Dear All,
MPP'S Mason Tyvert likes to go around the country and especially the State of
Florida spreading the false claim that the IQ Study [Duke University/Dunedin Study] showing that teen marijuana abuse lowers IQ has been debunked.
This article questions the veracity of Mr. Tyvert’s claims and instead, it
proves that Mr. Tyvert has been debunked; the results of the original study have
been proven to be true beyond a reasonable doubt.
Being cognisant of this, Tyvert knows full well how explosive and damaging the results of
this study are to his goal of legalizing marijuana (and all other drugs) and so
he (and his fellow pro-pot friends including NORML, DPA, ASA, MPP) continues
to go around the country spreading his deceptions.
Best regards,
Ronald L. Kirkish, CDFC/IFBC/CALM
June 20, 2014
A new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine
examines current research on the impact of marijuana on brain functions, raising
serious questions about whether teenage pot use lowers IQ into the adult
years.
By Eric Schulzke -
Jun 20, 2014 at 4:29 PM
Jokes aside about tuned-out stoners who can’t find their car, some experts are asking, what if marijuana actually makes kids dumb?
Jokes aside about tuned-out stoners who can’t find their car, some experts are asking, what if marijuana actually makes kids dumb?
Earlier this month, three researchers at the National
Institute of Drug Abuse published an article in the New England Journal of
Medicine surveying the current state of the evidence.
According to their report, marijuana use in adolescence
and early adulthood may measurably lower users’ IQ decades later down the
road.
They conclude there is reason to believe marijuana may
permanently harm the adolescent brain.
Until the age of 21, the piece notes, the brain “is
intrinsically more vulnerable than a mature brain to the adverse long-term
effects of environmental insults.”
Given the rapid pace of marijuana legalization,
researchers are noting an increased urgency to do research on the developing
brains of teen users.
Washington and Colorado have both legalized recreational
marijuana use, and legalization is actively being considered in 14 additional
states.
While none of these states propose making pot legal for
minors, destigmatization and greater ease of access
have already resulted in heavier use among youths in Colorado.
As marijuana is increasingly normalized and seen as
relatively harmless, some experts doubt whether we know enough to justify rapid
shifts in policy and behavior in pot usage.
“There is a lot we know and a lot we don’t,” said Wilson
Compton, deputy director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and a co-author
of the NEJM paper, in an interview.
“We think it’s very important to understand risk and
protective factors and to understand how significant any one of them
is.”
Mile high
Public opinion, for the moment, may be racing faster than
science can keep up.
Last fall, Gallup
reported that a solid 58 percent of Americans favored legalizing
pot.
And an NBC-Wall
Street Journal poll this spring found that 49 percent saw tobacco as
harmful, while 24 percent said the same of alcohol, 15 percent of sugar, and
just 8 percent of marijuana.
Shifting perception is quickly translating to youth drug
usage in Colorado, which became ground zero for pot legalization in 2012 when
the state voters chose to legalize and tax the drug.
The Office
of National Drug Control Policy reported last year that one in four Boulder County high
school students now use pot — more than three times the national
average.
And the numbers are shifting fast.
In Adams County, a Denver suburb, high school marijuana
use jumped from 21 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2012.
Middle school pot use in Adams County jumped 50 percent
during that period — from 5.7 to 8.5 percent.
Down under
No one is certain what all of these behavior changes mean
for the long-term health of kids who become heavy pot users in adolescence, but
some researchers think they have a good hunch.
One of the most critical insights comes from a 40-year,
ongoing study in Dunedin, New Zealand, where researchers have for years followed
the lives of 1,037 children born there during a one-year span in 1972 and
1973.
The kids, now adults, were tested at two-year intervals
throughout their childhood and subsequently at ages 21, 26, 32 and now 38.
Retention at each stage of the study has been remarkable:
At the last interval, they got to 95 percent of the original group.
Every angle of physical, mental and social health is
examined, and researchers also interview friends and relatives.
The result is an unprecedented data
trove.
Arizona State University psychology professor Madeline
Meier and several co-authors at Duke University used Dunedin’s data to check the
effect of adolescent marijuana use, publishing
their findings in 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
Those who regularly used marijuana as teens, the study
found, lost significant IQ points between their 13th and 38th years.
Friends and associates also reported more cognitive
problems among regular pot users, and even those who quit did not entirely
regain all the ground they had lost in their youth.
Deflecting challenges
The data is so rich that Meier and her colleagues were
able to deflect two challenges to their conclusions, and so far no more have
surfaced.
One critic from Norway published a critique suggesting
that socioeconomic differences may have been the real culprit.
Perhaps, he posited, people with duller careers and less
stimulating associates had their IQs artificially boosted during their schooling
years, and then failed to maintain mental growth as they
aged.
Meier and her colleagues went back to the original data
and broke it down again, this time focusing strictly on middle class kids, and
found that the results held firm.
Another challenger suggested that kids who used pot were
naturally lacking in self-control, and thus likely to see their IQ slip as they
aged.
Again re-analyzing the Dunedin
data, the researchers demonstrated that marijuana’s impact on
IQ took place regardless of how much self-control the subject had in
childhood.
Meier readily admits the limits of this kind of
observational study, which — unlike controlled, clinical studies — cannot
determine causation and is often confounded by unseen
variables.
“With observational data there could always be an
alternative explanation,” Meier said.
“However, we did rule out some of the best and most
plausible explanations.”
One of the key findings was that the IQ reduction does
not occur if the user began smoking marijuana after adulthood.
This, Meier says, has led some to see validation in the
study for legalization among adults.
Moving forward
“The association seems clear but causal mechanisms not
fully understood,” Wilson Compton said.
“What we need is additional
work.”
The NEJM article by Volkow, Compton and their co-authors
cites research showing “impaired neural connectivity” among users who began
smoking pot in their teens — including areas of the brain that affect alertness,
learning and memory.
They also cite studies showing reduced function in the
prefrontal networks, which manage conscience and
self-control.
All of this is not really surprising, they argue, since
the developing brain is peculiarly vulnerable to damage in adolescence and early
adulthood.
The NIDA team is currently planning (and arranging
funding for) a study that will follow 10,000 children from age 10 through
adulthood, looking at the impact of numerous substances and behaviors on the
brain.
The team will do biological tests and interviews, as well
as functional magnetic resonance imaging to see what the brain is doing in real
time.
The key to such an ambitious study, Compton said, will be
follow-up rates.
Many studies struggle to keep track of people over many
years, he said, but there are models for what works.
Persistence is critical, he said, because tracking down
people who move is tough.
“The science and the art is to not make it too
burdensome,” he says.
“You have to make it interesting and important enough for
them that they will be willing to continue.”
By the time the new study is funded, launched and
completed 20 years later, an entire generation will have grown up under shifting
attitudes toward and usage of marijuana.
And, if Meier and her colleagues are right, many of these
newly minted adults will be carrying permanent mental handicaps acquired in the
experiment.
No comments:
Post a Comment