Posted on 03/13/2006 6:23:52 PM PST by Moonman62
Memory, speed of thinking and other cognitive abilities get worse over time with marijuana use, according to a new study published in the March 14, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study found that frequent marijuana users performed worse than non-users on tests of cognitive abilities, including divided attention (ability to pay attention to more than one stimulus at a time) and verbal fluency (number of words generated within a time limit). Those who had used marijuana for 10 years or more had more problems with their thinking abilities than those who had used marijuana for five to 10 years. All of the marijuana users were heavy users, which was defined as smoking four or more joints per week.
"We found that the longer people used marijuana, the more deterioration they had in these cognitive abilities, especially in the ability to learn and remember new information," said study author Lambros Messinis, PhD, of the Department of Neurology of the University Hospital of Patras in Patras, Greece. "In several areas, their abilities were significant enough to be considered impaired, with more impairment in the longer-term users than the shorter-term users."
The study involved people ages 17 to 49 taking part in a drug abuse treatment program in Athens, Greece. There were 20 long-term users, 20 shorter-term users and 24 control subjects who had used marijuana at least once in their lives but not more than 20 times and not in the past two years. Those who had used any other class of drugs, such as cocaine or stimulants, during the past year or for more than three months throughout their lives were not included in the study. Before the tests were performed, all participants had to abstain from marijuana for at least 24 hours.
The marijuana users performed worse in several cognitive domains, including delayed recall, recognition and executive functions of the brain. For example, on a test measuring the ability to make decisions, long-term users had 70 percent impaired performance, compared to 55 percent impaired performance for shorter-term users and 8 percent impaired performance for non-users. In a test where participants needed to remember a list of words that had been read to them earlier, the non-users remembered an average of 12 out of 15 words, the shorter-term users remembered an average of nine words and the long-term users remembered an average of seven words.
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The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 19,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, autism and multiple sclerosis.
For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit www.aan.com.
Yeah, as in "that's why they call it dope." Right?
From personal experience they are correct....
;-)
I got news for you: It gets slower anyways.
Jeopardy has to have old people compete against old people, because old people are slow at the switch.
Then they edit out the uncomfortable delays.
What were you saying, dude? I was like, spacing for a second.
Dude, you're, like, totally harshing my mellow...
This be junk siense.
/sarcasum
< I got news for you: It gets slower anyways. >
I can attest to that. I've never even tried the stuff and the memory is shot. Of course, being in high school in the late 60's, it could be from all the second hand on the school bus.
I wish I could blame it on something besides old age. Gettin' old ain't for sissies.
One needs to say goodbye to pot relatively young, and just use it on odd weekends, when young. That is particularly true with the strong stuff. It really does take its toll, if one is not quite careful, at least in my experience.
I now hear from my former Vietnam buds who were smoking dope in 1971-72. Every other word was G.D. MoFo. Guess nothing changes if you smoke that old Golden Triangle wacky weed. Watched it screw up a lot of people.
>>I've never even tried the stuff and the memory is shot.
Ditto. My memory's not bad yet but it sure ain't what it was. "Memory, speed of thinking get worse over time with marijuana use" and without it.
But they are saying MJ just makes it get even slower.
Whether they are users of drugs or not..
Wonder if that fact was factored in..
I was curious what the theme for denial was going to be. It looks like they are going to take off with the "they were too stupid to correct for age angle."
Huh? What was I saying?
Well, yeah, the people who were smoking for ten years are five years older than the people who were smoking for five years!
The abstract does not mention how the data was normalized, though, so that alone can't be used to reject it.
There just cannot be negative consequences, though.
I'm with you on that, brother.
I can remember all the lyrics to "American Pie", but I can't remember what I had for breakfast.
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