There’s no brain fog here.
When most smokers light up a joint, it’s unlikely that “enhanced cognitive ability” is front-of-mind. Not shockingly, the long-held assumption from most tends to be that weed makes you dumb, and probably fries your brain permanently.
Intriguingly, that argument might be going up in smoke. A recent study by researchers in — where else — Amsterdam appears to be good news for all you former teenage tokers out there, finding that the age at which men start smoking has no negative bearing on cognitive decline later in life.
Adult stoners can also breathe a little easier from now on, as the research also found that those who use cannabis frequently as an adult show no greater cognitive decline in the long term than those who don’t partake.
The study canvassed 5,162 men born between 1949 and 1961, who were sorted into two groups based on whether they had a history of using marijuana. From there, the participants who smoked were sorted into age groups based on when they started sparking up.
One weakness of the study is its exclusion of women, a side effect of its reliance on the Børge Prien’s Prøve test, a military exam given to young Danish conscripts. As part of the study, the same test was given again to the participants, who then averaged 44 years older.
Maybe most surprisingly, the research found that mental decline among those who smoke was slightly less than in those who don’t by a measure of 1.3 IQ points.
The authors note that it’s difficult to compare their results to other long-term studies comparing cognitive decline between smokers and nonsmokers, but that their findings do line up with other research which found no greater age-based cognitive decline associated with pot. These include an Australian study, and two American, all of which included women.
While the Danish study is far from the final say on the issue, it’s another piece of sound research piling up against the anti-cannabis studies of years past, many of which were funded by pharmaceutical giants and right-wing think tanks.
Those studies have been used throughout the United States to justify the “War on Marijuana,” which both failed to reduce pot use and allowed police to exercise astonishing racial bias throughout minority communities.
Building on this Danish study, future research could investigate whether pot’s lack of long-term cognitive effects lies in underlying factors like socioeconomic class, or if the results are specific to weed use itself.
More on drug research: Side Effects of Ketamine Could Explain a Lot About Elon Musk’s Behavior