Research on 290 pairs of twins found pot smokers fared as well on tests as abstaining siblings. A new analysis is challenging the idea that smoking marijuana during adolescence can lead to declines in intelligence.
Instead, the new study says, pot smoking may be merely a symptom of something else that’s really responsible for a brainpower effect seen in some previous research.
It’s not clear what that other factor is, said Joshua Isen, an author of the analysis. But an adolescent at risk for smoking pot “is probably going to show this IQ drop regardless of whether he or she is actually smoking marijuana,” said Isen, a lecturer in psychology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
The study was released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Some prior research has led to suggestions that the developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to harm from marijuana.
CBC News – Jan 18, 2016.
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