A Link Between Marijuana Legalization & Car Crashes? Nonsense

a post by John M. Grohol for the World of Psychology blog



In October, the Highway Loss Data Institute and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released a self-published report that suggested there’s a strong correlational link between automobile crash rates and the legalization of marijuana in states. This would be harrowing news if the finding was based upon strong scientific evidence.

Unfortunately for these institutes, though, the research data is murky at best. And because these organizations self-published the report, rather than going through the scientific peer-review process, it’s hard to take their findings seriously.

Before we begin to look at the data, readers should understand that although the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) are two distinct legal organizations, they share the same senior leadership, the same physical address, and probably a lot more. It makes it sound like these are two independent, unrelated organizations that found similar results when they pooled their collective minds, but that is not the case.

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Correlation (if it existed which does not appear to be the case) does not equal causation.

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Probing Psychoses

via 3 Quarks Daily: an article by Courtney Humphries in Harvard Magazine

Andrew LeClerc knew something was wrong when he heard voices when no one else was around. Some were those of people he knew, others were unfamiliar, but all had the authentic mannerisms of real people, not his imagination. He was in his early twenties, unsure of his direction in life, and had been taking synthetic marijuana to ease stress from past traumas.

Disturbed by the voices, he sought help in an emergency room and voluntarily admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital, not realizing he would be kept there for six days. He was diagnosed with psychosis, but had little interaction with a therapist. “You mostly sit around with coloring books,” he says. It felt like a punishment, when all he wanted was help.

Afterward, he contacted therapists, but many were booked.

An online search led him to a research study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for people newly diagnosed with psychotic disorders. In January 2014, he entered a two-year study that compared two approaches to psychotherapy to help manage cognitive impairments and other symptoms. He was also prescribed an antipsychotic medication.

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