CNN: High IQ linked to drug use

[MagsJ]

CNN: High IQ linked to drug use
Posted by Joshua Spodek
15 Nov 2011

62 | 0
From http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/high-i...

The "Just Say No" generation was often told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn't use drugs. Turns out, the adults may have been wrong.

A new British study finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children. The data come from the 1970 British Cohort Study, which has been following thousands of people over decades. The kids' IQs were tested at the ages of 5, 10 and 16. The study also asked about drug use and looked at education and other socioeconomic factors. Then when participants turned 30, they were asked whether they had used drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin in the past year.

Researchers discovered men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults. A high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158. An average IQ is 100. The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

... the article continues ...

Do you think there's a cause and effect there or just correlation?

If cause, which direction, or from somewhere else?

[FilmSnob]

I would guess that intelligent people have a higher propensity to question.

[MagsJ]

An acquaintance from a networking site posted that OP on there, and I thought it would be interesting to hear what ILPers have to say on the matter - I will paste some of the more 'interesting' responses to see the comparison between their thoughts and our's.

[anon]

I would guess that intelligent people have a higher propensity to question.

Sounds reasonable. I'd link intelligence with curiosity. And as we all know, curiosity can backfire, and kill the cat.

[FilmSnob]

I would guess that intelligent people have a higher propensity to question.

Sounds reasonable. I'd link intelligence with curiosity. And as we all know, curiosity can backfire, and kill the cat.

Not if the cat does proper research beforehand!

[Kriswest]

Curiosity maybe a factor but, I like the way beer shuts my mind off. I used to smoke pot, have taken shrooms and tried acid once,, loved that trip by the way so that won't ever happen again. Shrooms were relaxing and fun. I happen to be highly allergic to THC so thats out. I have beer and cigs. both relax my mind so it will just plain just shut up or just ramble on with out intense control. That is why i use drugs, to let my self be relaxed. When your brain is always working it becomes a blur sometimes. To put everything in neutral is healthy mentally. To overdo it would be detrimental as is proven time and again . There are times in the evenings where I just really do not want to solve issues or think about how. what when where. It takes me, without beer, at least an hour to relax my brain so that I may fall asleep regardless of how fatigued my body is. This is unacceptable.

[Philosopher8659]

I have a very high IQ, done some remarkable work, but I still have not figured out how to open the aspirin bottle.

From a bit of experience though, drugs are not something to actually talk about. It is just a stage one goes through, like shitting one's diaper. They don't make a habit of talking about it once they get into jeans though-not unless they are neurotic.

[Kriswest]

Simple way to open that bottle, a hammer and a ziploc bag. Child proof my ass....

[Philosopher8659]

Simple way to open that bottle, a hammer and a ziploc bag. Child proof my ass....

This is a nice start, but do I put the bottle in the bag before or after teasing it with a hammer?

[Kriswest]

I would choose before due to my own personal experience. Those little pills tend to fly away once their nice little bottle explodes with a frustrated and in pain hammer hit

[Philosopher8659]

I would choose before due to my own personal experience. Those little pills tend to fly away once their nice little bottle explodes with a frustrated and in pain hammer hit

I will remember that should I ever find a need, but I really almost never take meds of any kind. Well, that is not true, I am addicted to coffee, or even coffee with choc in it and cigarettes. Probably due to my neurotic condition of never having enough time to do all the things I have planned. I want to put up a website dedicated to dialectic, with the dialogs of Plato, audio books on philosophy, geometry, the new form of geometry I discovered, etc, etc, but just doing the work leaves me no time. So, it seems I don't have any time for recalcitrant bottles or meds--but it is best to have given some thought to a possibility.

[Kriswest]

Oh you just have to try coffee and Kahlua then. Its great on these upcoming winter evenings. Having no time for meds is a good thing , half the time I forget to take my supplements and aspirin, by the time I remember i am in pain and have no access to them so i get by without them. which is cool. at least my body will not build up a tolerance to aspirin too quickly, I hate arthritis

[Philosopher8659]

Oh you just have to try coffee and Kahlua then. Its great on these upcoming winter evenings. Having no time for meds is a good thing , half the time I forget to take my supplements and aspirin, by the time I remember i am in pain and have no access to them so i get by without them. which is cool. at least my body will not build up a tolerance to aspirin too quickly, I hate arthritis

Now I would be more of a walking, or should I say swaggering, contradiction than I already am. I only drink once or twice every couple of years or so. Just to remind me of where the floor is suppose to be.

[Kriswest]

ROTFLMAO I didn't say make it half and half. just a touch for taste. not even a shot is needed. I guess having you try some imported fudge made with a bourbon is out of the question????? A two inch by half inch piece leaves you thinking you might just get busted for a DUI. But it is soooo sinfully delicious.

[FilmSnob]

Booooze...

Druuugs...

I must be some kind of super genious.

Lol, no, it's not that bad.

[Kriswest]

I do advise not dropping any acid. that stuff is far too enticing. once you had a trip , areally good one it leaves the world looking just a shade more dismal and ignorant. Beware the bad trip though, thats the one that will kill you. I have seen it happen. It ain't pretty.

[Philosopher8659]

I do advise not dropping any acid. that stuff is far too enticing. once you had a trip , areally good one it leaves the world looking just a shade more dismal and ignorant. Beware the bad trip though, thats the one that will kill you. I have seen it happen. It ain't pretty.

Maybe it is just me, but I found them rather boring--too long and too predictable. It may have a lot to do with my mental discipline which I had practiced since childhood, I could not say.

[FilmSnob]

I do advise not dropping any acid. that stuff is far too enticing. once you had a trip , areally good one it leaves the world looking just a shade more dismal and ignorant. Beware the bad trip though, thats the one that will kill you. I have seen it happen. It ain't pretty.

Maybe it is just me, but I found them rather boring--too long and too predictable. It may have a lot to do with my mental discipline which I had practiced since childhood, I could not say.

shitty acid.

trust me.

[indoz]

I think most publicised studies such as this are just attempts of scientists to reinforce their own personal biases.

Morality is anything one makes it (as most people know) so the idea that drug taking is "wrong" is moot. These scientists presume that Western societies are still like the 1950s, but this is false, since many see little issue in taking drugs.

[Philosopher8659]

I think most publicised studies such as this are just attempts of scientists to reinforce their own personal biases.

Morality is anything one makes it (as most people know) so the idea that drug taking is "wrong" is moot. These scientists presume that Western societies are still like the 1950s, but this is false, since many see little issue in taking drugs.

This makes the naive assumption that the mind of man does not have a specific job to do--that the mind of man is actually superfluous. Now, that is a very sad view of one's self and mankind in general. Those who see no importance of the job the mind has to do, quite frankly, only do so from a poverty of that very same mind.

[MagsJ]

But do you guys think that the study has any grounding to be true?

[Kriswest]

It has some. I think they forget to take the stress of living into account for the most part.