29.08.2012
The results of an interesting research were published in the latest issue ofthe US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article says that regular use of pot in adolescent age causes significant decrease in mental abilities in future. So, it was discovered that the IQ of all those who used marijuana in early age reduced by 8-10 points with time.
Madeline H. Meier, PhD, the leader of the group of the researches, said that marijuana is perilous for teenagers, but nobody takes this jeopardy seriously.
“The social position of a person whose IQ is 10 points lower that his peers’ is not so beneficial as theirs”, the researcher said.
A group of people residents of Dunedin, New Zealand, born in 1972 and 1973 was selected for participation in the long-standing research. They passed an IQ test the age of 13. Then they passed it again, at the age of 38. Besides, they regularly passed various psychological tests and participated in anonymous polls asking if they used pot.
Then, after a detailed comparison with the people who hadn’t use cannabis for that period, it became clear that those who smoked cannabis in early age did the test tasks much worse. As a result, their average IQ at the age of 13 was 102 points, but at the age of 38 it was only 94 points.
According to the researches, this effect suffered all participants who started to use marijuana being younger than 18 and continued to use it up to the age of 21.
