[Vision2020] Discussing Marijuana via Social Media

Tue Sep 3 13:32:23 PDT 2013

I enjoyed this article about why talking drug use prevention is so
difficult on the internet.  Certainly matches my own findings.  My father
was also roundly attacked when he lobbied against M legalization in his
state.

*This article from Sue Rusche of What About The Children campaign was
published** to show just how inane are comments from the drug user
community on the internet. The sad part is that many young people use
Facebook and Twitter and can be easily influenced by the comments they read
on these and similar sites.  Parents need to educate their youngsters so
that they know how biased and full of untruths such comment from drug users
can be. NDPA*

*Don’t Expect to Learn Anything True about Marijuana From Internet
Commenters* <http://www.butwhataboutthechildren.org/?p=1079>

Six days after *The Huffington Post* published my latest article, browsers
had logged in 156 comments. The post was titled Marijuana Legalization
Proponents Deny Health Harms Just Like the Tobacco Industry
Did<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-rusche/marijuana-legalization-pr_b_2884765.html>;
153 of the 156 comments proved the point.

Just 30 people made 80 percent (125) of the comments. Contributing the most
were truthaboutmmj<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/truthaboutmmj?action=comments>(19);
kevin
hunt2012<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/kevin_hunt2012?action=comments>(12);
Andrew
swanteni<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Andrew_swanteni?action=comments>(9);
Blows
Against the Empire<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Blows_Against_the_Empire?action=comments>and
ConnieInCleveland<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/ConnieInCleveland?action=comments>(6
each);
RMForbes <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/RMForbes?action=comments>,
SchumannFu <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/SchumannFu?action=comments>,
and Volteric <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Volteric?action=comments>(5
each);
JohnThomas <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/JohnThomas?action=comments>,
Tomaniac <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Tomaniac?action=comments>,
and WowFolksAreDumb<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/WowFolksAreDumb?action=comments>(4
each); average
dude <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/average_dude?action=comments>,
FlyingTooLow<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/FlyingTooLow?action=comments>,
JD Salinger<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/JD_Salinger?action=comments>,
Matthew Fairbrother<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Matthew_Fairbrother?action=comments>,
McMike55 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/McMike55?action=comments>,
moldy <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/moldy?action=comments>, Paul
Paul <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Paul_Paul?action=comments>, and
susierr <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/susierr?action=comments> (3
each). Eleven people contributed 2 comments each; 28 contributed 1 each.
Only one person, Jan Beauregard,
PhD<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Jan_Beauregard?action=comments>,
a Virginia psychotherapist
<http://ipivirginia.com/2012/10/jan-beauregard/>whose specialties
include addictive disorders, agreed that marijuana has
health harms. She contributed three comments.

Clicking a link in a commenter’s name will take you to *Huff
Post’s*<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/your-huffpost-experience_b_260666.html>Social
News and a collection of all the comments that person has made about
*Huff Post* stories. Commenters
apply<http://www.butwhataboutthechildren.org/?paged=1>for a spot on
Social News by linking it to their Facebook accounts, which
magnifies *Huff Post’s* reach. Call it *Huff Post* squared.* Huff
Post*cubed occurs if commenters also link Social News to their Twitter
accounts.
*Huff Post *<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/introducing-huffpost-badg_b_557168.html>awards
badges to commenters based on the number of comments they make on *Huff
Post’s* stories and the number of Facebook Friends and Twitter Followers
they have. The more comments, friends, and followers, the higher level
badges they earn.
WowFolksAreDumb<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/WowFolksAreDumb?action=comments>,
for example, who must hold some kind of record, has written more than
10,000 comments since joining Social News in May 2012 and has earned four
badges–Level 2 Networker, Level 2 Superuser, Level 1 Crime Solver, and
Moderator.

*Huff Post* has brilliantly tapped into social media to expand its audience
exponentially. But this brave new world comes at a cost. Few editors live
in this world. Opinions triumph over facts. Quantity trumps quality. Truth
loses.

Juxtapose this with two major problems of current science: 1) the public
cannot access most published studies and 2) scientific disciplines are so
specialized that public
access<http://www.butwhataboutthechildren.org/?paged=1>would hardly
matter. A PhD is needed to understand the complexity of new
knowledge scientists are developing today, and a PhD in one discipline does
not guarantee understanding of knowledge developed in another. Scientists
can’t speak each other’s languages anymore, so specialized have various
disciplines become. An astronomer couldn’t explain the genome to you any
better than a geneticist could explain the cosmos.

Without access to comprehensible science, science illiteracy rules,
particularly in the area of the science that underlies addictive drugs.
Perhaps the most puzzling argument that runs through many of the comments
about my post is one that rejects later work which contradicts earlier
studies. WowFolksAreDumb<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/WowFolksAreDumb?action=comments>,
for example, writes, “According to Dreher 1994, there are no prenatal or
neonatal differences between babies from mothers who did use cannabis
during pregnancy and babies from mothers who did not.” In addition to the
2012 study I wrote about, more than 50 other studies about the harmful
effects of marijuana on the developing fetus have been published since
1994, but WowFolksAreDumb<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/WowFolksAreDumb?action=comments>claims
the 1994 study negates them all. Maxpost,
Midnight Toker<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/maxpost?action=comments>,
goes a step further. He interprets Dreher’s study to mean: “Pregnant women
SHOULD smoke DOPE!!!”

Commenters attacked all the studies I wrote about, particularly the study
indicating a link between marijuana use and testicular cancer. Steve
Hager<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Steven_Hager?action=comments>dismissed
it this way: “I believe the testicular cancer study involved 6
people, maybe it was only 3. Worthless, really.” That study actually
involved 163 young men diagnosed with testicular cancer and a control group
of 292 healthy men of the same age and ethnicity and asked them about their
drug use. The investigators found that compared to those who had never used
marijuana, men who had used the drug were twice as likely to have
testicular cancer. It’s difficult to understand why Mr. Hager couldn’t
trouble himself to check how many people were involved in the study since I
provided links to both the account of it published by *Science Daily* and
the abstract of the study itself. Both clearly state the number of research
subjects.

The collision of social media with current, complex science produces a
chasm where scientific truth can be manipulated easily – and aggressively.
I emailed Dr. Beauregard to thank her for supporting the marijuana science
I had written about. She emailed back, “I have found many of the same
facts, but the comments are more than I can stand and the backlash is
horrific. I only posted a few things and have had literally over 50 people
email me with hostile, emotional comments based on personal experience as a
user.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the heart of the problem. When it comes to
marijuana, users dominate not just *Huff Post*, but the Internet as well.
They relentlessly assault anyone who reports that a marijuana study might
show a detrimental effect. Few have time to put up with this, not
therapists like Dr. Beauregard who treats marijuana addiction, not
scientists who conduct the studies, not writers who report the science.
With marijuana, what takes place on the Internet is a shouting match; those
who shout loudest win.

After this experience, I’ve learned something else about the drug:
marijuana not only makes you lie, it makes you rude.

Source: www.nationalfamilies.org  National Families in
Action<http://www.butwhataboutthechildren.org/?author=2>March 29, 2013
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