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.
If you can find a link to the actual study, would you ping me? I am sort of curious to read it myself.
Yes, they are correct. It dumbs you down and SLOWS you down.
The best antidote to excessive self destructive pot use, which causes the caution, and the moderation, is a burning ambition to achieve one's goals, that one has set for oneself, in which one's ego heavily invested, and which becomes a rather hard wiring and almost consuming matter of self respect. I wish I could put it better, but that is my experience. But man oh man what it fun, in certain contexts. It was grand!
faster than normal?
Taquitos from Whataburger, the ultimate 2:00am food!!
What were we talking about?
Perhaps he looked on the site and then forgot the article by the time he got back.
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/66/5/737?lookupType=volpage&vol=66&fp=737&view=short
You have to be a subscriber to read the actual article, but the Abstract is free.
In oher words, this is your brain, and this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?
That's why we used to call it getting "wasted".
Thanks!
You're welcome. Since mugs99 claimed the item wasn't there, I was pretty sure it would be.
Well, of course. They can't remember enough to be worried about. Ignorance is bliss.
Keep digging.
From what I've been told by people that know (my personal knowledge is more than 20 years old),Anybody that talks about smoking Joints these days is either smoking ditch weed or alfalfa.
I've been told that the "top of the line" stuff is green( when I was young we were after the Gold,The Green stuff was crap) and very potent.
And only very low grade stuff would be smoked in a joint,Because the "good" stuff is too expensive and too potent to smoke a joint.
Yes, pot does prevent sleeplessness. Definitely. But then, when you wake up in the late morning, you don't feel like doing jumping jacks. You feel like you need an aspirin.
uh...what?
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