DOES RESEARCHING CASUAL MARIJUANA USE cause brain abnormalities? “First of all, the study has a very small sample size, with only 20 ‘cases’ (marijuana users), a fact that is important to keep in mind in what follows. The title uses the term ‘recreational users’ to describe them, and in the press release accompanying the article Breiter says that ‘Some of these people only used marijuana to get high once or twice a week. People think a little recreational use shouldn’t cause a problem, if someone is doing OK with work or school. Our data directly says this is not the case.’ In fact, the majority of users in the study were smoking more than 10 joints per week. There is even a person in the study smoking more than 30 joints per week (as disclosed above, I’m not an expert on this stuff but if 30 joints per week is ‘recreation’ then it seems to me that person is having a lot of fun). More importantly, Breiter’s statement in the press release is a lie. There is no evidence in the paper whatsoever, not even a tiny shred, that the users who were getting high once or twice a week were having any problems.”