Recently a study finds that teenagers who use cannabis can have everlasting damages on their brains and experience memory loss as they struggle with reasoning and inhibitions in later life.
Researchers did an extensive study and gathered the data from almost 4,000 teens who were under observation for 4 years. Earlier researches found that marijuana can cause short-term memory loss or it can result in poor academic performances for a short duration but this study proved something very shocking.
The research was carried out by a team of the University of Montreal in Canada as they gathered the data from students between 7th and 10th grade for a period of 4 years.
Every year, they were asked to fill out a form where they were asked to rank on a scale of 1-5 how much on average they consumed marijuana, ‘zero meaning never’ and ‘5 meaning almost every day’. They were also asked about the number of drinks they had each day, in order to find out the effects of alcohol too.
Every year, they were also asked to perform certain tasks to check the effects of Cannabis in the following 4 areas: recall memory, working memory, perceptual reasoning, and inhibitions.
In the first year, 95.4 percent of the students reported that they never tried marijuana but shockingly the number fell to 71% by the end of 4 years. On the other hand, teens who reported using marijuana every day increased from 0.37% to 2% which is really alarming.
After conducting a series of tests, researchers found that teens who were addicted to marijuana performed worst at these cognitive domain tests.
One of the senior investigators said, “‘We were surprised that the effects of cannabis were more pronounced than the effects of alcohol.” Not only that, but the study also found that even if a person reduced the marijuana usage from last year, the poor performance and effects could still be seen from last year.
Share this shocking report with your friends and family and make them aware of the threatening side effects of Cannabis.