Research Question: How does marijuana affect the brain when making decisions?
Marijuana is a very controversial drug in the United States. Its illegal in majority of America and people feel that marijuana should be legal based on its medicinal use. Marijuana is said to cure some cancers, relax people with anxiety, and is known for being a stress reliever. People who smoke weed heavily, choose to spend their cash on weed majority of the time. Mike’s character, in “Intersections”, is a stressed writer, who works part time at the Gap to earn some type of cash to keep his apartment while trying to find a better job. When Mike felt like there was too much weight on his shoulders, he would turn to pot to make himself feel better. In one scene, Mike and his girlfriend Bethany go out for dinner. The bill comes and Mike cannot afford to pay for it due to the fact that he had already spent his money on weed. After reading this scene and getting into depth with Mike it made me wonder. How does marijuana affect people’s decisions? This question stuck with me because Mike’s character and real people make many risky decisions when under the influence of weed. So what does weed exactly do to one’s brain when a decision has to be made?
Before wondering what marijuana does to the brain, my first thought was to research how the brain makes decisions on its own. Based on the specific situations and decisions that have to be made, there are specific regions of the brain that are used to gather information to decide what type of decision to make.”Researchers found that different parts of the frontal lobe, an area involved in planning and reasoning, are important in abstract and concrete decisions”(Decision-Making). An abstract decision would be like deciding whether or not to take out the trash or whether to do your homework or not. A concrete decision would be like deciding how would you take out the trash or how would you do your homework. If one’s frontal lobe region is damaged in the front, then that person will have an hard time with abstract decisions. If the frontal lobe is damaged in the back, then that person will have trouble making concrete decisions.Another part of the brain that takes place in decision making is the parietal lobe. “Other researchers studying monkeys found that decisions based on visual information rely on the parietal lobe, which integrates evidence supplied by the senses”(Decision-Making). The parietal lobe uses vision and other senses to determine an outcome and choose things wisely. The brain uses a specific order of procedures in decision making.
“As a rule, decision-making involves a multi-part process. Specific steps in this process include such things as:
- Recognizing the need for action
- Acquiring information to fuel the problem-solving
- Identifying the potential choices
- Calculating the pros and cons
- Selecting a plan of attack
- Acting, and then reflecting on the outcome later”(addiction.com staff).
If any of these specific brain regions and procedures are tampered with, thats when the brain begins to make risky decisions. information will be gathered differently which can lead to the wrong or dangerous decision.
Now that we know what the brain does by itself, lets see what it does under the influence of marijuana. “In the study, researchers observed that marijuana users performed poorly on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), which is a complex decision-making task in which participants make choices under ambiguous conditions and win or lose money based on their choices”(Decision-making Processes Blunted in Chronic Marijuana Smokers). This information shows that while having to make difficult decisions heavy marijuana smokers made poor choices rather than the non-smokers. “The marijuana users appear to have a blunted response to losing. They don’t figure out a strategy to avoid monetary losses and this is associated with a decreased functional brain response to the early, negative information that guides the other group to safer choices,” Wesley said. “The bottom line is that it looks like they don’t care as much if they lose”(Decision-making Processes Blunted in Chronic Marijuana Smokers). The results of heavy marijuana smokers during a complex decision-making challenge is that basically after losing or making bad choices their minds still chooses the wrong or bad path. Due to the fact that our brains gather information to figure out the negatives and positives of a specific decision, under the influence of marijuana, our brains look pass the negatives and it is harder for the brain to make the right decision. Leading to constantly making the wrong and or risky decisions, which, in this case, losing money while gambling. Also, there is this risky nonchalant attitude that marijuana smokers have that leads them to not caring about anything. An average legal pot smoker spends $647 a year on weed.”The median spend by this customer was $647 annually”(Bloomberg.com). Imagine what illegal heavy weed smokers.One more thing was found in another study about marijuana smokers. It is found that poorer people smoke more weed than people who can afford to smoke. “A massive study published this month in the Journal of Drug Issues found that the proportion of marijuana users who smoke daily has rapidly grown, and that many of those frequent users are poor and lack a high-school diploma”(Poorer marijuana users smoke the most).