1) How do you know you wouldn't have done better had you not smoked starting in high school? You can't go back in time and A/B test yourself
2) Your personal physiology may be fine with marijuana use, but that's not a guarantee that the same applies to everyone else. I'm sure plenty of HN readers (myself included) knew people in high school who did suffer from marijuana-related focus, effort, and studying problems
Also to be fair, I was an awful student. However i was always the type that if I didn't want to do something, nothing could get me to do it. Yet when I want to do something, I tend to have pretty positive results. I still think I would have been a terrible student even if I didn't smoke weed. Who knows!
It's a pretty well supported statement though. This comment is better applied elsewhere in the thread however.
It's just high school :) if GP passed and moved on, who cares? High school success becomes more and more of a boolean outcome as you get further away from it imo. And tbh even boolean is generous.
"I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea."
What? The parent comment is asking: how do they know they wouldn't have done better for the past fifteen years if they hadn't started in high school.