(NIH) BACKGROUND: Cognitive deficits that persist up to a month have been detected among adult marijuana users, but decrements and their pattern of recovery are less known in adolescent users. Previously, we reported cognitive deficits among adolescent marijuana users after one month of abstinence (Medina, Hanson, Schweinsburg, Cohen-Zion, Nagel, & Tapert, 2007). In this longitudinal study, we characterized neurocognitive changes among marijuana-using adolescents across the first three weeks of abstinence.
METHOD: Participants were adolescent marijuana users with limited alcohol and other drug use (n=19) and demographically similar non-using controls (n=21) ages 15-19. Participants completed a brief neuropsychological battery on three occasions, after 3days, 2weeks, and 3weeks of stopping substance use. Abstinence was ascertained by decreasing tetrahydrocannabinol metabolite values on serial urine drug screens. Verbal learning, verbal working memory, attention and vigilance, and time estimation were evaluated.
RESULTS: Marijuana users demonstrated poorer verbal learning (p<.01), verbal working memory (p<.05), and attention accuracy (p<.01) compared to controls. Improvements in users were seen on word list learning after 2weeks of abstinence and on verbal working memory after 3weeks. While attention processing speed was similar between groups, attention accuracy remained deficient in users throughout the 3-week abstinence period.
CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study detected poorer verbal learning and verbal working memory among adolescent marijuana users that improved during three weeks of abstinence, while attention deficits persisted. These results implicate possible hippocampal, subcortical, and prefrontal cortex abnormalities.
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Surprise, surprise. Adolescent use of cannabis make teens buzzed. Also, adolescents take up to three weeks to purge the effects from their systems. WOW! As a middle aged adult carrying and undisclosed amount of excess body fat, it would take me 4 – 6 weeks to purge the THC from my system! Not that I would ever intentionally do such a thing. My arthritis alone would put me in a wheelchair if I let my THC levels drop.
More important to me is the implication that my 21-yr-old, autitistic and epileptic son can go without this heaven sent medicine for a short time without any serious consequences. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any accredited studies giving me solid guidellines on that.
implicate possible
OK, What will the Prohibitionists turn this study into, smoking pot makes you stupid? Well we all have said from day one we are not here to legalize for kids or to say its ok for kids to use. We are here to say regulate and educate, to keep kids safer than we are now in a illegal market!
As for the study, I bet there would be a worse outcome if this was a study of alcohol and teens. Since you know alcohol kills brain cells and well cannabis coats brain cells with a protective layer to prevent alcohol damage! Oh and not one single person has ever dies from it!