The Jordan Harbinger Show - 956: Cannabis | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

What are the social, political, and medical ramifications of cannabis use? Michael Regilio is the Chong to Jordan's Cheech on this Skeptical Sunday! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: The historical use of cannabis in the Middle Ages and colonial times. The criminalization of cannabis in the 20th century and the slow reversal of its prohibition. The effects of THC and CBD. Why modern cannabis is so much more potent than the strains our parents used to sneak. The benefits of legal cannabis. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Michael Regilio at Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and make sure to check out the Michael Regilio Plagues Well With Others podcast here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/956 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled in.

to far-right conspiracies. An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiruality podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday, co-host Michael Regulio. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better-informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though, skeptical Sunday, where a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never

thought about, and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham, why tipping makes no sense, e-commerce scams, diet supplements, the lottery, rakey healing, ban foods, GMOs, and more. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, we've got starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, cyber warfare, crime and cults, and more. that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was told that cannabis was the devil's weed and one should avoid it at all costs.

Kids were dared to just say no and scared with over-the-top ads. Today, some say that cannabis is a cure-all from everything from anxiety to chronic pain. What is the truth? Are the alarmists right in their belief that cannabis is the downfall of humanity? or are the herbalists of today onto something when they push the medical flower? Comedian Michael Regulio is here to give us the straight dope on weed and let us know if it's a medical miracle or if the hype is just smoke and mirrors. Hi, Jordan.

Hi, Michael. Hmm, let me rephrase that. Hi, Jordan. Yes, I see what you did there. No, I'm a busy man with a lot to do, so I am not high in this particular moment. Well, there's some that will tell you that it's a shame that you're not. As you said, cannabis today is purported to have many attributes that are good for you. This is in stark contrast to just 15 short years ago when we

were told that our brains on drugs were not unlike fried eggs in a frying pan. I do remember that ad, and they didn't say cannabis, they said drugs. Ah, yes, the problem being, for the last 53 years, we have classified cannabis as a Schedule 1 narcotic. The same as heroin, meth, coke, all the bigs of the drug world. Yeah, all the fun stuff is on schedule one, even back in the days of just say no, that kind of seemed ridiculous. Cannabis has always had a bad rap. I'm going to just say no to that notion. Cannabis historically always had an excellent reputation, and it's been around a long time. The first recorded use of cannabis was in 2737 BCE, or as historians say, a long-ass time ago. Easy on the academic jargon there. This is an audience of layman.

I'll try to dumb it down for you. Legend has it, Emperor Shang Nang of China, believed to have ruled around 5,000 years ago, prescribed cannabis tea. The earliest Hindu sex in India used cannabis for religious purposes and stress relief. Ancient physicians prescribed cannabis for everything from pain relief to earaches. In fact, Hindus believe the god Shiva brought cannabis to earth, and not just for human use. Turns out, the god Shiva was also a big fan of the plant. The notion of a god needing to get high is a little strange.

Hey, it's hard run in the universe. Different cultures consumed it in different ways. Some cultures mixed it into food. In India, they had a drink called bang. Bang sounds like a sketchy energy drink that you'd see for sale at a truck stop in rural America. Are you sure it's bang? Because it's spelled B-H-A-N-G, so it could also be bong, which, by the way, is more on brand. You're overthinking this one, Jordan.

In 440 BCE, Herodotus wrote about cannabis steam baths. In the second century, Greek Dr. Galen prescribed cannabis as medicine, and Chinese doctors used cannabis for surgery. I assume they used it on the patients, right? Or were they just so stressed out about the surgery they had to perform? I'm guessing it was the former. Although, interestingly enough, that was one of the PSAs of the 1980s

that today plays more like a Saturday Night Live sketch. A surgeon stands over a patient smoking a joint while the narrator opines, if your surgeon was smoking pot, would you still consider it harmless? Pretty silly point. If your surgeon was drinking scotch, would you still consider it harmless? I wouldn't want my surgeon drinking even an energy drink before surgery. Interestingly enough, the Chinese made cannabis into a kind of wine. Wow, weed wine. I see these guys definitely understood the multiplier effect, over there in ancient China.

I guess the original dispensary was somewhere along the Silk Road, man. Anyway, during the Middle Ages, Muslims in the Middle East used cannabis. The Quran strictly prohibited alcohol, but there was no mention of cannabis. Is that true? Is it okay for Muslims to smoke pot? I've never heard that before. Well, in the olden days we're referring to here, it was hashish, with Morocco and Afghanistan being the biggest exporters of this potent concoction. But as, as, far as the modern Muslims go, it's still debated. Most people agree that using cannabis for recreation goes against Islamic law, but using it for medical reasons is a different matter. In 2014,

the Grand Ayatollah Saeed Mohammed Siddek Hussein Rouhani of Iran issued a fatwa or a legal religious ruling. It stated that spiritual plant medicines and psychedelics are halal for Shia Muslims with supervision. Psychedelics, too? I guess if you're going to trip, you gotta do it with your imam. I do have a friend that still trips with his mom. We, I mean, they, gnawsrooms and sit around and watch Alfred Hitchcock movies. Hell of a time. Sounds like a blast, but I said, imam, Jordan.

Imam. It's like a religious leader in the Muslim tradition. Okay, back to the history of cannabis. Both the French and the British had their colonists grow cannabis in the new world. So our country was founded on weed? Nice. And slavery. and the misogyny.

Yeah, I forgot about that part for a sec. It's interesting that this episode is about weed because you're being a little bit of a buzzkill, Regulio. You're starting to sound like my mom. I mean, my mom. In the 1700s, doctors widely prescribed cannabis as medicine in the Western world. The Irish doctor William O'Shaughnessy

popularized its use as pain medicine. It probably works better than a four-leaf clover. Definitely. I've tried smoking clover. And nutmeg and oregano. Because back when I was in high school, cannabis was illegal, and sometimes that's all a kid could get. Which gets me to the first person to outlaw cannabis, Napoleon Bonaparte. When the little French general learned his soldiers had brought cannabis back from Egypt and were getting high, he outlawed it.

I'm surprised. For a little shorthy, you'd think he'd want to get a little higher. Oh, boy. Napoleon was on to something. He may have been a little harsh on hashish, but people in his time realized. that drugs and alcohol use were problematic. In 1868, the British passed the first drug laws, banning some drugs. Around this time, people thought that cannabis use caused mental illness. This, as we'll see later, is debatable. So we're still debating, reifer madness, madness, madness, madness. Not so much debating as looking at the data.

In 1894, the British were concerned about cannabis use in India, In lieu of keeping those they colonized in line, the British established the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission. The thing is, they found that moderate cannabis consumption was not detrimental and found no link to mental illness. So no refer madness, madness, madness, besides, you'd think that if you were trying to subjectate a population like the Brits did in India, you'd be fine if they were just stoned all the time and shoveling snacks into their mouth instead of marching on your colonial

forces wanting human rights and all that stuff. Good point. Well, soon the smoke was starting to blow in the other direction and cannabis's reputation worsened. So much that in 1906, the U.S. government passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which said cannabis was dangerous and must be labeled before being sold. And because history loves irony, in 1913, California became the first state to ban growing cannabis. My how the turntables. Indeed. Then, in 1914,

the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act passed. And Congress tightened restrictions on drugs in America. I mean, it really was a free-for-all. I know there was cocaine in the cola and heroin in the cough syrup and maybe tightening restrictions on narcotics wasn't that out of line.

Hey, there's a reason it was called the good old days. During that period, there was also the Mexican Revolution, which brought many Mexicans north to United States, and just like any group entering America, they were met with racism and xenophobia. Well, the Statue of Liberty says, send me your poor, you're tired, but it does not specifically say anything about people actually being nice to them when they get here. I guess that fine print is on the back of the statue. And it's probably in French. We. Yeah.

One thing that people attacked was that many Mexicans smoked their cannabis. And they didn't call it cannabis. They had their own word for it. A scary, foreign-sounding word. They called it marijuana. The racist seized on this and demonized both the Mexicans and the marijuana. And in 1925, 26 states had outlawed the evil marijuana. I guess if they couldn't outlaw Mexicans, and you know they probably tried back then,

they could take away their fun. I do wonder how things would have been different if Mexicans had called it freedom flowers or something like that instead. That is actually a great idea. Hey, Idaho, it's still illegal in your state. Are you listening? Freedom flowers. Anyway, the next blow for cannabis

came with Harry Enslinger. He was the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and a racist piece of garbage. He had cannabis directly in his crosshairs. So he had a problem with cannabis because he just didn't like Mexicans? Oh, no.

Enslinger was an equal opportunity racist. But don't take my word for it. Take his. Here's a quote from him. And because it's so racist, I need to read. This is him speaking. This is his words that I'm reading. Quote,

there are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S. And most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. They're satanic. music, jazz, and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with the Negroes, entertainers, and any others, end quote. So it makes you not racist and cool and sexy to white women, which, by the way, sounds like an argument for marijuana,

but that's just me. Do podcasters count as entertainers asking for a friend? Oh, he wasn't finished. There's also this gem. Quote, Riefer makes darkies think there is good as white men, end quote. Okay, maybe we need to stop quoting this guy. Classy dude. That's a very good idea.

So Riefer undoes the crippling psychological effects of hundreds of years of brutal racism. Ainslinger, where can we get some of that? Mind you, cannabis was still legal in some places, but it was on its way out. Enslinger famously collected wild and exaggeration. stories about cannabis use and place them in the press. And in 1936, the film you've already referenced came out, Reefer Madness. In truth, it's a really, it's a funny movie because it's so ridiculous. Teenagers are taking a single puff off a joint and they just murder their whole family, or they run into traffic, they jump out windows, or worst of all, they listen to jazz music.

Right. Well, the propaganda worked, and not surprisingly, the following year, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which was written in part by Enslinger himself. The other force behind the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was the petrochemical industry, DuPont in particular. DuPont, like the DuPont who makes a lot of the products in my garage, the stain master carpet we all saw on the TV in the 80s? Yep, that DuPont. In the 1930s, DuPont invented cellophane, made from petroleum, as well as nylon made from petroleum. Cellophane was set to become standard packaging for most American goods and nylon standard for most American fabrics.

Around the same time, Henry Ford was promoting Kemergy, which fuses industrialization with raw materials, the best being cannabis. Now it's time for sponsor Madness, Madness, Madness. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors does keep us going. all the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also use the AI chatbot on the website as well. Please consider supporting

those who support us. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. Why did Ford consider cannabis the best raw material? Because the outer fibers of the cannabis plant can be used to make clothes, fabrics, ropes, and packaging, all better than nylon. The inner fibers of the cannabis plant could be used to make wood for construction. Let me guess. Ford wasn't friends with the the DuPonts or Anslinger. Bingo. Cannabis was suddenly a huge threat to the DuPonts and other business moguls like William Randolph Hearst. Hurst owned most of the newspapers and paper mills then and viewed cannabis as competition. The U.S. Secretary of Treasury, Andrew Mellon, was heavily invested

in the DuPont company and feared cannabis costing him money. But they were in luck. Mellon's son-in-law was none other than Anslinger. So he was easily appointed to the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which developed the Marijuana Tax Act. So the Treasury Department basically went to war with weed over money. Pretty much. Hearst, Mellon, Anslinger, and the DuPonts had a lot of reasons to hate cannabis, and a lot of those reasons were financial.

So big business was just looking at the bottom line. That, by the way, is actually Reefer Madness. Reefer Madness, otherwise known as... Business as usual. Except for Henry Ford, but he was in the minority. DuPont was the number one shareholder in Ford's major competitor, General Motors. Even the Rockefeller family of Standard Oil viewed cannabis sourced ethanol as competition. Henry Ford's first bottle tea used cannabis to make the acrylic skin, upholstery, and ran on cannabis-based ethanol. Were it not for the Marijuana Tax Act, today we would at the very least be seeing a line of Ford cars run on biofuel.

Besides Ford, was there any other opposition to criminalizing cannabis? Yeah, actually, the only other opposition to the legalization was from William Woodward of the American Medical Association. Woodward said no evidence existed that marijuana was dangerous and that outlawing it, quote, loses sight of the fact that future investigation may show that there are substantial medical uses for cannabis, end quote. He was, of course, defeated. and on October 2nd, 1937, a man named Samuel Caldwell became the first person in American history to be arrested for selling marijuana.

Sadly, it would seem that Mr. Caldwell started a tradition. Yep. 23 million people have followed and continue to follow. Here's the thing. Our government knew all along that marijuana wasn't nearly as bad as the hype. Take the findings of the LaGuardia report. 1939, New York Mayor Fiorello Liguardia commissioned a report on the effects of cannabis.

The New York Academy of Medicine issued an extensive research report declaring that contrary to earlier research and popular belief, the use of marijuana did not induce violence, insanity, sex crimes, or lead to addiction or other drug use. Yeah, but what about listening to jazz music? Did they ever get to the bottom of that one finally or what? Sadly, that remains inconclusive. But having smoked a little pot and listened to a little,

little jazz in my day. I think there's something to that. Anyway, a little anecdotal evidence. Yeah. Edslinger trashed the report, calling it unscientific. And don't forget, Enslinger had a powerful ally, William Randolph Hurst, who put his media empire to work on demonizing weed. Gotta love that a politician who stands to make a boatload of money off of demonizing something can simply take a report from the Academy of Medicine and be like, nah, I don't like that. So I'm just going to say, that's not science, and then throw it in the trash and do whatever you want anyway. At least Hearst wasn't against cannabis for racist reasons. It was just pure greed, which, I don't know, is that a little better, I suppose? Sure. In 1951, Congress passed the Boggs Act, which created a mandatory minimum for all drug crimes.

In 1956, the Narcotics Control Act passed, which gave stricter mandatory sentences for marijuana-related crimes. And just like Prohibition did for alcohol, these laws were making marijuana more popular than ever. Is that true? It was the laws that were making marijuana popular? Well, obviously there's no way to say for sure, but there's certainly some correlation. When the U.S. government prohibited alcohol. Drinking went up. When they did the same with cannabis, marijuana came out of the jazz clubs and into the counterculture. Enter the 60s. Right. So if this was a documentary, we'd now be,

obliged to show Jimmy Hendricks playing all along the watchtower during whatever cutscene this is. Yeah, it would be one big montage. Look, in the 60s, both the counterculture of the hippies and the American soldiers in Vietnam became big fans of cannabis. Congress then passed the Controlled Substance Act, which made cannabis a Schedule 1 drug. The classification it still has today. It's so strange. It really makes a mockery of federal drug laws that a drug that is sold in every corner store in so many states is still classified as a Schedule I narcotic. Makes no sense. Yeah, it makes things unnecessarily difficult, as we'll see it a bit, but we're just getting to the next bad guy in the story of cannabis, Richard Nixon. Nixon.

Nixon a bad guy? No way. Yeah, in 1972, the Schaefer Commission, founded by Richard Nixon, found that marijuana was, in fact, not as dangerous as other drugs and recommended it be decriminalized. This, of course, did not play into Nixon's hand. Arresting hippies was his way of controlling the protests against the Vietnam War and quashing opposition to his administration. So instead of decriminalizing marijuana, he did the exact opposite. He declared a war on drugs and established the Drug Enforcement Administration, or the DEA. So he knew what was right, and he just did the opposite, merely for political gain.

Classic politician move right there. Sure is. There's this rather damning quote from former Nixon domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman. Quote, if you want to know what this war on drugs was really all about, the Nixon campaign in 1968 and the Nixon White House, after that, had two enemies, the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and the blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,

we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. end quote. Right, and then evil cackle there, I think, at the end. Now, I take it back. That is not a typical politician. That is next level messed up. So, whew, wow, okay. I used to work with all these guys who were in Nation of Islam, which I don't know if you're familiar with. Louis Farrakhan. Yeah, it's sort of this cucky, like African-American, almost like a gang kind of thing, like a movement. I would work with

them, and they were not thrilled about working with me, I guess, but I was too naive to care. And they had all these conspiracy theories, and they would say things like that. And I thought, okay, a lot of this is made up. Don't get me wrong. A lot of what they said was made up. But they were hip to this stuff, man. And I remember them telling me about this. And then they would just follow it up with how bad Jews and white people were because they were colluding something, something. But this definitely adds a layer of color over those conversations. Yeah, that's interesting. And I got news for you. It gets worse. In 1975, the Supreme Court ruled it is permissible to give sentences for marijuana offenses for up to 20 years in prison.

I'm legitimately getting angry about this. That is awful. Let me just add this in. African Americans are arrested for violating marijuana possession laws at nearly four times the rate of whites. Yet both groups consume marijuana at roughly the same rates. And while I'm on it, even though cannabis is legal in many states, marijuana is half of all drug arrests. Someone gets arrested for cannabis every 58 seconds. This is despite the fact that the majority of Americans now live in a state where cannabis is legal. All right, so I've gone from sad to mad to even more mad. Yeah, it's rage-inducing. In 1980, Reagan was elected and conservative values ruled the day, and not in a lovable Alex P. Keaton kind of way. Nancy Reagan, the Just Say No campaign,

the DARE movement and the partnership for a drug fee America became mainstream. Law enforcement cracked down even harder on marijuana with the previously mentioned racist disproportionality. It's a morning again in America and everyone's in jail for weed. But you know what? It really was a new morning in America. Attitudes changed and changed fast. I don't know if it was the bad hairstyle of the 80s that people were running away from, but beginning in the 90s, a real pushback against the draconian cannabis laws began to flower and bloom. Okay, that was way too cute by a mile.

And in 1996, California passed Proposition 215. The first state to outlaw the cultivation of cannabis became the first to re-legalize it medically, in this case. What a turnaround for California. And we all know what happened since then. 38 states allow medical cannabis, and of those, 23 allow redoubt. recreational use. Wow, okay, this might seem a little late in the show for this, but what is

cannabis? I mean, everybody knows in a broad sense what it is, but what makes a person high? Actually, the more appropriate question is, what are we? Yeah, okay, but let's not get all Sam Harris over here, but fine, let's see what you got. Okay, maybe it's more, why does cannabis interact with us the way it does? All right, so we're going the Z-D-Rout. I can dig it. The answer is the endocannabinoid system. I feel like I've heard of that in a biology class or something. What is the endoc cannabinoid system? It's a biological system in the body that helps regulate and balance key bodily functions

like mood, energy, balance, and appetite. It runs completely through our brains and bodies. So it's kind of like the nervous system? In that it's a control system through our bodies, yes. The endocannobinoid system regulates functions through naturally occurring cannabinoids produced inside the human body. These natural cannabinoids interact with cannabinoid receptors, of which there are many. Okay, I'm with you so far.

Cannabinoids also exist in other places in nature, such as cacao, which is why dark chocolate makes us feel a certain way. It's interacting with our cannabinoid receptors. So being a chocaholic could kind of be a real thing? Sure is. I have my six-month chip from Chocoholics Anonymous. Sadly, they made it out of chocolate and I ate it. Kikau is it the only plant that produces cannabinoids. I'm betting you can guess the other. Is it cannabis? Correct. Cannabis has over 100 different cannabinoids. But for our purposes today, we're just going to be talking about the big two.

THC and CBD. I'm pretty sure everybody's heard of those. You can't kind of not, if you hear any ads for anything anywhere in California. Right. And I'm pretty sure everybody knows the THC or tetrahydro-canal. nabinol is the one that gets you high. And CBD or cannibidial is the one with purported health benefits. CBD is everywhere these days, at least in California. You can literally go and get a freaking latte with CBD at the corner coffee shop, just in case you wanted to ruin a good latte. Yeah, CBD is so ubiquitous in California that I'm pretty sure I saw a happy meal with CBD. Maybe not. But the thing is, it's probably not doing anything because you need 100 grams of CBD for your body

absorb any of it and products like lattes and teas you buy at the store have 20 grams or so. So the effects are all kind of psychosomatic at that dose? Essentially, the point is, our bodies and our brains already have the receptors in place to interact with cannabinoids. The thing is, cannabinoids like THC are way more powerful than the ones our bodies make, like a thousandfold more powerful. When consumed psychoactive components are absorbed into the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier. The effects are quick, way quicker than, say, drinking a scotch and soda. Cannabis, when smoked, enters the brain within 30 seconds. Cannabis, from when you want to get high and you don't have a single second to spare.

What kind of high you experience depends on the strain of cannabis you've taken. You are, of course, referring to indica and sativa. One might say that I'm referring to them. Oh, man. No, how about no? Oh, come on. I've resisted pot puns up to this point, and you won't even give me this one? Nope, just say no. To crappy puns, Nancy Reagan taught me that. Fine. Well, you are right. The two main strands of cannabis are setiva and indica. There's also a strain called ruderalis, but that's so seldomly used, we're just going to skip it.

Sativa and Indica give different highs because they interact with our brains differently. Let's start with Sativa. Sativa plants are taller than indica and have longer leaves. Sativa is considered more of a stimulant. Users feel more alert and focused one on it compared to Indica. Sativa is a mood elevator and makes people talkative, and some call this a head high. Sativa does this because it's activating receptors in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Sativa can reduce stress.

It is believed to have some pain management properties and gives users a heightened sense of importance towards their activities. That explains why my old neighbor, a DJ, thought it would. was okay to jam out at 11 o'clock at night, and why he's so into jazz of all genres. It's interesting that you said head high, though. What other kind of high could there be? Body high, my man. Indica is considered a body high. It relaxes you physically. That's why it's colloquially called Indicouch. Indica is more of a sedative. This is because Indica suppresses the amygdala part of the brain and also shuts down the hippocampus. The indica variety of cannabis can lead to defects in memory.

Indica is often used for sleep disorders and anxiety relief. Relief from the leaf, eh? So those are your options. Get talkative or turn into a couch potato. Heck no. In fact, it's actually pretty rare to find pure sativa or indica these days. We live in the age of hybrids. Through plant genetics, growers have souped up that boring old cannabis

and cross sativa and indica into many hybrids that have qualified. of both plants. not wrap their minds around the idea, that me panicking and trying to call my mom about homework I forgot to do in the eighth grade was not my idea of a good time. It's hilarious. And while we're talking about the genetic manipulation of cannabis, it's worth mentioning they've also souped up the amount of THC. Whereas the THC and the cannabis we discussed at the top of the show might have been in

the low single digits, modern cannabis is over 20 and 30 percent. THC. Ooh, not your father's pot. Now, my father's pot was kept in a coffee can above the fridge and was loaded with seeds and stems. He was getting hosed by his dealer for sure. But as far as modern pot goes, growers have gotten so good at manipulating the plants that there are all new categories of hybrids, type 1, type 2, and type 3.

What do those types mean? Those refer to the THC-to-C-C-B-D ratio plants have. Type 1 has the most THC and a little CBD. Type 2 has less THC and more CBD. And type 3 has very little THC, mostly CBD. I suppose now is a good time to ask. What is CBD actually? CBD, just like THC, is a cannabinoid.

Only CBD doesn't get you high, but has other distinct effects. Many believe CBD has many great medical uses. Well, you said many believe. So is there just no solid evidence? back up the claims yet or what? The studies are still ongoing. Okay, well, let me start by saying that there is a very effective seizure medicine on the market today that is derived from CBD. So yes, CBD has medical merit. But according to Margaret Haney, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at Columbia University Medical Center and a leading cannabis

researcher, the claims are quickly outpacing the research because cannabis is still a Schedule I drug, this stuff is really tough to study. It just seems like with the number of people using legal cannabis, the government should make it easier to study, no? Well, I'm happy to say that there has been some movement in that direction. President Biden is backing the reclassification of cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3. Until then, though, most medicinal claims aren't always backed up with hard data. Plus, most of this stuff is subjective. There's the placebo effect. If you think it's helping you sleep, it helps you sleep. If you think it's calming you down, it calms you down. If you think it's helping you write good poetry. Yeah, then you write really terrible poetry.

Got it. Okay. Yes, that is true. But the fact remains that we're in the realm of the brain-body connection. It's an intersection of things we still have a lot to understand. Let's list a few proven positives of cannabis and CBD. There's firm evidence suggesting cannabis treats the effects of chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis spasticity, chronic pain, sleep disorders, neuropathy, appetite loss, and inflammation. I got to say, a show fan did send me a bunch of CBD gummies that are super strong. It's 40 plus milligrams or something. I took one thinking, okay, CBD is mostly a scam. Every other time I've taken CBD, it's done nothing. And these things, half of one of these things knocks me right out. And I kept them for a sleep aid and they absolutely

put me down. But I don't know, maybe it's not just CBD in there because I think they're made in California. So I don't think they have to get it completely right. They can probably just put in some THC and that it's not, they're not breaking the law per se by doing that by including THC. So anyway, those are all good things in my estimation, right? Those are disorders that drive people either crazy or involve a lot of pain. And if CBD's helping with that, then awesome. Yeah. One of my best friends has MS. And he does take CBD for his leg spaseless. and he claims it works great. So, awesome. Yeah, placebo or not, kudos. All right. All right. So now let's get into the bad things. Most of the issues we're going to discuss are

from chronic use. Chronic use is considered more than twice a week. Chronic use of the chronic tale is oldest time. Twice a week, though, sounds pretty tame compared to most of the stoners I know, who are probably twice before lunch kind of guys. Yeah, I know. Me too. Well, actually, I want to get to this before we get to the really bad things. You hope be surprised to learn this somewhat benign effect of chronic use. Stoner Voice and Stoner Laf are real and documented. Stoner voice is real? I thought that was just some Hollywood nonsense. Come on, man. Stoner Voice is totally real. It sounds like you talking when you're not on your seventh cup of coffee before we record Skeptical Sunday. Very funny, man. Look, chronic users experience disruptions in motor circuitry

which leads to stoner voice. It's not just Hollywood, man. It's real. It's funny and interesting, but it's not exactly life-changing negative effects. I mean, if that's the brunt of it, okay, fine. So you talk like a stoner. What else is new? Who cares? All right, true, but there are actually real negatives. Let me emphasize this.

The most negative effects from cannabis use come from when you smoke. Like what time a day you roll up that fatty? No. At what point in the brain's development you use cannabis. Let's start with the most crucial in your mother's womb. It is beyond terrible to smoke pot when you're in your mother's womb. Yeah, you don't want to be a stoner, baby. Obviously, it's the mother who is using cannabis.

Experts say this is really, really bad. THC crosses the placenta. Fetuses have cannabinoid receptors and can't handle THC or CBD. Experts are very, very clear on this. Don't use cannabis or CBD when you're pregnant, like none, zero zip. yet shockingly, there are women that do it. It's insane and sad, but I know plenty of women out there who think that CBD especially or pot is just harmless.

The problem is, like I said before, the hype on medical cannabis and CBD is way ahead of the data. So there are literally people telling pregnant women to take a little CBD. I know, it's terrible. If you're fortunate and you had a mother who didn't use cannabis, you can still screw it up specifically for young men by using. cannabis at the other crucial time in the brain's development. Youth.

You said especially for young men, does research specifically point to men? And if so, why? What's up at that? Well, it does specifically point to men. Obviously, chronic use is a bad idea for young women as well. But in young men, the fact of the matter is the prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed. It develops later for young men than it does for young women.

Prefrontal cortex is kind of the part of the brain that runs the equation and sees consequences, which is why young men do stupid things up until they're in their 20s because they have an idea and their brain doesn't run the movie forward and show them the consequences, whereas young women it develops earlier. And that's why they say young women mature faster than young men. I can think of about 800,000 stupid things I did until I was 22 or 23. Yeah. I mean, you can go almost all the way up to 30 for me, I think.

It might have been a late bloomer. Or maybe I'm just viewing a lot of the stuff I did in my 20s with, hindsight here, but you mentioned that you can still screw it up, especially for young men, by using cannabis during your youth. But that, unfortunately, that's obviously when young men try cannabis. Yeah, full disclosure. That's what I tried cannabis. Again, the effects are far worse for chronic use. It can lead to depression and anxiety. In fact, chronic cannabis use makes people four times more likely to experience depression, especially among younger people. Studies show that early use of cannabis on a developing mind can lead to psychosis at later ages.

Psychosis, yikes, that is terrible. I used to confuse psychosis with schizophrenia. I know that psychosis can be a result of schizophrenia, but what is that? Is that just sort of a basic break in reality? That's my understanding. Psychosis is a part of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a larger panoply, a larger picture, a collage of disorders, I imagine. And for those who use cannabis as young as 12 to 14, the probability of schizophrenic episodes, more than doubles.

Oh, wow. Okay. So yikes. Do experts understand why that is? Studies show that adolescent cannabis use accelerates the thinning of the prefrontal cortex and gray matter in particular. The more cannabis used, the more impaired those neural circuits are. So kids just say no to drugs? Oh, no. This episode is turning us into a couple of Nancy Reagan's. Nancy is the new Karen. Okay, but here's the good news. If you're over 25, it's kind of all good.

Of course, smoking or vaping anything comes with dangers, and chronic use is not a good idea, but these dangers, the ones we just talked about, cease to be as serious. But I should mention, for people who are predisposed to mental health issues or violent tendencies, using cannabis can actually trigger these things, and they should never use cannabis. I myself had an experience like this one time. What do you mean? 20 years ago I was living in a studio apartment in Echo Park, California, which is full of musicians and artists.

Guilty is charged. Sounds like a bunch of marijuana users, if you ask me, but okay. You nailed it. And so there's a guy working on the... Were there any Filipinos there, Michael? You can tell me the truth. I will admit there was jazz music. And so anyway, they were redoing the apartment next door,

and there was a guy working, and he seemed like, a nice enough guy and I got into a conversation with him one day and I said, hey, on your lunch break, pop over to my place and we'll smoke a joint. He's like, okay, sure. He came over, seemed like a nice enough guy. We're chatting. We smoked a joint. He changed so completely. He started banging his head against my wall. And he was staring at a Beatles poster and he turns to me and he's like, John Lennon knew about 9-11. You know that right, man. You know that right man. John Lennon knew about 9-11, I was like, I did not know that. And then he started going, you're afraid I'm going to hurt you. Whoa. You're afraid I'm going to hurt you, aren't you? And I was like, uh, no, I'm afraid you're

going to kill me. I'm hoping you'll just hurt me at this point. You didn't say that, though. No, of course not. I was like, right now it hurts best case scenario in my mind. And I'm no expert. I can't diagnose this guy, but I watched him have some sort of episode and it was clearly brought on by the marijuana. So that might be anecdotal, but there's something to that. So yeah, but I mean, that happened. That's really scary. That's really scary. And he, that's happened to him before, I would assume, because he didn't, maybe he just read your fear, but I assume he's had that happen before. And then people go, hey, man, I'm afraid you're going to hurt me. Let's go outside or you have to leave. And that's why he said, oh, you're afraid I'm going to hurt. Yeah. So, man, that guy should

stay away from that stuff. That's really, really scary. Gosh. Yeah. Look, the fact of the matter is this is a percentage of people. So back to the good news. If you're over 25, it's generally safe to smoke pot in moderation. Unless you react like that, in which case you should definitely never do it again. Yeah, no, that's... Yeah, for sure. That's scary. But it's good because adults are going to be smoking for the foreseeable future as weed becomes more and more legal, or ingesting. I don't smoke anything because I need my voice to make a living and it would be kind of a dumb way to go out or at least to have to retire if I was smoking something, but, you know, a little weed mint or something like that on a holiday

or at night, whatever, you know. But here's something I've wondered about. Is there a good sobriety test for cannabis? No. Alcohol is water soluble. Therefore, the amount in the bloodstream or breath is a very good indicator of impairment. But cannabis is lipophilic, meaning it lives in the fat cells, and there is no good sobriety test. So it'll be hard to enforce as states legalized cannabis. But that one minor problem is insignificant compared to all the good those tax revenues will do for those states, which is the really good news about cannabis. Right. I have to imagine those taxes are doing, well, doing a lot of good. Right. Some of the cannabis tax revenue goes to education-related initiatives like school construction, school food programs, before and after

school enrichment programs, public libraries, environmental cleanup, law enforcement, and drug prevention programs, among a bunch of other stuff. I mean, that is the promise of legal cannabis, right? The tax revenue. Love that tax revenue from drugs is going into drug prevention programs. That is some delicious bureaucratic irony right there. Or maybe I just have the munchies. Right. And then there's the unseen revenue as well. All the money we're not spending on enforcement, court dates, and incarceration. Look, I know I've come off like a bit of a Nancy in this episode, But I believe the government has limited rights when it comes to adults doing what they want to in the sanctuary of their own homes. Ultimately, I think the war on drugs has been a total failure.

Which actually isn't surprising since it started with false pretenses and racist motivations, which I had no idea about any of that. I didn't even realize that from the jump. Right. I think adults should be free to do drugs and free to not do drugs. Education. That's the key. Thank you very much, Michael. Thank you, Jordan. This has been a real... joint effort. All right. Okay, I'm going to let you get away with that last pun because it was pretty good. I would say you smoked it. Thanks, Jordan. Thanks for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday can go to Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com.

Transcripts in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Michael at Michael. Michael Regilio on Instagram, Michael Reguliocomedy.com. Tour dates up now as well. We'll link to that in the show notes because, as always, nobody can spell Regulio. This show has created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. And we get a lot of stuff wrong, especially on these skeptical Sundays because these topics are deep and they are wide. So if we really made a big error, email us. We're usually pretty receptive to that, depending on how sour your email actually is. You know how to reach me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others.

Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use a good dose of the skepticism that we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show on how to hardwire happiness. I focus on growing resources in the mind. That's what resilience fundamentally is.

To maintain an equilibrium, to be regulated internally in the pursuit of important goals while being challenged. We remembered negative interactions with other people more than positive ones. We remember negative gossip about celebrities more than good news. We are much more rapidly trained into helplessness from a few experiences of people. futility and defeat, negative emotional experiences have a toxic effect on the brain. They accumulate over time, but do they invade your mind? Do they invade the inner temple of the core of you? And if they do invade you, do they occupy you? Do they remain? Don't feed the beast. Quit ruminating about it, quit obsessing about it, quit looping almost laps around the track in hell,

digging that track a little deeper every single time. You can't do anything about the past, even the present is what it is. But moving in the future, you can always grow the good inside yourself. You can always become a little stronger, a little more skillful, a little happier, a little more loving each hour and each day. And that is within our power. No one can stop us from doing that. No one can stop us from growing from our experiences. And no one can do it for us. to me is final most honorable, self-reliant, even heroic things a person can do. What you can count on is what's inside you.

To learn how you can build more resilience, check out episode 192 of the Jordan Harbinger Show with Rick Hanson. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what that actually happened? You got to subscribe to What Was That Like? It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives,

and they're not just giving you the highlights. They're walking you through it from the inside as the person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is Sue's parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story. And then there's Michael who was stabbed on a bus, which makes your commute instantly feel a little bit more relaxing.

Do you anything you think? So if you want to hear some wild and inspiring firsthand stories, I invite you to check out what was that like. Every story is verified. Their site even has photo. so you know even the most bizarre stuff you're hearing is somebody's real life. Listen to what was that like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever app you're using right now. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast.

Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to. ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas

you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work itch search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening you can thank me later