Teenagers smoking weed daily far less likely to graduate high school

As the Global Commission on Drug Policy denounces the so-called “war against drugs” as a failure and suggests new approaches prioritising human rights and health, new studies on increased weed use by teenagers show significantly damaging outcomes. Hence the debate about the consequences of adolescent cannabis use is continuing.

The latest research on the subject was published in the British journal The Lancet Psychiatry this month. It was seen that teenagers who smoked weed daily were 60% less likely to graduate high school and far more likely to attempt suicide.

Researchers studied adolescents using marijuana, gathering data on frequency of marijuana use from over 3700 students from Australia and New Zealand and followed their developmental outcomes upto 30 years of age. They found a significant association between frequency of cannabis use during adolescence and most young adult outcomes investigated, even after controlling for potential confounding factors including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and mental illness. Teens who smoked weed were seen to have far more negative outcomes then their counterparts who didn't smoke weed, thus supporting the case against marijuana use by adolescents no matter how infrequent.

Here are some excerpts from The Washington Post article  Study: Teens who smoke weed daily are 60% less likely to complete high school than those who never use  by Christopher Ingraham on the research.

In a conference call, study co-author Edmund Sillins said that the relationship between cannabis use and negative outcomes is significant even at low levels of use (e.g., less than monthly), and that "the results suggest that there may not be a threshold where use can be deemed safe" for teens.
According to the study, there are significant relationships between cannabis use and high school graduation, college graduation, suicide attempts, cannabis dependency (not wholly surprising), and other illicit drug use.

The author points aptly out that;
A person who uses cannabis less than monthly would have slightly lower odds of graduating high school or getting a college degree, compared to a person who doesn't use at all. Increased use further decreases this likelihood. On the other hand, a person who uses cannabis monthly would have roughly 4 times the likelihood of becoming dependent on cannabis as a person who doesn't use at all.

(Continue reading)


P.S:
Study: Teens who smoke weed daily are 60% less likely to complete high school than those who never use   
 (Washington Post - Sept 9, 2014)
Young adult sequelae of adolescent cannabis use: an integrative analysis  (September 2014)

Teenage cannabis use and schizophrenia

With the growing wave of legalizing marijuana use across the US, it is important to fully understand the possible consequences of expected increase in it's unrestricted use, specially amongst the youth. A group of scientist at the Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial Hospital have conducted a study which has found a link between teenage Marijuana (Cannabis) use and schizophrenia. This study was published by Schizophrenia Bulletin

The brains of teenagers smoking cannabis daily for about three years showed significant structural changes affecting memory. Some of those changes appear very similar to those seen in the brains of schizophrenics.These youngsters also performed badly when tested on memory tasks, indicating poor memory functioning.


As reported by Marla Paul for Northwestern University on Futurity;

This is the first study to target key brain regions in the deep sub-cortical gray matter of chronic marijuana users with structural MRI and to correlate abnormalities in these regions with an impaired working memory.
Working memory is the ability to remember and process information in the moment and—if needed—transfer it to long-term memory. Previous studies have evaluated the effects of marijuana on the cortex, and few have directly compared chronic marijuana use in otherwise healthy individuals and individuals with schizophrenia.

According to the lead study author Mathew Smith an assistant research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; 

“The study links the chronic use of marijuana to these concerning brain abnormalities that appear to last for at least a few years after people stop using it. With the movement to decriminalize marijuana, we need more research to understand its effect on the brain.”

 But in contrast to these findings another study conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, has shown a genetic link between cannabis use and schizophrenia. Kate Kelland  reports for Reuters that;

The results chime with previous studies linking schizophrenia and cannabis, but suggest the association may be due to common genes and might not be a causal relationship where cannabis use leads to increased schizophrenia risk. 

 "We know that cannabis increases the risk of schizophrenia. Our study certainly does not rule this out, but it suggests that there is likely to be an association in the other direction as well – that a pre-disposition to schizophrenia also increases your likelihood of cannabis use," said Robert Power, who led the study at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London.

But what become evident from both these recent studies is the clear connection between adolescent use of cannabis and the development of schizophrenia. Therefore it is important for parents to discourage their children from getting swept up in this growing wave of legal recreational use of marijuana. We need to educate ourselves and our children on the very real dangers and consequences of indiscriminate use of marijuana.
 



References:

Teen marijuana use linked with schizophrenia (Futurity-January 3, 2014)

Study finds genetic links between schizophrenia and cannabis use (Reuters-June 24, 2014)

Cannabis-Related Working Memory Deficits and Associated Subcortical Morphological Differences in Healthy Individuals and Schizophrenia Subjects  (Schizophrenia Bulletin-December 15, 2013)

Genetic predisposition to schizophrenia associated with increased use of cannabis (Molecular Psychiatry-June 24, 2014)