Weird Science keeps careful track of its medicinal brownies

The dog will finish whatever the kids are too faded to eat.

cseeman

The unintended consequences of medicinal pot brownies. Lots of states are in the process of decriminalizing medicinal and/or recreational marijuana, sometimes to the tune of anguished cries of "think of the children." Well, as it turns out, those who are partaking in this mind-altering substance should actually think of the children. Because those brownies look awfully good to them. A before-and-after study of the period around Colorado's decision to allow medical marijuana tracked patients admitted to a children's hospital due to concerns about marijuana ingestion. Although there were more patients evaluated before the law change, a grand total of zero turned out to be suffering from marijuana intoxication. After, however, 2.4 percent of the children had actually ingested pot.

Fully half the kids had gotten the drug in their systems by ingesting a food product. Symptoms included everything from lethargy and disorganized movements to breathing problems; two of the kids ended up in the intensive care unit. So, to borrow a phrase, it's worth remembering that with great availability comes great responsibility.

Lying about sex on the "bogus pipeline." The "bogus pipeline" is a term that shows up in this paper's title, and refers to a lie detector machine that is never switched on. Participants aren't told that it's inoperative, however, and tend to be more honest. And, when it comes to gender roles, being more honest tends to involve guys admitting they write poetry, and women admitting that they enjoy telling obscene jokes. The one area where there was a difference between those who thought their lies were being detected and the control group? Sex. Women who thought they had to tell the truth admitted they had more sexual partners than both the women in the control group and men in general. For men, the effect was the opposite, in that they tended to claim more sexual partners when they could get away with lying. Apparently, sex itself is the one area where the two sexes feel compelled to live up to their reputations.