Early marijuana use tied to long-term brain problems

CBS ^ | June 1, 2011 | David W. Freeman

[AustralianConservative]

Call it the pubescent pot problem.

New research shows that adults who smoked marijuana before age 15 have significant problems with attention span, impulse control, and "executive function" - the ability to plan and carry out tasks.

How about people who took up toking later in life? The same research showed they were much less likely to have such difficulties.

For the research, scientists at the Federal University of Sao Paulo in Brazil used a stardard "card sorting" task to evaluate the cognitive ability of 104 long-term cannabis users, including 49 who had started using before age 15. On average, the early tokers had smoked pot for 10.9 years, the Daily Mail reported.

What happened? The early herb enjoyers made more mistakes than those who waited to use weed, as well as the "controls" who didn't smoke marijuana.

"We found that early-onset, but not late-onset, chronic cannabis users had deficits in their cognitive functioning," study author Dr. Maria Alice Fontes said, according to the paper. "Adolescence is a period in which the brain appears to be particularly vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects of cannabis. The brain before the age of 15 is still developing and maturing, so exposure to cannabis during this period may be more harmful."

Marijuana seems to cause both chemical and structural changes in the brain, study co-author Dr. Karen Bolla, associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, told CBS News. She said rapid brain development continues until one's early twenties.

If early pot smoking really is bad for the brain, lots of Americans may be at risk for long-term cognitive difficulties.

[AustralianConservative]

Good to see that some intelligent people are thinking about brain chemistry. I know drug-first libertarians don’t.

[AustralianConservative]

Is Bill Cosby on our side? That’s cool.

[AustralianConservative]

Of course they took into consideration numerous factors to secure them from excuse makers. Brain scan imaging doesn’t lie either (another field).

[AustralianConservative]

No amount of evidence will ever convince Woodstock libertarians. Review some brain scans if you’d like more proof.

[AustralianConservative]

“Do any of you prohibitionists want to explain why you support laws that violate the original Commerce Clause and Tenth Amendment?”

How about you explain why drug drivers are killing families? So now you’re legalistic? Your interpretation of amendments would see kids with LSD lollipops.

Suggestion: Save the sermons for business-destroying anarchists. I’ve been to the Netherlands – and the revolution is a lie, but you’re free to move to socialist Europe.

[TigersEye]

Of course they took into consideration numerous factors to secure them from excuse makers.

IOWs he has no idea what you're talking about much less whether those protocols were used in this research. He's such a brainiac he calls your question about scientific controls "excuse making."

Brain scan imaging doesn’t lie either (another field).

It always helps to throw in a straw man when you have no idea how to debate the subject.

[TigersEye]

No amount of evidence will ever convince Woodstock libertarians.

When overwhelmed with concepts that are far above your head a gratuitous insult is called for. At least it always worked for him in grade school.

Review some brain scans if you’d like more proof.

Never leave out the obligatory straw man.

[VanShuyten]

Dave?... Dave's not here.

State vs. Stoner

I've only done marijuana... 22 times.

What? Oh, yeah... uh, 2 times...

Great album!

[Ken H]

Not surprised to see you to flinch from discussing the constitutional issues.

What sort of 'conservative' is it that runs away from the Constitution?

[TigersEye]

I told you that you were overestimating them. LOL

[aruanan]

New research shows that adults who smoked marijuana before age 15 have significant problems with attention span, impulse control, and "executive function" - the ability to plan and carry out tasks.

In the same way of mistaking cause and effect, "Adults who engage in setting fires were likely to have been males who were fascinated with playing with matches and setting fires as a children before the age of 15. If we can keep them from this behavior into their later teen years and do something about their being male, we'll reduce the number of adult arsonists.

Or even more likely: New research shows that adults whose neurological makeup predisposes them to significant problems with attention span, impulse control, and problems with "executive function" - the ability to plan and carry out tasks, are preferentially more likely to self-medicate by using marijuana at an early age. This is similar to schizophrenics who use tobacco from an early age to mitigate the effects of their neurological condition by the use of exogenous neurotransmitters.

Again mistaking cause and effect: Since most adult schizophrenics are smokers, if we can keep kids from smoking, we can reduce the number of adult schizophrenics.

Signed,

Someone who did his four year post-doctoral fellowship in neurobiology/pharmacology.

[tsomer]

No amount of evidence will ever convince Woodstock libertarians. Review some brain scans if you’d like more proof.

I'm not sure you're getting my point:even by grammar school science-fair standards, this is a lousy study, if the journalist's account is accurate.

It could also be a lousy report of a well conducted study.

As for me, I prefer to sit naked in the desert and munch on peyote buttons.

[YHAOS]

"Is Bill Cosby on our side? That’s cool."

For a long time in his comedy career, Cosby had a way of explaining many of our cultural misadventures as "brain damage." He is a comic, but I think he also had a serious point to make, "brain damage" being a way to say "dysfunctional." Only, "dysfunctional" isn't naturally funny. "Brain damage" seems to be funny. At least when Cosby said it.