Marijuana and intelligence
I have high hopes as to what legal marijuana will do to common intelligence.
Marijuana, of course, raises intelligence in users.
This is well established, both anecdotally and through scientific studies (and I am not talking about marijuana’s power to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, thereby prolonging the intelligence of the elderly).
Maybe the great positive effect of marijuana on intelligence is more obvious if we substitute “intelligence” with another word more commonly used in the marijuana context: “creativity.”
Marijuana boosts creativity. This is documented in some scientific studies, and musicians, especially, can attest to this.
There is a simple explanation for the creativity surge. Marijuana, in a rather random manner, blocks conventional thinking on well-travelled neuronal routes. Therefore, the electricity running along brain axons is deviated through uncommon connections.
During the marijuana high, this is often a bit confusing. And the creativity boost caused by marijuana does not even necessarily have to occur during the high.
Fact is, however, that routine thought processes are represented in the brain by electricity flowing along well-travelled channels.
With some of these channels blocked during the marijuana high, alternative pathways are pioneered. These alternative pathways remain as alternatives even when off marijuana.
Thus, marijuana causes creativity (the capacity to think of alternative solutions), or an increase of intelligence, even when off marijuana.
This, again, is in stark contrast to alcohol, which blocks thought channels without opening alternative ones. Alcohol clearly reduces intelligence, killing brain cells, causing Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, and channelling thought along the most routine, clichéd routes.