrawal but when someone starts hitting the bong several times a day, all this talk about hard and soft drugs is bullshit. And once they want to stop, the biggest difference is that they don't have the excuse of being in pain physically.