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Younger cannabis users have reduced brain function, finds largest study yet
- jncfhnb 2y agoEffect size of -0.3 standard deviations on working memory. P value of .02 corrected for FDR. Not huge. Sounds believable to me.
- lumost 2y agoThese studies may also miss categorize heavy/habitual users. Heavy canabis use tends to leave a somewhat functional if unmotivated individual. This is in contrast to heavy alcohol users who quickly lose the ability to function in society due to hangovers and inebriated actions.
- whoknw 2y agoThat does not match my experience with alcoholics. In my experience they can stay functional in society for a very, very long time. Not that that has anything to do with the original topic :)
- Retric 2y agoThere are some surprisingly functional heavy drinkers. People who consume alcohol throughout the day rather than just at night can largely avoid hangovers and end up with incredibly high tolerance levels. You don’t want them to operate heavy machinery, but for rote tasks that don’t take a lot of coordination it can be hard to tell.
- defrost 2y agoNot all heavy alcohol users quickly lose the ability to function in society. Some have lucrative television careers and go on to run the Pentagon overseeing millions of others and trillion dollar budgets. * https://haderclinicqld.com.au/what-is-a-functional-alcoholic/ https://haderclinicqld.com.au/what-is-a-functional-alcoholic... * https://www.crestviewrecoverycenter.com/addiction-blog/7-signs-of-a-high-functioning-alcoholic/ https://www.crestviewrecoverycenter.com/addiction-blog/7-sig...
- amazingamazing 2y agoPolitics is seriously a virus.
- Acrobatic_Road 2y agoThat's only because politics elevates the worst of us.
- EA-3167 2y agoSmall effect size, and one I'd expect to be comparable to a lot of other things, like similar alcohol use, sleep deprivation, mood disorders, etc. Hard as it may be for some to believe, not all people are trying to optimize for maximum brain function, evidence suggests that a vast swathe of humanity tries very hard to actively REDUCE their function on a recreational basis.
- codr7 2y agoShow me a cannabis user without reduced working memory; it's a feature, not a bug.
- onemoresoop 2y agoWhy is it a feature and not a bug?
- jMyles 2y agoPersonally, I like it because it reduces the volume, both spacially and temporally, of the thoughts in my immediate working memory so that I can more clearly identify the pipeline of activity that I actually want to do (whether it's work or self-care). I think that this is the reason that people who are later diagnosed with ADHD so often use cannabis to "self-medicate". But it achieves this effect in a way that is superior to stimulants (don't get me wrong, I also adore coffee) in two clear ways: 1) it does not change the balance of imaginative vs. practical thinking (whereas stimulants tend to shift thinking toward the practical), and 2) it provides a much more comfortable and integrative afterglow, rather than a stimulant crash.
- heraldgeezer 2y agoYou work while high? What will you do when the bossman wants some pee from you?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- roughly 2y agoOne aspect I’m curious about, especially given the younger cohort, is the causal directionality here - especially when I was younger, I knew a lot of people who were self-medicating with cannabis for things like anxiety and ADHD, which also have effects on working memory and executive function. I’ve known enough heavy users long enough that I do believe there’s long term cognitive effects (whether directly or indirectly), but the specific effects and cohorts they were evaluating here gave me some pause.
- guywithahat 2y ago> self-medicating I know this doesn’t add to the conversation but I hate that term, they should just say they’re addicted to weed. 95% of the time the anxiety is either normal or a result of chronic weed use (ie withdrawal)
- roughly 2y agoA great deal of both the psychological and the drug policy communities disagree with you on this point.
- HideousKojima 2y ago[flagged]
- krispyfi 2y ago[flagged]
- t-3 2y agoPoint out the problems caused by marijuana during the thousands of years of unregulated use. The regulatory environment is the main driver for the problems caused by most drugs in the modern world. If it weren't illegal to use/possess/sell, people would largely not be stealing or killing or doing other antisocial things in order to do so. I'm not really a fan of decriminalization as a panacea to societal problems around drugs, but criminalization was the cause of most of those problems.
- 29athrowaway 2y agoThis is a well known thing. Charles Bukowski said this exact same thing in an interview about alcohol decades ago. Not every cannabis user is Carl Sagan.
- grapesodaaaaa 2y agoDo we know if Carl Sagan used cannabis as an adolescent?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 2y agoShocking nobody who has ever met one.
- boshalfoshal 2y agoI seriously don't know why this is making rounds on HN as if it were some revelation. It should be pretty obvious that messing with your brain circutry in such an overt manner leads to various unintended consequences, just like every other vice (yes even "benign" things like social media or video game addiction).
- SubiculumCode 2y agoI have not read the paper...just reacting to the headline. As a neuroimager I can tell you that having more or less "brain activity" does not tell us much. There are plenty of instances where reduced activity is indicative of more efficient processing or different cognitive strategies.
- amazingamazing 2y agoTurns out the recreational drugs were never good for you. Is there a single recreational popular >100M user drug that’s good for most? Maybe coffee? It’s a shame there are so many with reduced brain function and IQ. Next thing will be shocking studies showing regular shroom usage is bad too, lol. It is a shame we are in a post truth society. People burying their heads in the sand.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Gigachad 2y ago>Maybe coffee? Creatine as well. But yeah, pretty much all the rest of them are bad for you.
- HPMOR 2y agoCreatine is not a drug.
- Gigachad 2y agoThe definition of drug is quite wide reaching. It isn't a food, it isn't inert, has a very measurable impact on the body, and the stuff you buy in a powder is far more potent than what you'd find in food. About the same as caffeine. Just doesn't have mental effects.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iforgot22 2y agoCoffee isn't good either. Probably a lot less bad than weed, though. And it's always brought up, "why is X illegal but coffee isn't?"
- amazingamazing 2y agoHa. You’re right about that. Coffee can create some weird heart issues, so I think you’re right.
- whalesalad 2y agoThis has been a known thing for decades
- brandly 2y agoSource?
- felipelalli 2y agoAny brain that has not yet perished.
- whalesalad 2y agoGoogle “cannabis developing mind” or “adolescent” and there is a flood of data
- bearjaws 2y agoThis is such an obvious problem to anyone who is above the age of 25. All of my friends who were real big into weed in high school are all pretty bad at remembering things, most work dead end jobs and are generally unmotivated The ones who started the youngest are in rough shape mentally. Every single one of my friends who still lives with their parents smokes multiple times daily. Out of all of them, only one is successful, and It's because he bought BTC in 2014 and still has around 20 of them. I have no doubt, smoking when you are <21 is a huge problem long term.
- LoganDark 2y ago> Out of all of them, only one is successful, and It's because he bought BTC in 2014 and still has around 20 of them. Holy lucky. Bet just about everyone on HN would wish this were them.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoMy anecdote can beat up yours :D
- liontwist 2y agoAs opposed to data? What data? Imagine how hard this is to study: - can we identify groups who regularly use and don’t use - and isolate other lifestyle factors - and follow them for years of the life - and get them to accurately report data - and determine which life outcomes can be attributed to cannabis use No study like that is going to be compelling. The anecdote is going to be just as useful in your personal life. It’s how humans learn.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- EdwardDiego 2y agoSure, I very much agree. My anecdotes contradict the previous anecdotes. Is it QED? No, the best that can be hoped for is, "Hmm, that's interesting".
- racked 2y agoIt's very true. Having been a heavy user for 4 years in my late teens, I do notice that my memory isn't what it used to be. I'm having to write things down all the time, including people's names and stats.
- brailsafe 2y agoWell, you know one thing was true and another is also true, but the same thing happened to me long before I started doing much with weed. In my late teens I had a few subjects absolutely locked into memory, and then in my early to mid twenties I struggled to remember names until I'd met them 3 times.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y agoIs it possible, maybe in addition, that this is a side effect of aging, additional stress, responsibility, environmental distractions, etc? Like for all of those physiological reasons, it’s not even a clear correlation at the individual level. That said, there’s general scientific consensus that any mood altering substance can have an impact on cognitive function.
- claiir 2y ago"Study [..] found that the drug can reduce brain function" Causal language in news on correlational (case-control) studies should be a crime. This is a brazen misrepresentation of the results. The direction of the causal arrow (cannabis -> dumb vs dumb -> cannabis)--or if there even is a causal arrow (other factor(s) -> cannabis+dumb)--is purely editorialization and born of a severe lack of journalistic integrity.
- nicce 2y agoI would be also careful on mixing the word dumb -> lower brain activity. The study focuses on brain activity. We cannot say for sure either if the lower brain activity results into dumber life choices. Brain activity in those areas == intelligence???
- rahimnathwani 2y agoMaybe cannabis users become efficient like MoE models, and they don't have to activate as many neurons at each inference step :)
- claiir 2y agoEven worse: proponents of the Neural Efficiency Hypothesis[1] might interpret the "mean brain activation" values reported in the study[2] in the exact opposite manner. :) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_efficiency_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_efficiency_hypothesis [2]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2829657 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
- zeofig 2y agoGlad someone said it. Unfortunately we are swimming against the tide...
- kactiron 2y agomaybe install a delay in vapes or something
- intrasight 2y ago"on average"? "in mice"? My heavily pot-smoking friends are among the most brilliant, successful people that I know. They started in their teens. But I'm 60 and so are they. Different weed? Correlation with other things that differ today?
- Clubber 2y agoSame. All my good college buddies that smoked weed are successful with families and kids. They all started young. I remember when weed switched to more potent variety in the 90s, you just have to smoke less to get the same effect, like beer vs wine vs liquor. Are we going back into a reefer madness phase again? Please say no.
- protocolture 2y agoI have weeder friends in all walks of life. I know one guys a PHD now.
- acomjean 2y agoVery very different weed.
- tombert 2y agoI've never done any drugs outside of alcohol, and I didn't do that until I was 21 and I never really drank that much even when I did. I never smoked weed as a teenager because I had heard horror stories of people spiking illegal drugs with really horrible stuff. I have no idea if those stories were true, mostly likely they were exaggerated by law enforcement, but it worked to make me too much of a coward to try it. Because I never smoked weed, I've grown a borderline-irrational hatred of it. It always felt like when my friends in high school started getting into weed, they would become insufferable pseudo-intellectuals who thought they were very deep because they watched a few Carl Sagan or Alan Watts videos. I hated how stupid it made my friends and I hated how it seemed to ruin their ability to remember things. It's not clear how much of this is because of the weed, or just the fact that teenage boys are often just insufferable, by the way I remember it (which doesn't mean it's accurate) is that weed made all my friends in high school into pretentious morons. I'm kind of glad that I never got into it now. I'm insufferable and pretentious enough as it is, I don't need chemicals to help with that.
- whalesalad 2y agosounds like it would benefit you greatly tbh
- cwalv 2y agoAgreed. They wouldn't have to use so much that they suffered the negative affects to use enough to get past their borderline irrational hangups
- SomaticPirate 2y agoUnironically, the superior tone likely has done you worse than a single joint.
- tombert 2y agoNo argument here, I'm definitely judgmental on this stuff. I probably shouldn't be, hence why I said that my hatred was borderline irrational. That said, I still find potheads completely insufferable.
- brailsafe 2y agoI'm inclined to believe that there is fairly likely to be long-term negative health effects from cannabis use, but that the very obvious correlation many people in this thread can probably identify with their friends in highschool is just that, a correlation, for some reason or series of reasons. My friends who really got into weed at that time were absolutely addicted to it, and some of them I do believe let it affect their reasoning ability, but it's hard to know what they'd have been like had they not been smoking their paychecks away. I regarded them as stupid at the time, but there were few instances where they weren't stoned, and a stoned person is often dumb as hell. In retrospect, one of them was (highly) likely schizophrenic but also intelligent, and would make shatter with his older brother who was definitely a deadbeat at the time, but they both came from the same conflict-laden upbringing, while another was clearly intellectually capable but raised to be emotionally volatile, and the rest were mostly just having fun and quit shortly after. I'm thankful I remained friends with them but didn't get heavily into it at that time, but it's much more difficult for me to frame the weed use as a causal factor in anything besides a sort of dampening of their hypothetical willingness to seek a better existence through other means. As South Park put it, weed lets you feel ok about doing nothing, and that's dangerous in aggregate.
- somenameforme 2y agoA cynical take on many governments embracing weed is Soma [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(Brave_New_World) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(Brave_New_World)
- ramesh31 2y ago>A cynical take on many governments embracing weed is Soma The marijuana prohibition of the 20th century was a complete anomaly in practically all of human history, driven almost entirely by US policy. Before that humans had used the plant recreationally and commercially without hassle for thousands of years. We'll be just fine.
- aurareturn 2y agoWe will be just fine. Just like cigarette smoking, eventually weed will become unpopular to smoke. Unfortunately, it does seem like there is a big uptake in users after legalization, which hopefully will subside.
- uejfiweun 2y agoInteresting how many comments here say that a big issue with pot is that it makes you "unmotivated". I suppose this is a problem for people who are in tough spots in life and are using pot as a form of escapism. But besides this, what exactly do we need to be motivated for? Grinding away harder at a corporate job? At a certain level "motivation" can be counterproductive and you might be better off slowing down and appreciating your life as it exists now - something that weed can help with in my experience.
- fitsumbelay 2y agoNo offense to OP, but here are a couple of responses 1) Snark Number 1: "Reduced brain function? Sounds like they're chillin'" 2) Snark Number 2: "Reduced brain function? Like a relaxed human being" 3) No Snark: given the following paragraph, should any sentient human ever take posts about cannabis as anything other than provocative and unproductive fight-bait? "The study has limitations. It was an uncontrolled, cross-sectional study, so the association seen between cannabis and brain function can’t be considered causal. And because the participants were young adults, the results can’t be generalized to other age groups. The researchers also lacked data on typical THC dose and potency, additional components such as cannabidiol (CBD), and how the cannabis was administered." should any (rot-)content that's this heavily caveated not be auto-removed just like any SPAM would? Again, no offense to the OP or their intentions, but, come on ...
- throw18376 2y agocannabis is pretty safe for the average person, even heavy users. it's not good for you, but i think most of the effects like this are explained by selection effects. unhappy people use it to self-medicate. however, using cannabis comes with a very big tail risk. if you are susceptible to psychosis, cannabis can cause it or make it much more severe. this is undoubtedly causal. people take all kinds of worse risks in life which everyone agrees should be acceptable, so I think cannabis should be legal. but I also think that if people clearly understood this risk, most would choose to avoid cannabis.
- onemoresoop 2y agoWhen I was younger I had a bout of insomnia and somebody procured me some wee. I did not know how strong it was and had a psychedelic trip instead. It was terrifying, I thought it was the end for me. Nobody seems to believe me that weed could give you psychedelic visuals.
- eleumik 2y agoOf course it can, weed is a multiplier. You probably had more than just insomnia like anxiety or ?
- DiscourseFan 2y agoSmoked a reasonable amount of weed in my life, starting as an adult. I have some issues with working memory, but minor ones; doesn’t effect my day-to-day. I was friends with a lot of top students in my undergrad, we all smoked fairly regularly. Brain is like a muscle: smoking pot isn’t good for it, but there are plenty of daily ciggarette smokers who can run miles without a break; in the same way, if you need your brain for daily tasks, and you smoke pot every day, yes you would probably be better off without the weed, but you’re not going to be much worse than anyone else at your job.
- dhdjruf 2y ago[flagged]
- neilv 2y agoThis prompts questions about influencing kids... With some generations of kids, you might be able to convince them that the people who want to keep them down... would be happy for them to become spaced-out stoners. With current kids, it really is true that many would be happy to keep kids down. (Look at the dumbing-down and manipulating behavior of many top tech and media companies.) But can you convince the kids of that? And, even if kids thought that the dumbing-down was real, and a tool of oppression and exploitation, would they feel motivated to fight back? And would they know how? Or is any youth rebellion and fighting instinct already in in some defeated, post mode, maybe counterintuitive to earlier generations. (Like, for example, they're subverting that they're supposed to rebel, and instead leaning towards nihilistic indulgence and indifference?)
- rednafi 2y ago"Don’t drink, don’t do drugs" is still such awfully effective advice.
- exodust 2y ago> "Biometric information: Sold or Shared ℹ: Yes" This from the newsatlas.com privacy policy. Sad how "privacy" policies these days don't even try. "Yep we're selling all your data." As for the study, it doesn't seem confident in its own findings, admitting to various shortcomings of the data in conclusion. But in general it should be no surprise that "heavy use" of cannabis is asking for trouble at any age. Some will get away with it, similar to functioning alcoholics who still excel in their work. But for most of us, my opinion is to avoid heavy use of any drug, including alcohol. Cannabis is more enjoyable and intellectually or creatively insightful with occasional use anyway, otherwise it's more haze than high. Even if the worst that happens is you have a 10 year zone-out where you do very little, you still lost that 10 years. There is a small exception: you really wanted to zone out for 10 years!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- j45 2y agoCould have something to do with brain maturation (including prefrontal cortex development) not completing until age 25-26 or so... Seems plausible that cannabis and other things can have a less than desireable effect on the brain growth, especially for the will power, discipline, decision making, motivation that the prefrontal cortex provides. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3621648/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3621648/
- pinoy420 2y agoHow about months after? Does it persist?
- heraldgeezer 2y agoAlways known this. It's making people dumber. More work for me, I guess also qualified positions require drug tests. Before you go "oh buy anxiety and adhd" I just had another full anxiety crying breakdown a few days ago, yet I manage without drugs.
- theshackleford 2y agoJust adding my experience/anecdote. Cannabis came into the picture in my early 30s after years of pain management attempts following an SCI. Opiates and nerve pain meds like Lyrica somewhat dulled the pain but also dulled everything else, turning me into a near-zombie. Even at reduced doses, Lyrica messes with my thinking and lingers long after stopping. I honestly can not express strongly enough just how much high dosage, longer term drug based treatment of ongoing pain barely feels better than not managing it at all in terms of what it costs and it ultimately lead me to eventually cave and try medical cannabis. Cannabis hasn’t eliminated the pain or worked as directly as opiates, despite what some insist. But alongside a lower Lyrica dose, it’s helped me be a person again. The pain is still there, but instead of dominating my thoughts, I can compartmentalize it and actually function, without losing the majority of my cognitive abilities when taking it. I’m 100% slower than before the injury and its usage, but I am outputting more, of a higher quality than before I introduced it into the mix using more traditional pain management methods. It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived with chronic pain the benefits it has brought me despite the downsides. And it does have downsides. Given the benefits it has brought me, and not knowing the lived experiences of others, I feel I am not in a position to say whether or not the downsides or the positives weigh each other out for any other individual. I imagine like most drugs, its probably depdendent on the individual and circumstances I suppose.
- blogabegonija 2y agoI want to find such studies on aspirin.
- blogabegonija 2y agoAnd also on Exhaust Gases would be nice too.
- appleorchard46 2y agoClickbaity headline and correlation v causation discussions aside, this tidbit is particularly interesting: > MRIs measured brain activity while the participants undertook seven tasks designed to test emotion, reward, motor function, working memory, language, relational or logical reasoning, and theory of mind or social information processing. > The researchers found that both recent and heavy lifetime cannabis use was associated with a statistically significant reduction in brain activity only during the working memory task. So, as far as emotion, reward, motor function, language, relational or logical reasoning, and theory of mind or social information processing go - no correlation between cannabis use and brain activity in those respects was found? Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence of course, but it's interesting that significant effects were found with memory and only memory.
- interludead 2y agoI knew from my experience that heavy or recent cannabis use can mess with working memory. When I quit smoking, my brain bounced back. So if you need to be sharp for something important, maybe lay off the weed for a bit.
- lfmunoz4 2y agoFor me cannabis 100 percent effects sleep. You should determine that for yourself, which quite easy to do by keeping a dream journal for 1 month on weed and completely free from weed. That for me is reason enough not to do it. Sleep in critical for high performance, for many people sleep might not be the limiting factor but it is likely a huge factor to being at your best each day.