- Teenagers who smoked cannabis 50 times by age 15 did worse in exams
- Drinking, smoking and other drug use had an impact on exams
- But it was impossible to isolate the effects of occasional cannabis use
- Impact of heavy cannabis use was so significant they were able to pick it out
- Important to note cannabis may be used with other drugs, experts said
Ben Spencer, Daily Mail Science Reporter
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Teenagers who frequently smoke cannabis tend to do worse in exams, a large study of British schoolchildren has found.
Adolescents who have smoked cannabis 50 times by the age of 15 show ‘impaired’ educational abilities, according to a study by University College London.
The impact of lighter cannabis use is hard to discern, the researchers found, because it is difficult to isolate the different influences of rebellious teenage behaviour such as drinking, smoking and other drug use.
Teenagers who have smoked cannabis 50 times by the age of 15 show ‘impaired’ educational abilities and do worse in their GCSE exams, researchers found
The findings, presented at a science conference in Berlin, add to a growing weight of evidence that suggests cannabis is more harmful than legalisation campaigners would have us believe.
Last week a review of 20 years of cannabis research, published by a professor at King’s College London, revealed that one in six teenagers who use cannabis become dependent on the drug, as do one in ten adults.
The King’s College review also suggested that cannabis may cause mental health problems and can open the door to hard drugs.
The risk of developing psychotic disorders including schizophrenia doubles with heavy cannabis use in the teenage years, it found.
The new study focuses on the educational attainment of teenagers who smoke cannabis.
Researchers analysed data from 2,235 children from Bristol.
The information, taken from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children project, follows the health of children born in 1991 and 1992.
The participants each had their IQ tested at age 8 and again at 15, when they also completed a study on cannabis use and other lifestyle factors.
The IQ results were correlated with their GCSE results a year later to see what impact the drug had on exams.
The researchers could find no link between light cannabis use and their exam results, mainly because there was no way to pull apart the various impacts on exam scores.
Negative behaviour such as drinking, smoking and other drug use each had an impact on exams, so there was no method of isolating the impact of light cannabis use.
But they found that the impact of heavy cannabis use was so significant that they were able to pick it out despite the other factors.
Those who had smoked cannabis more than 50 times before they were 15 did distinctly worse in their GCSEs – with an average 3 per cent results drop – even after adjusting for previous educational performance, alcohol, cigarette and other drug use.
Drinking, smoking and other drug use each had an impact on exams, but there was no way of isolating the effects of light cannabis use. Heavy cannabis use was so significant that researchers were able to pick it out despite the other factors
Lead researcher Claire Mokrysz, who presented her results at the congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Berlin, said: ‘Adolescent cannabis use often goes hand in hand with other drug use, such as alcohol and cigarette smoking, as well as other risky lifestyle choices.
‘It’s hard to know what causes what – do kids do badly at school because they are smoking weed, or do they smoke weed because they’re doing badly? This study suggests it is not as simple as saying cannabis is the problem.’
But she added: ‘The finding that heavier cannabis use is linked to marginally worse educational performance is important to note, warranting further investigation.’
The chair of the congress, Prof Guy Goodwin of the University of Oxford, said: ‘This is a potentially important study because it suggests that the current focus on the alleged harms of cannabis may be obscuring the fact that its use is often correlated with that of other even more freely available drugs and possibly lifestyle factors.
‘These may be as or more important than cannabis itself.’
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Teenagers who smoke cannabis regularly do worse in exams, study finds
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