US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

I think most people agree that weed shouldn't be a schedule 1 drug, but I believe that the movement to decriminalize will have unforeseen consequences on our society. Marijuana use leads to cognitive decline and exacerbates psychiatric conditions even in healthy individuals, full stop. The literature on this is clear. Whether the tradeoff is worth it or not (the increased pleasure, for the decrease in cognitive ability), should be up to the individual to decide.

The problem I have is that no one is talking about the potential consequences when they're talking about legalization. My 70 year old mom is going to parties with her friends where they all have a new habit of smoking marijuana because "it's legal and safe". Regulators, politicians, and advocates only hail the positive effects of marijuana and no one is talking about the cognitive risks involved.

The reason probably is because I think most people agree that it's stupid to send people to jail for smoking marijuana. But they're conflating the idea that decriminalization is good with the idea that marijuana then must not be bad for you. And this is wholly not true, and I wish more people were talking about this.

Btw, I know I will probably get downvoted for this because marijuana users don't want to face the fact that they might be dampening their long-term cognitive potential but please go do a full review of the literature—you will begin to share the doubt that I have.

Can you provide some of your top resources for this argument? I feel like if this were true it would be much more well-known. Maybe you're misreading a paper?

You don't have to look very far.

A systemic review of 26 studies [1] in 2019 found that:

"Although variability in the cannabis products used, outcomes assessed, and study quality limits the conclusions that can be made, modest reductions in cognitive performance were generally detected with higher doses and heavier lifetime use."

The American Journal of Psychiatry [2]:

"Long-term cannabis users showed cognitive deficits and smaller hippocampal volume in midlife. Research is needed to ascertain whether long-term cannabis users show elevated rates of dementia in later life."

This study published in JAMA [3]:

"...among 3385 participants with cognitive function measurements at the year 25 visit, 2852 (84.3%) reported past marijuana use, but only 392 (11.6%) continued to use marijuana into middle age. Current use of marijuana was associated with worse verbal memory and processing speed; cumulative lifetime exposure was associated with worse performance in all 3 domains of cognitive function. After excluding current users and adjusting for potential confounders, cumulative lifetime exposure to marijuana remained significantly associated with worse verbal memory..."

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7259587/

[2] https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2...

[3] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...