Pot

Effects of cannabis on adolescent brains

Pot is ubiquitous. Survey studies indicate that, by 12th grade, about a third of kids have used cannabis. Though rates of use have been stable for several decades, pot is becoming more socially acceptable, fewer teens perceive it as risky, and more think it's easy to get.

I fully recognize that this post is not winning me any popularity points with the kids I see in my practice, so let me be clear: I am not here to say whether the kids’ perceptions are correct or to pass a value judgement. That said, I think teens need to be armed with knowledge about how pot affects them given their unique stage of neurodevelopment. The frontal lobe, or the executive control center of the brain, doesn't fully develop until their mid-20s. So what kids do in the teenage years has the potential to really affect later brain functioning.

Fortunately, we are getting a ton of information. The NIH is conducting the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, which is a huge longitudinal study of brain health and development. They are tracking almost 12,000 kids through adolescence and into young adulthood to determine how childhood experiences affect brain development and related outcomes. Cannabis is one factor of many that they are investigating.

The researchers identified cannabis use in teenagers via self-report and hair analysis, and they compared users to non-users on a bunch of tests that measure aspects of neuropsychological functioning. The kids in the study who used cannabis had lower scores than did a non-using comparison sample on tasks measuring language, inhibition, and working memory. These findings support prior research supporting reduced cognitive functioning among teens who use pot.

That said, I understand there are legitimate reasons that teens use pot, and it's important to have open and empathetic conversations with them to uncover and understand those motivations. Try explaining that, though pot might be useful in the short-term, in the long term, it can lead to damage that they probably want to avoid. A harm reduction approach might be better than something more absolute and punitive. Maybe they'd be willing to wait a few years. After all, their frontal lobes will be fully developed soon enough.

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