Young Brains Damaged By Cannabis use
By tony leather, 28th Aug 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutNewsHealth
This alarming research has come up with the first compelling evidence of cannabis having different and more damaging effects on the brains of young people than adults.
Young Brains Damaged By Cannabis use
Even though the urge to try smoking cannabis tends to begin when people are adolescents, this appears to be the worst of ideas, after a long-term study - following over 1,000 people from birth to 38 years old - revealed that those of such young ages who are regular users of cannabis are at risk of permanent damage to their intelligence, attention span and memory.
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This alarming research has come up with the first compelling evidence of cannabis having different and more damaging effects on the brains of young people than adults. It seems that some 5% of the study group used cannabis at least once weekly in adolescence - all members of the group underwent a range of psychological tests between 13 and 38 years of age - alarmingly, IQ levels in those who were habitual cannabis users in their youth had dropped by an average of eight points.
It seemed also, in a truly troubling finding, that later giving up of cannabis made little difference, because what had been the primary trigger was the age at use started, because 18 year-olds and above did not suffer the same decline in IQ or brain function.
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King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry Professor Terrie Moffitt was a study leader, her team testing participant mental abilities as children before cannabis use, and again 25 years later, when some had indeed became chronic users, an astonishing 96% sticking with the study all the way through.
Carried out on Dunedin, New Zealand residents, by researchers from King's College and US North Carolina Duke University, the end result has been the finding that marijuana is certainly not harmless, particularly for adolescents, as an eight percentile drop in IQ represents a distinct disadvantage in later life, as higher values equate to not only higher education and income, but also a healthier and longer life.
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Modern young people tend to regard cannabis as harmless, but the simple message is that use of this substance is anything but healthy for kids, any more than are for tobacco or alcohol. Lots of clinical and educational anecdotal reports can be found - reporting that cannabis users tend to be less successful in their educational achievement.
Not only that, but their marriages and occupations also suffer, so since young people seem aware that heavy use of cannabis could lead to their ending up achieving much less than might have been expected of them, the research study providing one explanation as to why this might be the case, and hopefully encouraging those youngsters to leave it alone till they get older.
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