PanVoxHis central argument is best summarized in a few brief lines later in the book: \'Marijuana causes psychosis. Psychosis causes violence. The obvious implication is that marijuana causes violence\' ... But as I read Berenson’s book, it was impossible to escape that, while a compelling read written by an experienced journalist, it is essentially an exercise in cherry-picking data and presenting correlation as causation ... the further I got into the book, the more it seemed like Berenson was imitating the strategy he’d meant to mock. Tell Your Children is Reefer Madness 2.0 ... Campos cautioned that he’s only read two photocopied pages from Berenson’s book in which he’s cited. But based on that, he said that Berenson \'pretty badly misrepresented\' his argument ... On violence, Berenson’s case is even thinner, with large swaths of the book dedicated to anecdotes of people committing violent crimes, potentially while under the influence of marijuana ... Berenson brings up case after case of a brutal crime, then argues that the attacker had a history of marijuana use or used cannabis shortly before the attack. There’s no evidence marijuana caused the attack ... there are ways to write about all these issues while still capturing the nuance and detail they require ... I do not recommend Berenson’s book.
