Nevada Prevention Resource Center
UPDATE Providing weekly updates for Professionals, Counselors, Educators, Parents and Activists
Volume:
9
Issue:
25 November 2013
17
‘Confirmation Bias’ Prevents Reconsideration of Cannabis *Confirmation bias is the human tendency to seek out information that confirms our own experiences.
There is little differentiation made between cocaine, cannabis and LSD, except to say that all are illegal, all can cause harm, and all can lead to addiction. Alcohol is framed differently, based on the assumption that young people will need to learn to drink responsibly. So, we introduce the concept of drink sizes (1 oz. liquor, 4 oz. wine, 12 oz. beer) and we teach people that characteristics such as gender and weight play a role
in how intoxicated you become. We do no such education around the illicit drugs. When young people move into adolescence, the dichotomy of ‘good drug/bad drug’ is intensified both through their own experimentation with tobacco and alcohol, and because many of them are now also on prescription medications, such as Ritalin, Adderall, or Zoloft. At this point, confirmation bias starts to kick in as a cognitive short cut to assessing a situation and its potential harm. It’s a way for young people to start to make sense of their world.
As behavioral health care professionals, we are also trying to make sense of our world. And, occasionally, we are faced with new information that threatens our world view, information that just drips with cognitive dissonance. This is the case with cannabis. For the full article from Amanda Reiman of the Drug Policy Alliance click here.
Awareness Campaigns • Native American Heritage Month • Thanksgiving 11/28 • World Aids Day 12/1
In the News • Senators Feinstein and Grassley Introduce Bill to Address Candy-Flavored Drugs • Administration issues final mental health and substance use disorder parity rule • Brooklyn Bar Raises Weekend Drinking Age To 25
This publication was supported in whole or in part by the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Agency (SAPTA) through State General Funds and/or the SAPT Block Grant for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. DHHS, SAMHSA, or the State of Nevada.