Memory, Speed of Thinking Get Worse over Time with Marijuana Use

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006

St. Paul, Minn. – 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.

–end–


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.

So it's true about GW's drug use!

cannibus stupidus

After reading this, I'm afraid I'm going to have to..........uhhhh.........

What?

Don't worry Rory, somewhere out there explains your condition, keep looking!

Dang it Dan you stole my idea

That's why they call it dope.

Only users lose drugs.

I havn't found mine since my daughter was born.

What was this thread about? Wait second I have to go back to the top.

Oh ya, I do collect mushrooms I totally forgot! Ok back to the topic. Oh dammit, I forgot again! back to the top.

It's probably because most users are uneducated imbeciles to start with. I've done it all my life. My university GPA was 3.7 (at 30 years old), I passed the PE exam the first time through, and I generally come out on top debaiting other people on whatever topic. Smoke-em if ya got-em, I say.

If the federal government though it had a chance in hell of regulating it successfully, I have no doubt it would be legal today.

Where'd you go to school, Sol? Tono Tech?

backatcha'

UW, man. Where else would a Washington boy go for a REAL education?

You'd be hard pressed to give me a math or physics problem I can't solve.

All you sophisticated anti-canabus crackers can consider that a challenge.

"You'd be hard pressed to give me a math or physics problem I can't solve"


How about this one. Math is a hobby of mine.

There are no positive integers such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n>2

The study is flawed. [Quote]Before the tests were performed, all participants had to abstain from marijuana for at least 24 hours.[Quote]

If I asked people who were regular, heavy caffiene users to abstain from caffeine for 24 hours and then tested their cognitive skills against a control group guess what might happen?

Would that mean coffee drinkers had poorer memory then non-coffee drinkers? Would that further imply that Seattle is a town full of lost souls who can't remember where they put their car keys, or their wife?

Or what if I had all the groups abstain for 30 days or more, then did the testing?

And 4-5 J's a week? Now would that be all on Friday and Saturday? Or would they be spaced out over the week? Maybe people who have the time to smoke all week were stupid to begin with. Maybe if they looked at weekend use only they would have had different results.

This is a poorly designed study, done by people who should have known better.

So what! Are you going to make a problem statement or just spin riddles with variables?

Your wrong anyway. If an integer is defined as any whole number between one and infinity, then:

n=100
x=10
y=1000

And, z=1x10^150

Plus the study doesn't mention quality. The stuff I used to get in the late 70's would turn you into an 8 hour vegetable.

It's better than in the 70's. Way better.

Believe it, because a little bird told me.

Yeah but I bet it isn't still soaked in opium.