Busting a stereotype. Marijuana will make you lazy and unmotivated, right? That's the image that popular culture (and politicians) have cultivated for decades. Teens and young adults are especially potent targets for this message, with authority figures warning that marijuana use will sap their ambition and send them down a dead-end course for life. But new research published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology challenges the "lazy stoner" trope.
"We're so used to seeing 'lazy stoners' on our screens that we don't stop to ask whether they're an accurate representation of cannabis users," said Martine Skumlien, the study's lead author and a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, in Neuroscience News. "Our work implies that this is in itself a lazy stereotype, and that people who use cannabis are no more likely to lack motivation or be lazier than people who don't."
