Pop Quiz- When does brain damage stop being fun?

Got ya thinkin’ caps on? Which of these;

a. Frontal lobotomy,
b. Smoking marijuana,
c. Alzheimer's disease,

Have these symptoms:

• Loss of memory
• Impaired judgment
• Abstract thinking difficulties
• Mood or behavioral problems
• Personality changes
• Paranoia
• Loss of drive and initiative
  

If you answered a, b, or c, your correct! I came across this while flipping through magazines in an emergency room waiting area. There were three separate articles- one on a new, experimental lobotomy procedure, one on the effects of marijuana use, and one one the latest research concerning Alzheimer’s. Each article had a list of symptoms. Each list was the same. Thinking about it, I shouldn’t have been surprised. A frontal lobotomy manually destroys brain cells. Marijuana clogs up brain cell receptors. Alzheimer’s is caused by amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles gunking-up brain cells. Each, in its own way, prevents brain cells from functioning.

The symptoms have to be pretty severe before anyone takes them seriously. Mild Alzheimer’s is seen as just a part of growing old. Marijuana is considered (at least by those who smoke it) as a harmless recreation. The befuddled old-foggy and the clueless stoner are still fodder for laughs in TV shows and movies. Society accepts the mild deterioration of the mind as a natural, common-place thing. Only when the problems are magnified, as with a lobotomy or severe, advanced staged Alzheimer’s, does the tragic implications become obvious.
But at what point does that happen? Where do we draw the line? How bad does a person’s behavior have to be before it stops being seen as harmless? When does brain damage stop being fun?