Wednesday, August 29, 2012 • Jeremy Muir
In a country with more than its fair share of pot smokers, this district is known for its high marijuana use. Some call it our laidback East Coast style.
United Nations drug reports consistently rank Kiwis among the highest cannabis users in the world, at 13-14 percent of the adult population. The 2009 report found New Zealand teenagers to be the highest users among their peers around the world.
So new research showing the harmful effects of marijuana use before the age of 18 should make us pull together in our communities and redouble efforts to stop our youth smoking this drug.
It should also prompt a national debate about our drug laws, and how ineffective they are at keeping cannabis out of the lungs and brains of young Kiwis.
The study of over 1000 people in Dunedin showed that those who started using marijuana as young teenagers, and kept using it for years, had an average decline in IQ of eight points. Quitting later on did not reverse the loss.
Those who started smoking pot after age 18 did not show a similar fall in mental capacity.
Lead researcher Madeline Meier says the loss from an IQ of 100 to 92 represents a fall from a median IQ, in the 50th percentile, to being in the 29th percentile; and higher IQs correlate with higher education, higher income, better health and a longer life.
“Clearly we must focus energy on reducing the prevalence of cannabis use in adolescence,” says Dr Simon Adamson of the National Addiction Centre.
There has been an improvement since 2009; when the 2012 UN world drug report was released, NZ Drug Foundation director Ross Bell said an annual survey showed drug use among secondary school students was slowly declining.
However, the rate was still high, with about 80 percent of students having tried drugs at some point throughout their adolescence.
Don’t wait for a government solution, though — schools and families need to use this new information to stress the dangers of drug use to their children.