Teenagers Susceptible to Lasting Damage from Exposure to Marijuana

[Serious]

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2012) — The persistent, dependent use of marijuana before age 18 has been shown to cause lasting harm to a person's intelligence, attention and memory, according to an international research team.

Among a long-range study cohort of more than 1,000 New Zealanders, who started using cannabis in adolescence and used it for years afterward showed an average decline in IQ of 8 points when their age 13 and age 38 IQ tests were compared. Quitting pot did not appear to reverse the loss either, said lead researcher Madeline Meier, a post-doctoral researcher at Duke University. The results appear online Aug. 27 in the OpProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The key variable in this is the age of onset for marijuana use and the brain's development, Meier said. Study subjects who didn't take up pot until they were adults with fully-formed brains did not show similar mental declines. Before age 18, however, the brain is still being organized and remodeled to become more efficient, she said, and may be more vulnerable to damage from drugs.

"Marijuana is not harmless, particularly for adolescents," said Meier, who produced this finding from the long term Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. The study has followed a group of 1,037 children born in 1972-73 in Dunedin, New Zealand from birth to age 38 and is led by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, psychologists who hold dual appointments at Duke and the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London.

About 5 percent of the study group were considered marijuana-dependent, or were using more than once a week before age 18. A dependent user is one who keeps using despite significant health, social or family problems.

At age 38, all of the study participants were given a battery of psychological tests to assess memory, processing speed, reasoning and visual processing. The people who used pot persistently as teens scored significantly worse on most of the tests. Friends and relatives routinely interviewed as part of the study were more likely to report that the persistent cannabis users had attention and memory problems such as losing focus and forgetting to do tasks.

The decline in IQ among persistent cannabis users could not be explained by alcohol or other drug use or by having less education, Moffitt said.

While 8 IQ points may not sound like a lot on a scale where 100 is the mean, a loss from an IQ of 100 to 92 represents a drop from being in the 50th percentile to being in the 29th, Meier said. Higher IQ correlates with higher education and income, better health and a longer life, she said. "Somebody who loses 8 IQ points as an adolescent may be disadvantaged compared to their same-age peers for years to come," Meier said.

Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University psychologist who was not involved in the research, said this study is among the first to distinguish between cognitive problems the person might have had before taking up marijuana, and those that were apparently caused by the drug. This is consistent with what has been found in animal studies, Steinberg added, but it has been difficult to measure in humans.

Animal studies involving nicotine, alcohol and cocaine have shown that chronic exposures before the brain is fully developed can lead to more dependence and long-term changes in the brain. "This study points to adolescence as a time of heightened vulnerability," Steinberg said. "The findings are pretty clear that it is not simply chronic use that causes deficits, but chronic use with adolescent onset."

What isn't possible to know from this study is what a safer age for persistent use might be, or what dosage level causes the damage, Meier said. After many years of decline among US teens, daily marijuana use has been seen to increase slightly in the last few years, she added. Last year, for the first time, US teens were more likely to be smoking pot than tobacco.

"The simple message is that substance use is not healthy for kids," Avshalom Caspi said via email from London. "That's true for tobacco, alcohol, and apparently for cannabis."

Adolescent pot use leaves lasting mental deficits; Developing brain susceptible to lasting damage from exposure to marijuana

Interesting.....

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

Sounds about right from what I have observed in the many Marijuana addicts that I have known since highschool.

Keep doing your drugs, idiots. Human sperm goes bad, and induces autism and schizophrenia mutations, by the time a man hits thirty . 30% of all autism cases can be explained by bad or "Old Man's" sperm alone. A man's age matters much more than a mothers age on a baby's health

You're crazy if you don't think all those chemicals and oxidants in drugs don't accelerate that process.

Internet addictions have the same effects as drugs on the brain, BTW.

 

[Xtraz2]

Keep doing your drugs, idiots. Human sperm goes bad, and induces autism and schizophrenia mutations, by the time a man hits thirty . 30% of all autism cases can be explained by bad or "Old Man's" sperm alone. A man's age matters much more than a mothers age

 

[usopp]

holy shyt breh, i've been smokin since i was 13 2 my brain cells

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7412/full/nature11396.html

Most notably, the diversity in mutation rate of single nucleotide polymorphisms is dominated by the age of the father at conception of the child. The effect is an increase of about two mutations per year. An exponential model estimates paternal mutations doubling every 16.5 years. After accounting for random Poisson variation, father’s age is estimated to explain nearly all of the remaining variation in the de novo mutation counts. These observations shed light on the importance of the father’s age on the risk of diseases such as schizophrenia and autism.

Sorry men... Scientist recommend that 18 year olds put their sperm into Cold storage for latter use. IF you're 25-30, you should consider having a kid now, save some sperm or face an increased risk for Genetic diseases. You have to make a choice between consumption and "freedom" and your genetic legacy because you don't get a second chance.

Sperm dna Damage is also linked to strenuous exercise, and poor diet/ lifestyle.

 

[jackswstd]

I only smoked once in awhile in my teens and haven't smoked in years so I'm good, but if Obama wins that second term I'm gonna smoke some in celebration.

 

[Serious]

Imo, alcohol >>>>>>> weed

I literally lose the ability to consciously think for 3-5 days after drinking, not to mention, my body / diet takes a serve hit. Ultimately, i feel lethargic overall....

 

[DerrtySouthpaw]

and alcohol and tobacco are still just as bad *smokes weed anyway*

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

and alcohol and tobacco are still just as bad *smokes weed anyway*

some of the smartest people on earth were lifetime smokers.

 

[Type Username Here]

I've smoked trees for almost my entire adolescence, and I never had any issues. I thought the only issue I had was difficulty in remembering certain thing as time went one, but I know people who never smoked and they face this as they are getting older also.

That being said, I'm not a fan of giving any mind altering substances to children and adolescents who are still developing. That includes most "legal" prescription drugs as well.

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

This study reeks of bullshyt. First off, they're using "IQ" and standardized tests to measure shyt, which is not necessarily an accurate measure of intelligence. Second off, I didn't see them have any "controls" for various aspects that they did not account for, LIKE ALCOHOL USE How can you place the blame solely on Marijuana when there is probably alcohol use or other drug use going on as well? they could've been tired, stoned, or didn't give a fukk about their tests, and what about just natural aging? Processes slow down as you get older. I'm just trying to figure out how they singled out Marijuana and just assumed that was what caused it.

Also, the bytch who "led" the study doesn't have a PHD in a medical field. bytch is a fukking psychologist.

I've taken tests stoned, studied high and gone to class high and aced all of that shyt. I didn't start smoking til I was 18 though. this just seems like more propaganda though.

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

I saw this study on NeoGAF and I gotta say its lacking in a few controls like Blake said.... I dont recommend anyone under 18 engage in any sort of drug and alcohol usage though, kids these days are gettin blunted off high grade every single goddamn day. My cousin's smoked herself retarded

No drug is "safe" or lacking in deleterious effects. The decision to engage in their usage is whether you think the experiential benefit is worth those effects. but out of all the drugs there are in the world, Marijuana i think is one of the least harmful. At the very least it doesnt deserve illegal status in any way. If anything, this only increases the support for marijuana to be legalized and strictly regulated. When I was in HS, it was easier for my classmates to score buds than booze for sure.

 

[Xtraz2]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7412/full/nature11396.html



Autism risk could rise with father's age - YouTube


Sorry men... Scientist recommend that 18 year olds put their sperm into Cold storage for latter use. IF you're 25-30, you should consider having a kid now, save some sperm or face an increased risk for Genetic diseases. You have to make a choice between consumption and "freedom" and your genetic legacy because you don't get a second chance.

Sperm dna Damage is also linked to strenuous exercise, and poor diet/ lifestyle.

Sperm is damaged by exercising too hard?

U would think if a person remained healthy and exercised they'd be cool

 

[I'mHigh]

Any stoner will tell you that the memory part is true. My short term memory is fukked. As far as stoners having a lower IQ, I'm majoring in computer software engineering, and my girlfriend is studying neuroscience.

Weed doesn't make you stupid, it makes people lazy. You just have to be able to handle it

 

[Dr. Fauci]

Imo, alcohol >>>>>>> weed

I literally lose the ability to consciously think for 3-5 days after drinking, not to mention, my body / diet takes a serve hit. Ultimately, i feel lethargic overall....

I cant do anything at all...and then on top of that, I end up drinking the next night, because Im just sitting around and feel like complete shyt. Not as much, but atleast a few drinks


Alcohol is the fukking devil

Guarantee we have a large amount of "High Functioning Alcoholics" in here...probably a good amount of Low functioning ones as well