A New Study Debunks The 'Lazy Stoner’ Stereotype – Forbes

In the 1930s, the U.S. war on drugs’ propaganda depicted people who used cannabis as potential violent criminals.

Cannabis was, in fact, portrayed as the trigger behind a series of heinous crimes.

In the same period, several propaganda films, such as 'Reefer Madness’ and 'She Shoulda Said No!’, backed up this theory and negatively influenced the general opinion on cannabis users.

Successively, the entertainment industry made us think of cannabis users as scruffy, lazy potheads, creating the stereotype of the 'lazy stoner.’

With a few exceptions, TV shows and films depict stoners as demotivated, sluggish, and sedentary.

’The dude’ of 'The Big Lebowski’ and other characters of stoner comedies have emphasized such a narrative over the years.

But the misleading characterization of cannabis users in the entertainment industry has had a cultural impact on society.

Many people who use cannabis tend to suffer from a stigma that could impair their daily lives.

However, the 'lazy stoner’ stereotype has no science-based evidence.

As well as getting high, cannabis can produce a wide variety of effects on the human body, including relaxation and drowsiness.

The effects of cannabis on our psychophysical wellbeing vary depending on several factors, such as the cannabis strains.

However, it doesn’t mean that using cannabis leads to becoming a stereotyped stoner.

In order to dismantle such a stigma, a new study shows that cannabis users are not less motivated than people who don’t use cannabis.

In the study published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers measured reward-based behavior, apathy, and anhedonia, defined as the inability to feel pleasure, involving 274 participants between 16 and 29 split into four groups: adolescent and adult cannabis users and adolescent and adult non-cannabis users.

The findings revealed that people who used cannabis on average four days per week didn’t report greater apathy or anhedonia, reduced willingness to expend effort for reward, or reduced reward wanting or liking than those who didn’t use cannabis.

To measure reward-based behavior, participants of this study performed the task of pushing buttons to win points through three difficulty levels.

They then received a reward, consisting of chocolates or sweets, and were asked to rate how much they wanted them.

Participants could choose to accept or reject the offer, and the number of acceptances indicated the participants wanted to expend effort for a reward.

The authors reported that most participants had non-negative reward and effort sensitivity scores on this task.

Interestingly, non-cannabis users were reported to have higher levels of anhedonia than cannabis users.

According to the authors, lower anhedonia in cannabis users, when compared to non-cannabis users, may be a consequence of cannabis that reinforces the effects of some rewards or the fact that people who tend to seek out pleasure are more likely to use cannabis.

Adolescents had significantly higher levels of both anhedonia and apathy than adults, but cannabis use did not augment this difference.

As the study revealed that cannabis use doesn’t undermine the motivational process to get a reward, the hypothesis that cannabis use is associated with apathy, anhedonia, and impairment of reward-based behavior has no foundation.

„Our results suggest that cannabis use at a frequency of three to four days per week is not associated with apathy, effort-based decision-making for reward, reward wanting, or reward liking in adults or adolescents. Cannabis users had lower anhedonia than controls [non-cannabis user participants], albeit at a small effect size. These findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that non-acute cannabis use is associated with amotivation,” the study reads.

This is the first study that directly compares adolescent and adult cannabis users, and indicated that adolescents don’t suffer from more cannabis-related apathy, disrupted effort-based decision-making, or blunted reward wanting or liking than adults.

„Our findings should help to reduce stigma experienced by people who use cannabis by further dispelling claims of the amotivational syndrome, which increasingly appears lacking in scientific support,” the study concludes.

The authors of this study mention two previous studies on this issue that compared behavioral motivation in cannabis and non-cannabis users, but the results were inconsistent.

In 2021, a U.S. study on adults showed that frequent and light cannabis users reported more physical activity than non-cannabis users, suggesting that cannabis may encourage physical activity.