Mexican heads macheted off at the neck and dopers lying around stoned out of their minds. What’s the connection? If you’re an American and smoke dope, you’re contributing to the current violence in Mexico. You’re the demand, they’re the supply and legalizing pot won’t change that. The cartels will always come up with an attractive pot blend priced lower than Uncle Sam’s –­ a competition that would be ludicrous to initiate but oh how branding consultants would love it. We’ll see how it plays out in Colorado and Washington state.

If you don’t care about people you don’t know getting whacked by the cartels, how about this: The dope you smoke is making you stupid, stupid enough for people to notice.

Scholarly longitudinal research

On August 28, 2012, BBC News, among other outlets, reported the results of a long-term study of 1,000 adolescents who smoked pot. The Dunedin study revealed that young people suffered cognitive impairments far beyond their youth:

Having taken into account other factors such as alcohol or tobacco dependency or other drug use, as well the number of years spent in education, they found that those who persistently used cannabis – smoking it at least four times a week year after year through their teens, 20s and, in some cases, their 30s – suffered a decline in their IQ.

IQ declines, by the way, are irreversible. The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study was only one study, but it had an unprecedented 96 percent response rate. Participants were honest about their drug use because they had spent so much time with the researchers: The IQ testing and interviews lasted from 1972 to 2012 and included questions about mental health and psychosocial functioning.

Test yourself

You think you’re OK because you weren’t consistently smoking cannabis as a teen? Or maybe you didn’t take toking up until college when your brain was all but through with its critical development stage? Try recording yourself next time you’re stoned. (Voice is fine, videotape is better.) You might sound like someone who’s lost IQ points, despite the fact you consider yourself an ambitious, well-paid success in this world. Yeah, the stupid effects of weed are temporary but why bother? As an educated professional, wouldn’t you be curious to see if you can do without dope for two months as an experiment?

Would you not discover the unadulterated, real you?