I know the election is long over with, but the battling debate over marijuana usage still hangs heavy in the air. Where I live it’s actually still illegal to use the drug. I know that in several other places it is an acceptable way to relax. The ensuing battle that intrigued me most as of late is how the drug affects creativity or the creative process. I read in the tabloids and see it on the new that many celebrities use the drug to release the creative ideas or even to stimulate new ideas.

I was sitting at home one evening working on my school work and noticed the smell of pot permeating my apartment from my neighbor next door. What I noticed from the strong smell as I was working on a creative piece for one of my classes was that suddenly I had lost all concentration. It got me thinking, “How is it that so many creative people frequently use this drug for stimulation?” I decided it was time to research it further.

First I think it’s important to define what creativity means. Creativity is defined as the the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships or the like to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations etc., originality, progressiveness, or imagination. This definition is provided by dictionary.com. Basically creativity is any new idea or improvement on an old idea.

Now that there is a clear understanding of what creativity is and what it means, how does marijuana affect this process? Research is slim, but it seems there’s still quite a bit of information out there.

Mr. Kumar comments on a study performed by G. Shaferand colleagues. The study involved to test groups. The first group was one of high creativity level group and the other a low creativity level group. Both groups were given three tasks to perform: verbal fluency test in which the participants have 60 seconds to give as many responses based on the alphabet, a verbal fluency test in which they have 60 seconds to give responses related to a specific category and Mednick’s Remote Associates test in which they must provide one word that links 3 other words and they have 4 minutes for each of the 16 triads. Both groups were tested on two different days; day 1 sober and day 7 intoxicated.

The results the Remotes test showed little difference between the sober day of testing and the intoxicated day. Further results showed the low creative group scores matched the high creative group scores on the intoxicated day on the verbal fluency test with the alphabet. However there was no noticeable change in the high creative group’s scores. Scores also reflected no noticeable difference in the category test. Schafer et. al speculates that this may have to do with the release of dopamine into the brain system and the frontal cortex in the low creative group. This speculation holds that there may be a natural disinhibition in the high level group that causes the drug to have no noticeable effect.

But how does marijuana stimulate the creative effect at all? Naturally, anytime the brain processes a though a neuron is fired off. When the neuron is fired off in the brain there is as natural pause to avoid overwhelming the mind. When marijuana is used it stops the natural pause or break and allows for the amplification of thought. This amplification of thought is how ideas are created and new associations between ideas and concepts is made.

Sounds great, but why wasn’t I able to remember anything I was writing when the smell of marijuana permeated my apartment?

There is a temporary downside to this drug. It can and does affect memory. The use of this drug can cause short term memory impairment. In addition to the short term memory impairment it may also be difficult to form new memories. Due to this impairment a person may not be able to remember that great creative idea.

Here’s a list of 10 celebrities and their views on using marijuana to stimulate creativity.

Theses above celebrities may use marijuana, but I don’t find the drug helpful at all. The sooner I got out of my apartment and out to fresh air at the picnic table in our lot my head cleared allowing me creative flow. I don’t condone the use of medical purposes, nor am I out to judge those who do use marijuana, but in the words of Dr. Hellman, “…studies of creativity under normal states versus intoxicated states do not reveal that drugs enhance the production of creative works.”