Dr. Keith Humphreys

No, I'm just kidding.

Sorry, Ezra, just teasing.

Yeah, I mean, so, you know, there are very, very, very successful people who use cannabis for sure.

Overall though, I mean, I'll steal a phrase from Jonathan Calkins, it's like we have performance enhancement drugs, it's kind of a performance degrading drug.

So, it's not fentanyl, you know, your odds of your death being directly traced to it are extraordinarily low, but it does with regular use undermine certain things

things that you need to succeed in the modern world like short-term memory and concentration and being able to keep track of details and for some people also it undermines their sort of motivation to do much of anything.

I mean the couch lock

is a real thing.

You know, I know families in Palo Alto, where I'm from, very achievey place, who had straight A, you know, a straight A son, you know, doing everything, starring on sports or whatever, who, you know, six months later was just smoking cannabis all day and had no interest in the team he used to star on and the math he used to be great on.

And like that's pretty frightening.

And all those things are not conducive to...

succeeding again in a modern world, if maybe back in an agrarian society, it didn't matter because everything was on muscle power, right?

But to succeed in this society, you have to be able to do those things.

And you are in competition,

You know, if you want a job, you know, computer coding, you're in competition not just with the smartest kids in your neighborhood, you're in competition with the smartest kids who are in Mumbai, you know, and in Tokyo.

And if you can't focus or you're just slower and you can't remember things or you have trouble, like, making sure you keep track of time, that is going to put you at a disadvantage.

And...

You can end up... that stereotype of living in mom's basement, that unfortunately is true of a chunk of people who are heavy users of cannabis.

Yeah, and it also has policy risks too.

I mean, you know, when you make up the rules, you know, your laws and regulations to think, well, you know, I'm accomplished, I'm able to use this, so that must mean it's pretty safe.