“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
– Robert J. Hanlon

The phonies and frauds at Columbia University Medical Center obviously weren’t interested in science, integrity, honesty, objectivity, facts, or helping anyone other than themselves when they released their grossly misleading opinion Heavy cannabis use associated with reduced dopamine release in brain: Effect similar to other addictions.

Reaching their disingenuous conclusions was as easy as pretending they were advancing science by going through the motions of comparing brain scans of a mere “11 adults between the ages of 21 and 40 who were severely dependent on cannabis and 12 matched healthy controls.”

After investing as little effort as possible (11 subjects is an absurdly small number to base any legitimate study on) one of the clowns, Dr. Abi-Dargham, admitted, “We don’t know whether decreased dopamine was a preexisting condition or the result of heavy cannabis use, but the bottom line is that long-term, heavy cannabis use may impair the dopaminergic system, which could have a variety of negative effects on learning and behavior.”

She would have been more forthright if she’d said, “We don’t know anything.”

The junk scientists had to know they didn’t come close to proving what their sensational headline implied. But that didn’t stop them from spreading unsupported biases being reported by dozens of outlets, including respected sites that should know better than to give a sham paper unwarranted credibility.

I’m not sure if they were wallowing in convenient ignorance or willful stupidity but the half-wits unwittingly demonstrated how all behavior involves maintaining dopamine flow. Oblivious to what they were actually doing, their pathetic attempts to placate irrational fears, artificially inflate their importance, and attract gratuitous attention with a headline-grabbing opinion were simply their way of scoring the same neurotransmitter pot smokers trigger with THC.

In other words, they’re a lot more like pot smokers than they’re capable of comprehending. Which explains why their impaired dopaminergic system had a variety of negative effects on their learning, behavior, integrity, morality, credibility, and professionalism.

If the frauds behind the junk science were interested in making genuine discoveries they could have used brain scanning equipment on themselves to establish who among them triggered dopamine with expectations of increasing safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, status, and/or money — because scoring the powerful brain chemical is what the scamsters were trying to do with fictitious nonsense passed off as research.

Unlike pot smokers, who seldom have a problem admitting to a favorite addictive behavior, safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, status, and money addicts get away with pretending their addictions are normal, acceptable, and even admiral customs, traditions, and norms. As Harvard’s Howard Shaffer, National Institute on Drug Abuse director Dr. Nora Volkow, and the buffoons at Columbia University Medical Center demonstrate, the reason it’s so easy to get away with transparent charades is because safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, status, and money addicts invariably control the institutions determining legalities, moralities, and addictions. One result is honest research is stifled by control freaks who aren’t capable of considering the possibility they’re addicts because the honesty is simply too threatening to safety, power, acceptance, approval, status, and dopamine flow.

It doesn’t take a genius (or self-deceptive scientist) to figure out there’s no safety, power, approval, status, funding, future, headlines, or dopamine in using brain scanning equipment to establish if scientists are members of a profession controlled by safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, status, and money addicts.

If that weren’t the case, any number of reputable scientists would have already saved me the trouble of denouncing their fraudulent peers’ laughable paper instead of allowing this travesty to go unchallenged.

I will gladly discuss/debate the above with Dr. Abi-Dargham, one-on-one or with her team, privately or publicly.

I can be reached at Charles@DopamineProject.org.