Keep your kids away from the weed. A new and apparently highly-regarded study tracked the cognitive functions of 1000 New Zealanders from age 13 to 38. Those who used marijuana regularly before age 18 saw their IQs drop eight points, while attention span and memory took a hit as well. And that effect was permanent; quitting did not bring that brainpower back. “Regularly” was defined as at least four days a week.
Short article from USA Today here for the 420 crowd.
I was under the impression that frontal lobes are still developing in teenagers. It’s part of the reason they aren’t treated as adults in the legal system; they literally aren’t finished growing yet. So various drugs, alcohol and weed included, will affect those brains quite differently than an adult’s, and apparantly more seriously.
On that note…there’s an amazing article in the Stranger covering the suicide of a woman who was clearly having problems. She was - bipolar? Will have to re-read - but by the end of the article you have a whole lot of people, psychiatrists/psychologists included, concluding that yes, pot does affect people who have psychosis issues differently than your average bear, and that it’s not a good thing at all, can/does bring on serious episodes rather than help. It’s quite interesting.
My grade school science teacher always said the same thing. When someone would say that kids can vote, go to war, drive etc by 18 so they should be allowed to drink as well, she would explain what you said and tell us that if you start drinking at 18 you can literally stunt your brain development.
Also, there’s a radio personality (Dr Laura Berman…not Dr Laura) that talks about this as well when it comes to teenage sex and decision making. I’ve heard her say many times that the (pre?) frontal cortex in teens isn’t fully developed yet and they literally can’t think through the consequences of “What are you going to do if you get pregnant at 15?”
According to other articles I’ve read on the report, that’s not a problem: if you start once your brain is developed it doesn’t cause harm. The lowered cognitive abilities were seen only in people who started in their teens.
Yeah, I’m pretty skeptical about it too. Because the whole concept of “teenager” didn’t exist until the 1940’s. It’s been standard behavior for most of human history for 16 year olds to get married and handle the responsiblity of raising babies.
Our culture expects and encourages teeenagers to be semi-crazy.
Other cultures don’t.
Have you ever met , say, a teenager who happens to be an extremely religious Hassidic Jew?
This makes me sad. My friends and I started smoking weed when we were 17. I don’t think I was doing it multiple times a week until I was 18-19 though. Still, there’s little doubt it had an effect. Back then I would space out and forget random stuff all the time. I was always locking myself out of my dorm room. I was really unfocused academically, didn’t take advantage of the opportunities I had. It makes me wonder what things would have been like if I had never smoked that stupid drug.