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Regular cannabis use were associated with poorer cognitive performance
- 29athrowaway 6y agoCarl Sagan used cannabis, and we can al agree he was a rather smart guy. However weed strains back then had a different CBD/THC ratio than the ones today.
- liability 6y agoThere is a strain today for just about any CBD/THC ratio you could ask for, in legal markets anyway. Black market supply might be warped, I don't have any experience with that though.
- Bnshsysjab 6y agoI don’t smoke or live in a country where it’s legal. Can you literally go in and knowingly buy strains tested to be low and high ratio? Is it listed in the product description?
- ramenmeal 6y agoYep
- Wingman4l7 6y agoYes, they're listed in percentage values on the product labels, and depending on what you're buying, they can come in a variety of combinations.
- dumptruk 6y agoI live in Las Vegas (where it's recreationally legal), and they break down not only the amount of THC, but by percentage of each terpene in the strain. Nevada's cannabis industry is pretty heavily tested and regulated, definitely moreso than places we like to vacation, such as the PNW. Our last trip to Portland, we stopped by a dispensary to pick up a couple pre-rolls, and probed the bud-tenders about mercene percentage, only to realize later, it's not something regulated by the state. We left with some prerolls they suggested, and probably looking a bit like pretentious tourists.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoI'd be interested in a list of all the terpenes, and maybe what they do, or at least how they smell and taste? Is there anything like this?
- joejerryronnie 6y agoIt's actually quite unbelievable. My local dispensary in CA is like going into a high end health food store where each employee is extremely knowledgable and able to recommend product based on your specific preference. The aesthetic is very clean and minimalist (compared to the head shops I frequented in my youth). Product descriptions have a number of seemingly standardized details listed and the employees will contextualize those for you.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoSorry, this isn't true. I work in the industry and know how to talk about product. I have a very, very low THC tolerance, but I appreciate a buzz. I have failed to find a product that suits my preferences for years in a legal market. My preferences are relatively "niche", and the market has no interest in it.
- ProfessorLayton 6y agoAre you referring to smoking specifically? Edibles with THC content as low as 1mg are readily available at shops, which make it very easy to control a precise dose, so perhaps I'm misunderstanding. One could also eat half of a 1mg edible, which provides even more precision dosage.
- edoceo 6y agoI'm like this as a user too. It's hard to find low potency flower across the USA, there is a big pull from retail stores for flower over 20% (which leads to those bogus test results I mentioned elsewhere). I know of only a few vendors that sell "medium" flower - and retailers only let them in because they have some hi-test product too.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoIt's wild to me that of the responses I got, the only one that seemed to understand what I was expressing is the one that appears to have been downvoted, while the others which appear to have ignored the fact that I work in the industry and talk to me like I don't know what I'm talking about haven't. In any case, thank you, it's nice to know I'm not the only one.
- joejerryronnie 6y agoJust take half a hit and inhale air for the rest of your breath. No need to take a four foot bong rip if you just want a smooth mellow high.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
- grawprog 6y agoI'm pretty suspicious about most claims about cannibinoid percentages on any cannabis flowers. You could take two buds from the same plant and get different percentages depending on what part of the plant you take it from. That same variation exists across every plant in the room, even if they're clones of the same strain. I would assume any grower going for high pecentages in tests are going to pick the biggest choicest top buds to have tested. Meanwhile, you buy some of that weed from the store and you may end up with some lower buds that barely got any light, or some that was in the back corner of the room while drying and didn't finish properly, or that bud the workers kept brushing against while it was growing knocking crystals and resin off, or maybe the grower sold it before curing properly to make a quick buck so every seller that ends up with it ends up either curing it themselves in different ways or just not bothering at all and selling it as is. The seller may just sit on it for a while and let it degrade. All of those factors, and many more, have an affect on the amount of cannibinoids and terpenes in any specific bud you might end up with. Just because a specific strain or even crop was tested as one thing doesn't mean the weed you actually buy will be that. Concentrates tend to have less variation within one batch, but that again depends on how their made. A lot of it in the end is just marketing. Even most strains you buy are likely not what they're sold as. Even if a grower is able to maintain a stable line, over time after successive generations of clones, genetic defects and other undesirable things begin to occur and the grower needs to introduce fresh genetics, thereby changing the original strain. Cannabis genetics, breeding and growing is a pretty fascinating subject. There's so many factors that go into the final product and just so much variation and endless new discoveries every day.
- zdware 6y agoIt's important to note that this study is focused on Adolescents.
- abellerose 6y agoI'm curious if it was a light, medium, or heavy THC strain of cannabis that the subjects consumed. It would be nice to see a cognitive performance study for all prescription drugs.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago> It would be nice to see a cognitive performance study for all prescription drugs I'll admit I'm wary of the potential neurotoxic damage I'm doing to myself through my Vyvanse prescription...
- wu_tang_chris 6y agothen stop taking it?
- eyelidlessness 6y agoGiving unqualified medical advice is always risky. Giving drastic advice with little context could have severe consequences. Shame on you.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y agoTo be fair, you can safely go cold-turkey with Vyvanse - but withdrawal symptoms start after 2-3 days and can last up to a week. I'd describe my withdrawal experience as feeling utterly bored and being uninterested in doing anything, even passively watching the trashiest of shows on TV. I imagine that's what clinical depression (without actually feeling sad) is like. Weaning-off it is far more preferable.
- liability 6y agoI agree, the difference between some strains of cannabis can seem as wide as the difference between alcohol and caffeine. I suspect none of it is doing me any favors in the long run, but I'm very productive with some strains but locked to a couch with others.
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- aksjfnkajsnd 6y agoAwful title
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jlturner 6y agoThe title here seems like it’s drawing much more conclusion than the paper gives - really should read “Study Correlates Regular Cannabis Use in Adolescents with Reduced Verbal Memory Performance” Better yet, “Stoned Teens Don’t Listen” hah.
- lexandstuff 6y agoDon't want to create a new thread for this, but my suggested title is: "Moderate adolescent cannabis use may have adverse effects on cognitive functioning"
- option 6y agothe title was copy-pasted from paper’s “Findings” section. Can’t paste all the nuances in the title, so checkout the actual link.
- CameronNemo 6y agoHere is the actual sentence the title was edited from: >After correcting for multiple testing, a greater frequency and earlier onset of regular cannabis use were associated with poorer cognitive performance, specifically on tests of verbal memory. I thought the bad grammar was just a typo, but it was due to you cutting up the sentence to mean something different than what the paper actual states.
- alextheparrot 6y ago> A vast majority of participants endorsed [Quotation note: Had used] cannabis use at waves 1 (88%) and 2 (94%), with a mean age of onset of monthly use of 13.7 years. Further, participants reported using, on average, 8.4 (SD 1⁄4 10.8) days per month in the previous 6 months at wave 1. They’ve collected a group of urban kids whom the vast majority are using cannabis, many starting years prior to this survey. I know it is chic to be skeptical, but this is one study where I think it is also correct. The study leads the reader to believe that there is a biochemical link between cognitive performance and cannabis as a substance [0]. On the other hand, the evidence they present is that a small minority of kids aren’t using and are performing better. The number of confounding variables is much, much higher than simply alcohol use (Which in the second wave was at 99%, not much to normalize for) and family situation. For example, drug use can result in being kicked off sports teams, suspensions, things that could hinder intellectual development. Is anyone convinced by the study and would stand to offer support for its conclusion? [0] To me, the following quote can be read to support this assertion: “ Moderate adolescent cannabis use may have adverse effects on cognitive functioning, specifically verbal memory, that cannot be explained by familial factors”
- CameronNemo 6y ago> For example, drug use can result in being kicked off sports teams, suspensions, things that could hinder intellectual development. Drug use can also be a symptom of a poor mental state, for example that induced by social exclusion or poor mentorship. In such a situation the casual graph would look like: /¯¯¯ Kid uses drugs Kid not feeling great --- \___ Kid does bad in school, allowing cognitive skills to languish
- alextheparrot 6y agoI like this dialogue, because my first hypothesis (Which I didn’t want to encumber the original post with) was that , given the high base percent of users (85% or so and above), it seemed use would likely not be correlated with less social interaction, but that lack of use might be. Peer pressure doesn’t work without peers, as a DARE officer would probably say. Maybe there are introverted individuals or closed-group social circles that are just performing better, one descriptor of those groups being the lack of substance use (Or use of a more limited set of substances, like alcohol only). Irrespective, I think these types of questions are more useful in helping kids grow up intelligent than this study is (If we assume their focus on measuring intellect references is actually out of concern for how well students are doing)
- shajznnckfke 6y agoFrom my own personal experience, pot seriously impairs my cognitive performance. I’ll only do it if I don’t have to work for the next 48 hours (eg. a Friday night or vacation). If I’m undertaking some kind of serious effort I can’t do it at all, because that period of impairment will stop my progress. I think if I had a different kind of job, that didn’t require me to figure out a lot of details, it wouldn’t matter. I understand that others have a totally different experience and can code while stoned. But I’m not surprised that the average results would show lower performance if a chunk of the population is like me.
- quickthrower2 6y agoTried it once and couldn’t be bothered standing up. Not sure how anyone gets anything done on it.
- kyleee 6y agoFirst time effects of cannabis can be quite pronounced, but with sustained use / tolerance that level of effect is rarely if ever achieved again. There is definitely some variability from person to person though.
- rorykoehler 6y agoI don’t think this is accurate. Surely it depends on the specific pot. If you consume cbd are you cognitively impaired? Probably not. What about mostly cbd and <1% thc? <5% thc? Or maybe all thc and little cbd. All of these will have different outcomes.
- shajznnckfke 6y agoI don’t notice much effects from cbd. Sometimes hints of a “body high” but I’m not sure if it’s the placebo effect. The only thing that seems to matter is the thc content. For me, a little dose of a high thc gummy is the same as a big dose of a low thc high cbd gummy. So I could take cbd on a work night, or probably even during the work day, but it wouldn’t do anything for me. When I talked about pot, I wasn’t taking about cbd, although I apologize if that causes confusion.
- satori99 6y agoI am a regular pot smoker in my mid-40s. I have been using marijuana regularly since I was 16 and have participated in several studies of this nature since I was in my early 20s. I have volunteered for these because I have always felt that marijuana does not diminish my cognitive performance for certain tasks -- and definitely does not diminish my memory recall abilities. Some of these tests involved listening to short stories, and re-telling then an hour later, and other memory games. I like to think I aced them, to keep the bell curve wide. On one occasion, the researcher did indicate this to me, well after the experiments were over.
- exogeny 6y agoI congratulate you on your personalized anecdote designed to tacitly defend the things that you enjoy.
- cle 6y agoIn a world of methodological uncertainty and eroding trust in these kinds of studies, anecdotes are more important than ever (and they were never unimportant to begin with).
- syspec 6y agoImagine how much better you would have done without pot!
- Barrin92 6y agoI grew up around a lot of people who were regular smokers from an early age, say 15. (and by regular I mean "can't sleep without pot"), and their cognitive abilities definitely suffered from smoking, and they freely admit it, and I think it's very obvious if you're around people who smoke a lot. You simply can't concentrate when you're high the same way you can when you don't smoke. Reading is more difficult, exercise is more difficult, that's just the literal effects of weed. If you're high all the time you're not going to perform the way you can when you're sober, and this is just my anecdotal observation, with people who started smoking young it becomes a sort of personality trait. You just become less sharp, less active, and when there's habit less interested in doing things not-high. Studies aside, that just can't be helpful.
- sigzero 6y agoThis is no new. I was under the impression everyone knew this?
- tus88 6y agoWonder what affect of LSD is in similar stufy.
- oblib 6y agoThey say "A sibling in each family was a clinical proband identified due to delinquent behaviors." Pardon my ignorance here but, does this mean they only studied kids with "delinquent behaviors"?
- alextheparrot 6y agoYour reading is correct: > From 2001 to 2006, 245 probands/257 siblings from San Diego and 351 probands/373 siblings from Denver were recruited via substance abuse treatment programs, alter- native schools and juvenile probation departments (see [30] for ascertainment details) Citation 30 is: 30. Gelhorn H., Hartman C., Sakai J., Stallings M., Young S., Hyun Rhee S., et al. Toward DSM‐V: an item response theory analysis of the diagnostic process for DSM‐IV alcohol abuse and dependence in adolescents. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psy- chiatry 2008; 47: 1329–39; https://doi.org/10.1097/ https://doi.org/10.1097/ CHI.0b013e318184ff2e
- justanotherc 6y agoIs this really all that groundbreaking? I had a teammate in highschool remark that you could pinpoint in his grades the times when he started/stopped smoking weed.
- cgriswald 6y agoThat could have indicated poorer cognitive performance, reduced motivation, poorer time management, and any number of other things.
- justanotherc 6y agoWell not if you ask him as he would tell you his grades were highly correlated to his smoking habits. Obviously its a non scientific anecdote, but my point is I thought it was well established common knowledge that marijuana affects cognition.
- appletrotter 6y agoAnd his smoking habits might be directly correlated with reduced motivation, poorer time management, and any number of other things. Meaning that it might not be a direct cognitive effect, but a second or third order effect altering his performance.
- justanotherc 6y agoPlease read the second part of my comment before just repeating what you already said
- dossy 6y agotl;dr: They call it "dope" for a reason, dummy.