shining moments in pharmacological education

From the textbook from whence I am teaching:

"The widespread belief that [cannabis] increases the creativity of artists may have arisen largely because the drug was widely used by musicians and artists. Nevertheless, there is no consistent evidence from objective research that creativity is enhanced."

To which my response is to challenge my students with the question--what do you think is involved in "objective research" on creativity? A question I asked not having a clue myself what the actual answer is.

After some discussion, which pretty much went nowhere interesting, I blurted out something to the effect of "look, just listen to the Beatles' catalog in chronological order, and tell me marijuana didn't influence them creatively. Because really, those first couple of albums kind of sucked."

The response was....mixed.

I probably should have handed out those evals before class.