Does cannabis make you more creative?

5 minute read

Cannabis and creativity is another topic where researchers just don’t know what the fuck they are doing. Some argue that cannabis makes people more creative, while others say that creative people are just more likely to smoke. Some provide sound reasoning, and others just seem to hate the ‘erb. Let’s take a look at what we found. 

“Great” studies from the critics 

Of the few studies we found, one study claims that smoking makes you less creative, but want to know how they measured it? Using one test, participants were given half a picture and asked to fill in the rest… (1). Is that really creativity? It sounds like some paint-by-number shit to us.  Real creativity is about original creation. Period. 

 Other studies we found seem to find inconclusive results because they gave the participants a too small of a dose or too large of a dose. This seems obvious to us. So… if you aren’t high enough, you aren’t getting the benefits of cannabis, including having great ideas, and then, if you are too high, you won’t be able to fucking speak, let alone be creative. 

The HONEST research from researchers in their right mind

Most of the research we found at least suggests that weed can boost creativity. These researchers are also honest and mention the limitations. Such as that, creative people may just be more likely to partake in the occasional doob sesh. Let’s take a deeper look at these creativity tests: 

 A study in Psychiatric Research found that cannabis caused individuals to come up with more creative uses for everyday household items than those who did not use cannabis (3). This sounds like a fun test to try at home; get blazed and see who can come up with the best idea on how to use a sponge and a broomstick 

Another study found that significantly more creative responses came up on a consequences test for those who had recently had cannabis than those who did not (2). This test included many different tasks, including making up the consequences of particular given situations. Like, what would happen if you started to run across your city in denim short shorts? And… shit like that. A study also found that lower doses helped with creative thinking, but heavier amounts did not (2). This checks out. Getting too baked is not when we are functioning at our best. 

We love this: When researchers looked at entrepreneurial ideas, cannabis users “generated new venture ideas that are more original, but less feasible, compared to non-users”(5). So basically, when you get high, you might not come up with the most realistic ideas, but you do come up with original ones 🤣. 

And although there is limited studies on this topic, current findings suggest a reason why cannabis might cause us to be more creative, specifically because cannabis produces psychotomimetic symptoms that could lead to more incidences of connecting unrelated topics (4). Like coffee beans and art. Fucking science man… more and more research showing that cannabis is beneficial.  Without cannabis, we would be without some of these amazing artists. So what do you think? 

Without weed, would we have had some of these dope artists?  

1. David Hockney is a painter who admits to smoking weed frequently. He has many different famous paintings that may be familiar to you. 

Here is one we found without copyright below, but check out more of his paintings Here.   ("David Hockney - A Bigger Splash 1967" by oddsock is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

2. Louis Armstrong admitted to loving weed and was one of the most famous jazz musicians. I think we would be sad if we had never had this gem of a human being. 

1. And, of course, the legend himself– Snoop Dog. What would we do without his creative genius? Would his music be so good if it wasn’t for the ganja?

The jury is still out if cannabis is the primary cause for increased creativity, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try it out on our own. Based on what we found overall in the research, cannabis use is, at the very least related to creativity. So why don’t you try it out yourself and let us know? We here at The Green Blazer would love to see/hear your art pieces. 

Feel free to send us your creative ganja genius by emailing Hannah@thegreenblazer.com, and maybe you will get featured on our social media account. 

References: 

1. Jones, Blagrove, M., & Parrott, A. C. (2009). Cannabis and Ecstasy/MDMA: Empirical Measures of Creativity in Recreational Users. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 41(4), 323–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2009.10399769
2. Kowal, M. A., Hazekamp, A., Colzato, L. S., van Steenbergen, H., van der Wee, N. J., Durieux, J.,  & Hommel, B. (2015). Cannabis and creativity: highly potent cannabis impairs divergent thinking in regular cannabis users. Psychopharmacology, 232(6), 1123-1134. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s00213-014-3749-1
3. Minor, Firmin, R. L., Bonfils, K. A., Chun, C. A., Buckner, J. D., & Cohen, A. S. (2014). Predicting creativity: The role of psychometric schizotypy and cannabis use in divergent thinking. Psychiatry Research, 220(1), 205–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2014.08.044
4. Schafer, Feilding, A., Morgan, C. J. A., Agathangelou, M., Freeman, T. P., & Valerie Curran, H. (2012). Investigating the interaction between schizotypy, divergent thinking and cannabis use. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(1), 292–298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2011.11.009
5. Warnick, Kier, A. S., LaFrance, E. M., & Cuttler, C. (2021). Head in the clouds? Cannabis users' creativity in new venture ideation depends on their entrepreneurial passion and experience. Journal of Business Venturing, 36(2), 106088. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106088

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