Gee, but it's good to be back home.
We got back back at 5.30pm and the builders were just putting the finishing touches to everything - paint was still wet in places, but basically our new (old) home was ready. Although we quickly realised that with all the unpacking of our stuff and moving boxes and furniture around we can't quite relax yet. Our life is still in boxes, but we'd be in our own bed tonight and be able to stay in our own home for the foreseeable future without being displaced or surrounded by dust or having to shoot off somewhere else.
The drive down had been long, but not too stressful. The Jeremy Vine show had been discussing the fact that people who smoke cannabis at a young age might lose an average of 8 points from their IQ. Both sides were making stupid points about it (which made me suspect that they'd all had their brains damaged by cannabis) but it made me laugh when cannabis smokers were asserting that the drug had had no affect on their intelligence. How would they know? One was saying he had two degrees as if that disproved the study, but the report wasn't saying the drug would make you stupid, just slightly less clever. He might have been even cleverer if he hadn't taken it. I am not saying the report is right or wrong, just that the argument was a dumb one. You can only judge these things over large numbers of people - anecdotal evidence is pretty much useless. Plus most of us think that we are cleverer than we actually are anyway. There were plenty of people arguing the other way round too - that they had seen their nice, clever child become stupid/surly overnight and thus obviously cannabis had to be to blame. That doesn't follow either as there could easily be another cause (adolescence?) that accounts for both surliness and the desire to try cannabis.
From my very limited experience of cannabis I would say the short-term effects of the drug (pretty minimal generally, but tending towards making me tired, nauseous and paranoid) do not make up for the possible long-term affects and would suggest to kids that they tried harder drugs which make you feel amazing and are thus worth the dangers. Yes kids, take hard drugs. Cannabis is rubbish. The reason it seems to make people stupid is only because you'd have to be stupid to take it.
No, none of that is right. Do what you want. I'd love to see a study dedicated to showing if drinking alcohol makes you stupider. Because if it does I don't think that would stop many people from drinking it. And it certainly seems to make you a lot more stupid at least on a short-term level.
But the point is that you can't tell if drink or drugs has had any affect on your own intelligence because you don't know what your intelligence would be if you hadn't had drink and drugs. And also you think you're cleverer than you are. Only I am as clever as I think I am, as this clearly shows.
Anyway, the Fringe is over and now I only have the stress of finding which boxes contain the stuff we need for day to day life and of trying to write a sit-com pilot in three days. And then I can have a rest. Yeah, like something else won't crop up.
