"Study [..] found that the drug can reduce brain function"
Causal language in news on correlational (case-control) studies should be a crime.
This is a brazen misrepresentation of the results. The direction of the causal arrow (cannabis -> dumb vs dumb -> cannabis)--or if there even is a causal arrow (other factor(s) -> cannabis+dumb)--is purely editorialization and born of a severe lack of journalistic integrity.
I would be also careful on mixing the word dumb -> lower brain activity. The study focuses on brain activity. We cannot say for sure either if the lower brain activity results into dumber life choices. Brain activity in those areas == intelligence???
Even worse: proponents of the Neural Efficiency Hypothesis[1] might interpret the "mean brain activation" values reported in the study[2] in the exact opposite manner. :)
Causal language in news on correlational (case-control) studies should be a crime.
This is a brazen misrepresentation of the results. The direction of the causal arrow (cannabis -> dumb vs dumb -> cannabis)--or if there even is a causal arrow (other factor(s) -> cannabis+dumb)--is purely editorialization and born of a severe lack of journalistic integrity.