Stoners are better at empathising than those who don’t use the drug, a new study has found.
People who regularly enjoy a joint are better at recognising other people’s feelings and putting themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Researchers from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico asked 81 cannabis users and 51 people who didn’t use the psychoactive drug to complete a 33-item questionnaire that measured empathetic skills.
It looked at perspective taking – the capacity to place oneself in the shoes of another – and emotional comprehension, which is spotting and understanding other people’s emotions.
The scientists also analysed whether or not volunteers could tune in to positive or negative feelings, and behave accordingly.
Roughly half of the week smokers and two thirds of the non-users then underwent brain scans to look for differences in activity in areas associated with sensing the emotions in others.
Results published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research showed that cannabis users scored higher on the empathy test, and had greater connectivity in areas involved with emotion, such as the anterior cingulate near the front of the brain.
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