As they approach their 40th birthdays, adults who smoked marijuana early and often in life face a higher likelihood of sheering off IQ points and performing more poorly on tests of reasoning, attention and memory than those who smoked pot less often, says a new study.
The latest research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, underscores what the authors call the "toxic effects of cannabis on the brain"- especially the developing brain. Against the backdrop of resurgent marijuana use among U.S. high school students, they recommend "increasing efforts" to "delay the onset of cannabis use" among teens.
"Collectively, these findings are consistent with speculations that cannabis use in adolescence, when the brain is undergoing critical development, may have neurotoxic effects," the authors concluded.
