Smoking marijuana as a teenager lowers IQ for LIFE

Smoking cannabis as a teenager lowers IQ into adulthood and could have a lifelong impact, researchers have warned. And the damaging effects of the drug remained even if users stopped smoking marijuana as adults. The scientists, from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the U.S., added that smoking cannabis affects critical thinking and memory during use, with the effects persisting for days.

‘It is important to alert the public that using marijuana in the teen years brings health, social, and academic risk,’ said lead author and NIDA director Dr Nora D. Volkow.

The risks are further enhanced when combining marijuana with alcohol, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Recently, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, found smoking cannabis before the age of 15 could lead to insomnia later in life. Any history of using the drug was associated with an increased risk of reporting difficulty getting enough sleep. This people reported struggling to fall asleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, experiencing non-restorative sleep and feeling sleepy during the day. The strongest link between lack of sleep and cannabis use was in those who first used the drug under the age of 15.

Reviewing a range of studies on marijuana smoking, they reiterated that cannabis impairs driving and increases the risk of being involved in a car accident.