Kiss your IQ goodbye

Since population acceptance has reached an all time high of 56%, the adolescent are abusing Cannabis (also known as marijuana) more now then ever before. In repercussion of this astonishing number, there has been a report of a global decline in the intelligence quotient (IQ) in adolescents who use up to 4 times a week or are dependence to Cannabis. Researchers have found only the people who started using in their adolescence have had permanent neurocognitive declines. Perhaps this has to do with adults using Cannabis when their brain is fully developed versus an adolescent whose brain is still undergoing much growth.

In opposition to those studies, there has also been research that shows only certain neurocognitive functions are affected and will recover with abstinence from using the drug. Pope et al. has found that users test at lower rates only on verbal memory soon after heavy use of the drug, but then disappears after 28 days. While both findings are unsettling, if Meier et al.’s findings of permanent damage for adolescence is true, issues such as increased exposure to the drug and a loss of control for mental health and education will arise. The Dunedin Longitudinal Study is said to be an accurate and unbiased research study since all of the cases that were studied were born at the same hospital between April of 1972 and March of 1973 and are currently still alive. The neurocognitive testing was documented and conducted by a third party outsider, also attention to sex differences, and regular use or dependence was considered carefully. The only downfall to such research is the minimal sample size that was used. This could lead to inaccurate numbers because of limited findings in specific areas they might want to study. A couple of things which were not considered in this study was mentioned by the article such as the subgroups without the diagnosis, the magnitude of the reported decline in the global IQ, and whether or not the results are sufficient enough to sway users to stop abusing the drug. These three minimal blemishes could easily nullify the entire study seeing that the subgroup of users who were not dependent on Cannabis show no decline in performance or IQ along with the obvious fact that the global IQ is declining because of many factors such as environment effects on cognition.

Abstract

Gonzalez, R., & Swanson, J. M. (2012). Long-term effects of adolescent-onset and persistent use of cannabis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(40), 15970-15971.
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