From O’S News Service August 29    Golfers taking part in the “420 Games” were the subject of a story by Eric Kuhli in today’s Oakland Trib.  About 100 people involved in “the industry” teed up at San Jose’s Los Lagos golf course to network while publicizing the fact that using cannabis doesn’t impede coordination, induce lethargy, etc.  Kuhli’s story included relevant, sensible comments from Frank Lucido, MD, and some off-the-wall ones from an establishment psychiatrist:

Keith Humphreys, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor at Stanford University, said researchers are looking into the anti-anxiety aspects of the weed that “could give you an edge in a couple types of events.” But he added that the intoxicating effect of cannabis can also come into play regarding perception, so getting high doesn’t necessarily equate to high performance.

“You may feel really intense concentration and that your reflexes are incredible –but in fact it’s worse,” he said. “Your depth perception is worse.”

Humphreys likened it to knocking back some stiff drinks.

“Everyone’s had that experience where they think, ‘Hey, I was pretty funny last night,’ ” he said, “and other people think, ‘No, actually you were just being really obnoxious.’ “

Has everyone had that experience? Is that how a real scientist would talk? Evidently Dr. Humphreys doesn’t know that alcohol affects the frontal lobes in ways that cannabinoids do not. As a bartender who has seen it all puts it, “There’s no assholery like alcoholic assholery.”  We also infer that the Psycho Elite can’t decide whether to go after marijuana as a performance enhancer or continue providing disinformation about its harmfulness. More research is needed!

BTW… H.L. Mencken wrote, “If I had my way no man who is guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States.”  And it was my dear old dad, a sportswriter turned publicist for the Ladies Professional Golf Association c. 1951, who transformed the women’s game into a major sport, coverage-wise, back in the Patty Berg-Louise Suggs era.