Posted on 08/27/2012 6:20:21 PM PDT by DannyTN
Teenagers who regularly smoke cannabis are putting themselves at risk of permanently damaging their intelligence, according to a landmark study.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
An 8 point drop in IQ is not insignificant. It might not make you, “to stupid”, but your post indicates that you most likely were affected.
I would think that this study would kill the idea of legalized marijuana due to the fact that the second hand smoke would be impossible to contain.
There was an article in the WSJ, a year ago, (I remember because I read it on my Iphone at an airport) about the fact that the federal govt was encouraging the use of psycho-tropic drugs for “mood-disorders”. I can’t remember exactly how they were promoting the prescribing of the drugs, but the idea was that a less emotional public was easier to control.
I think that this study will pretty much end the discussion of legalized marijuana because there is no way to shield children from the effects of second hand smoke.
I’ve been wondering what effect other drugs have on developing minds, if marijuana can cause an 8 point drop in IQ. Eight points is a lot, when some of these kids are in double digits to begin with.
Yes it does sound like a lot. Attributing the same efffect to "second hand smoke" sounds insane.
What do you think that an IQ test measures? It measures "reasoning power"? Reasoning power is the ability to think rationally. An 8 point drop in IQ is quite significant, it could mean the difference between being self sufficient or government dependent.
I have to wonder if other drugs have an even greater affect on a developing brain. I have a friend who has used drugs her whole adult life and whose kids have (except one) used drugs as teen-agers. When her youngest got in trouble (heroin), she said that it was because he was stupid and used drugs as a teen-ager instead of waiting until he was an adult, when his brain could handle it better. I thought that she was nuts, but maybe not.
It doesn’t have to be the “same effect”. Any drop in IQ is significant and if a child is exposed to second hand smoke from marijuana on a daily basis, the child would be impacted.
How many times have you joked about getting high just walking in a room full of smoke or standing near a field of marijuana that was being burned by authorities?
Isn't that the same kind of reasoning that resulted in the ban on Alar?
No, there was no long term study that proved that Alar was a danger. This study began in 1973, did the first IQ tests at 13 years old and the second tests at 35 years old.
You have to realize that if the impacts of second hand smoke from cigarettes has resulted in the restrictions on smoking, that the risk of brain damage to children is going to be a much greater threat.
The damage of lowered IQ cannot be undone. It’s permanent. Think of the potential for law suits and custody battles. Think of the potential for kids to sue their parents for permanent support “because you made me stupid by smoking pot in the house”.
They showed that feeding rats massive amounts of Alar could cause tumors. From that they concluded that the tiny amount you might get from the apples will also cause tumors in people. The basic premise is that if any amount can be shown to cause damage, then no amount should be allowed.
So if the bureaucrats did something stupid once, we have to keep right on doing it? Why? That's the kind of rationalization that makes regulations multiply like rabbits.
Well, I’d guess that if you were a lib, doper-toker your concern about second-hand smoke is pretty small...
my thoughts.
Hey, Ken...
with 52% of the population not paying fed tax and on some sort of govt assistance, I’d say my point as well as yours has been made...
Control groups are difficult enough to establish outside of the labratory and from what I understand, this particular study didn't have a meaningful control group of any kind.
Therefore, the study and conclusions are meaningless for anything more than a mere hypothesis that may or my not turn out to be true.
Control groups are difficult enough to establish outside of the labratory and from what I understand, this particular study didn't have a meaningful control group of any kind.
Therefore, the study and conclusions are meaningless for anything more than a mere hypothesis that may or my not turn out to be true.
This study defined the marijuana usage as 4 days a week. That is not uncommon now, among teenagers, who often view marijuana as harmless and even sometimes deny that it is a drug.
From another article on the same study:
What isn’t clear from this study is what quantity of weed causes damage, and what age (if any) might be safe for regular use.
Marijuana use is up among American teens, who are now more likely to smoke pot than tobacco, according to a 2011 University of Michigan study.
That study found one in every 15 high-school seniors getting high on a daily or near daily basis, the most substantive rates seen since 1981. One hypothesis for the resurgence is that teens perceive few risks associated with the drug, with many refusing to even call it a drug.
In Canada, the prevalence of pot use among Canadians aged 15 and over decreased to 9.1 per cent in 2011 from 10.7 per cent in 2010.
Still, the rates for youth aged 15 to 24 were three times higher than for their over-25 counterparts: 21.6 per cent versus 6.7 per cent.
Wow. Ok I am just saying alot of people who smoked as teens have productive lives. That’s all.
Would that be considered a massive amount to ingest compared to what you might get from incidental expose to second hand smoke?
That explains so much.
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