Weed: Rather Not?

The jokes are already flying fast over David Brooks' new NYT column--someone asked dudes who smoked weed with Dave the Rave to email Gawker, like, right now. In the confession  he reveals that he was a bit of a pothead as a youth but quickly grew out of it and doesn't want others (for example, in Colorado) to waste their lives watching their potential go up in smoke, etc.  You mean Brooks wasn't high when he was writing all those let's-invade-Iraq  pieces?   And don't tell me he wasn't baked as recently as in the photo at left.

So let the jokes continue but let me ask a serious question: I have kept up on the latest medical claims about the down side of reefer so feel free to fact-check Brooks on all this:  "We didn’t give it up for the obvious health reasons: that it is addictive in about one in six teenagers; that smoking and driving is a good way to get yourself killed; that young people who smoke go on to suffer I.Q. loss and perform worse on other cognitive tests."