Marijuana can permanently damage teenagers’ brains, lower IQ

Both the dangers of smoking cannabis and its potential health benefits
have been asource of controversy for many years. The latest study on
the drug suggested that heavy and prolonged cannabis smoking as a
young person can result in a permanently lower IQ.Persistent use of
marijuana when the brain is undergoing critical development may have
toxic effects on brain cells. Of particular worry is the permanence of
these effects among people who began smoking marijuana in adolescence.
Even after these subjects stopped using marijuana for a year, its
adverse effects persisted.The United Nations says that marijuana is
the most popular illegal drug in the world,with somewhere between 119
million and 224 million users between the ages of 15 and 64 as of 2010.
Within the United States, for instance, 23 per cent of high
schoolstudents said they'd recently smoked marijuana, making it more
popular than cigarettes.The idea that marijuana harms the adolescent
brain has warranted scientists investigating its impart on memory.
Prior to now, concerns regarding cannabis use were ideological rather
than legal. Interestingly, a new study that gives credence to the long
term effect of marijuana on the brain cells found that its use in young
people affects their mental performance. It blunts
intelligence,attention and memory, aside reducing their IQ. The IQ - or
intelligence quotient - does not measure a person's amount of
knowledge,but rather represents a person's ability to comprehend
concepts, as well their capacity to process information. Typically, IQ
does not change significantly over the course of a person's life,
unless as a result of severe brain damage from injury or disease. But
intelligence and cognition are affected by a plethora of other
factors,including genetic, social and environmental influences that may
supersede any influence from drug use. In a study of more than 1,000
adolescentsin New Zealand, those who began habitually smoking
marijuana before age18 showed an eight-point drop in IQ between the
ages of 13 and 38, a considerable decline. The average IQ is100 points.
A drop of eight points represents a fall from the 50th percentile to
the 29th percentile in terms ofintelligence. In the research, published
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which charted
the IQ changes in participants over two decades,researchers tested the
IQs of all of the study subjects at age 13 before any habitual
marijuana use. They then split the study into five "waves" during
which time they assessed cannabis use — ages18, 21, 26, 32, and 38.
They again tested IQ at age 38. Besides factors that could affect mental
performance such as years of education, alcohol use and
other psychoactive drugs that may affect IQ were taken into
consideration.The researchers also had family members and friends of
the participants confidentially rate them on attention and memory
skills and those who had lost IQ points showed problems in these
areas. The eight-point drop in IQ was found in subjects who started
smoking in adolescence and persisted in "habitual smoking". These were
young people that use cannabis at least four days per week. However, in
people who started smoking in adolescence but used marijuana less
persistently, the researchers in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences found that the effect on their IQ's was less
pronounced than the group thatused it early and persistently. In
contrast,those who never used marijuana at all gained nearly one IQ
point on average. Experts in child development said the reasons young
people may be more susceptible to the harmful effects of marijuana may
have to do with a substance called myelin. Myelin can be thought of as
a kind of insulation for nerve cells in the brain that also helps
speed brain signals along — and in adolescent brains, the protective
coating it forms is not yet complete.But how could cannabis have this
effect on the brain and why might teenagers be particularly
susceptible? The drug is made from the cannabis plant and contains
more than 400 different chemicals, which could have a range of effects
on the mind and body. It includes psychoactive chemicals which act on
the brain. The main element is a chemical called tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC). This provides the "chilled out" sensation associated with
smoking cannabis, but has also been linked to memory
impairment. Meanwhile, although the study was conducted among New
Zealand young people, the findings could be extended to adolescents in
many parts of the world,Nigeria inclusive. Many teenagers today are
more likely to be using marijuana than tobacco products. According to
2011 World Drug Report annual prevalence of the youth and adult
population who had consumed marijuana, at least once in the past was
14.3 per cent.Unfortunately, 2011 was the first year in which
adolescents smoked more marijuana than cigarettes. Many young people
were wrongly influenced to believe that cigarettes are dangerous and
that marijuana is not. Besides, factors such as child abuse or other
trauma might lead people to seek escape in heavy marijuana use.Even
though more information is needed to establish the exact effects of
marijuana on the developing mind, experts said that it was important
for adults and teenagers alike to have a better understanding of just
what marijuana does to their minds and bodies. Though the long-term
effects of cannabis have been studied, there remains much to be
concluded. Many studies have investigated whether long-term use of
cannabis can cause or contribute to the development of illnesses such
as heart disease, bi-polar disorder,depression, mood swings or
schizophrenia.Both advocates and opponents of the drug are able to
call upon numerous scientific studies supporting their respective
positions. For instance, while cannabis has been implicated in the
development of various mental disorders in some studies,these studies
differ widely as to whether cannabis use is the cause of the mental
problems displayed in heavy users,whether the mental problems are
exacerbated by cannabis use, or whether both the cannabis use and the
mental problems are the effects of some other cause.Tests have implied
that smoking of marijuana could impact the sperm's functions, though
this impact is unknown.There is some evidence that cannabis may
compromise female fertility with a modest association reported between
cannabis use and infertility in a case controlled study of 150 women
with primary infertility.Higher rates of testicular cancer in western
nations have been linked to use of cannabis. A 2009 study published in
the journal Cancer linked the long-term use of cannabis to an
increased risk of 70 percent for testicular cancer with the scientists
concluding that cannabis is harmful to the human endocrine and
reproductive system.Some studies have found that children of tobacco
and marijuana-smoking mothers more frequently suffer from permanent
cognitive deficits, concentration disorders, hyperactivity, and
impaired social interactions than non-exposed children of the same age
and social background. Source: nigerian tribune