One of the things legislators in Colorado and Washington are concerned about is keeping pot away from children.
I’m curious: are the effects (short-term and long-term) of marijuana markedly different in kids vs. adults? This seems like a thing that would be difficult to get a research grant for, so I doubt there have been peer-reviewed studies and all that. I’ve seen some anecdotal points (mainly coming from pro-legalization types) that it’s a miracle drug in sick kids; a couple of kids with major seizure disorders have seen major improvement thanks to MJ.
But in a recreational sense, does it affect kids the same way as adults? Do they get mellow, giggly and hungry? Are their little brains permanently damaged?
I doubt there is a definitive answer to this question, but I would think that a mood altering substance such as THC could have a negative impact on the developing brain of a child, but I have no idea if anyone has studied that yet.
Another concern would be kids going to school stoned or riding their bikes around town stoned and the problems that would lead to, not to mention weight problems.
Kids don’t have the same impulse or self control that adults have so they might be more apt to overdo it or smoke more than they should with resulting negative consequences.
Forgetting the toxicity (if any) and just looking at the impact it has one one’s awareness leads me to believe that giving kids drugs that effect their decision making ability is probably not a good idea…but that’s just me.
Are we talking little kids or teenagers? Because I smoked a LOT of pot as a teenager and I don’t think it harmed my grades*. And I never got so crazy stoned that I put myself in harms way. YMMV
*Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly a straight A student but that’s only because I couldn’t be bothered to do homework.
I doubt that you will find much in the way of double-blinded clinical studies of the effects of pot use on kids. There must be lots of survey data, though, as kids have been smoking pot in large numbers for a long time.
Best I can do is offer anecdote. In my experience, the most significant impact is on motivation - kids who smoke pot (i.e., many of my friends) often lost motivation to pursue other activities of a more socially rewarding nature, which can be a bad thing indeed at the developmental stage of life. However, this naturally leads to a chicken-or-egg type question … which came first, the lack of motivation, or the pot smoking? Is it really any different from (say) the ‘listening to music and playing video games’ also associated with lack of motivation?
I smoked pot, but for whatever reason never really fell into the same category.
My wholly unscientific opinion is that pot smoking can be associated with a whole complex of mutually-reinforcing behaviours which lead to low motivation (to do anything more productive).
A long-term study in New Zealand found that people who smoked marijuana four or more times per week in adolescence lost an average of eight points in IQ by age 38. No similar decline was found among people who picked up the habit in adulthood.
There was a story from Colorado on the morning news. A toddler seemed drowsy & a blood test was positive for pot. Her mother had no idea how it happened! The little girl had no long-term damage at all.
Of course pot should be kept away from little kids. Probably not a good idea for older ones, either. But there’s no reason for sudden panic–caused by Colorado’s new status as Den of Iniquity. The liquor stores are full of wine coolers & flavored vodkas that could kill children if they drank enough.
Including the study Tom Tildrum mentions, there have been many scientific studies which have attempted to get a handle on this problem. It is a reasonable hypothesis that a still developing teenage/child brain may be permanently harmed by substance use in ways that developed adult brains may not be harmed.
As Malthus mentions, you’re not going to find studies with traditional experimental designs, as it certainly isn’t ethical to randomly expose teens (or better yet, one member of an identical twin pair) to marijuana, and see what happens to them. However, there are many scientifically sound natural experiments which can be done. For example, following kids through their teenage years and comparing outcome performance between those who used marijuana and those who did not, while controlling for baseline pre-marijuana performance.
My review of the literature suggests that the question of harm for teenage use is still unanswered. Some studies have shown specific performance deficits, while others have not. The studies I’ve looked at all involve executive function. My cognitive psych colleagues will get angry when I say it, but executive function is kind of like IQ.
Being affiliated with groups in Colorado who do drug research I can say this is very much a question we are actively pursuing answers for. We feel that we are in a unique position to answer it over the next several years. Hopefully funding agencies will agree.
Children don’t drive. And adolescents mostly don’t drive. So I think marijuana is safer for them than their parents. The IQ study does go in the other direction, but when you add it all up, I don’t think pot is worse for kids than adults.
This may be a little like guns, where people are certain there is more risk in the hands of the child, despite children shooting themselves and others much less often than their elders do .
This is not to advocate either marijuana or guns. My personal advice is to avoid both. I’m just saying that depriving children of their commercial and 2nd amendment rights has a lot to due with adults being more powerful than kids, and little to nothing to do with scientific research.
I am a totally committed advocate of both … anyone over 21 years old should have both rights (except under some circumstances). That age limit is actually based on driving … driving while buzzed is bad news for everyone.
21 and over and don’t you dare drive … and nobody gets hurt.