Misconceptions about Illegal Drugs - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep. 37) | Mental Floss

Hey I'm LA, this is Mental Floss on YouTube. Today I'm going to talk about some misconceptions about illegal drugs and marijuana

Which may or may not be illegal depending on where you're watching this video. Misconception number one, everyone was a stoner in the 60s. Nowadays when we talk about the US in the 60s

we act as if everyone was a stoned hippie. But that wasn't really the case

Gallup conducted a poll in 1969 and found that only 4% of American adults had tried marijuana

34% said they didn't even know its effects, although 43% believed that many or some high school kids were smoking it

Those darn high school kids. Misconception number two, people who have taken LSD over seven times are considered legally insane

According to Snopes, this myth has been around since the 80s, although the number seven isn't always consistent

Sometimes it's two, three, four, five, you get it. It's worth noting that insanity is a legal term that, broadly speaking, means you can't tell what you're doing is wrong

There are a few different tests that can be used to determine whether a criminal can use the insanity defense in court

but none of these are related to LSD. So any drug user attempting to plead insanity would have to go through the same process as anybody else

A lot of people also think this myth means that the state can commit you to a psychiatric facility

but that not necessarily true either Although the laws vary state to state involuntary commitment is generally for people who pose imminent threats to themselves or others So if you did some LSD and became violent some states might send you to a psychiatric hospital but not because of drugs from the distant past

Misconception number three, blue star tattoos are used to distribute LSD to kids

So this urban legend has been going strong since the 70s, despite there being absolutely no evidence that it's true

The story goes that some anonymous person is distributing temporary tattoos of blue stars to little kids

They contain LSD, so when the child licks a tattoo to apply it, they'll trip on LSD and become addicted

There have been zero documented cases of this happening. Also, experts consider LSD non-addictive

Misconception number four, LSD stays in your spinal fluid and causes flashbacks

It doesn't stay in your spine. LSD gets metabolized by the liver. Its half-life is between two and a half and four hours

That said, there's something known as hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, or HPPD

As the name suggests, this is when someone experiences a change in perception after doing a hallucinogen like LSD

but experts don't consider them actual flashbacks. Often someone will just experience stuff like halos around objects or see some movement where there is none

And it not that common One study from UC Berkeley found that 4 of people who had used hallucinogens presented HPPD symptoms Misconception at number five Some people are born as crack babies and will experience major health problems Okay so let me start by saying I obviously not telling you that it cool to do cocaine while you pregnant

Crack is whack. But for a long time people believed in crack babies. In 2013, a 25-year study concluded about babies who had been exposed to cocaine while they were in the uterus

The researchers found that there was no statistically significant difference between those babies

and babies who weren't exposed to cocaine in terms of long-term health problems

According to the study's lead researcher, poverty is a more powerful influence on the outcome of inner-city children than gestational exposure to cocaine

Misconception number six, most people who do crack get addicted. Actually, addiction rates for crack are similar to other drugs, like alcohol

Only 10 to 20% of people who try crack become addicted. That means that 80 to 90% of people who have tried it do not struggle with crack addiction

Speaking of addiction, misconception number seven, it's nearly impossible to recover from meth addiction

With the proper combination of medication and behavior therapy, recovery is possible. Meth destroys the dopamine receptors in a person's brain, so it takes about a year for those to regrow

Luckily, we now have antidepressants that can help addicts cope while that happens

According to a study conducted at the Matrix Institute, an addiction research organization

their treatment for meth addiction was about equally effective as treatment for cocaine addiction

50 of people were clean after a year so it more effective than treatment for heroin addicts and less effective than treatment for alcoholics Misconception number eight George Washington smoked weed In a few letters in his diary Washington wrote about India hemp a plant that he grew and knew a lot about

This was a reference to cannabis, but Washington wasn't growing it to smoke it

He primarily used it to produce hemp, which was used to make clothes. We know that he wasn't smoking it because modern weed has around 5 to 20% THC, the important chemical

The hemp that Washington was growing had less than 0.3%, so it would have had no effect

at all. He would have just been doing it for no reason. He had a lot to do. He's not going to waste time. Misconception number nine, Super Mario Brothers, is about drugs

According to creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the mushrooms that make Mario grow and shrink are not drug references

He claims he was influenced by the role of the mushroom in ancient folklore. And finally, misconception number ten, trick-or-treaters are frequently given candy laced with drugs

Every Halloween, it seems that we hear about the danger of candy containing heroin or some other drug

It turns out that every time something like this has been observed, the child who ingested drugs had actually gotten a hold of them some other way

Then, the family conveniently blamed poisoned Halloween candy. It must have been the Twix

Oh, no