The Risk Of Marijuana For A Developing Brain

​I cannot begin to tell you how often I hear the argument from my young adults that smoking pot is totally safe and has no harm. Sadly, I know that with my high risk for mental health disorder clients, they are at a much higher chance for an early psychosis, in fact by 10 years.
 
While I think for many years the jury was out on whether or not marijuana is as harmful as it appears to be for a developing brain, new research has giving validity to the question for the field. Marijuana has its greatest long-term impact on young people whose brains are still super active in building new connections and maturing in other ways. The human brain develops by exposure and experiences.
We have a tendency to forget that the human brain develops well into our 20’s and it goes through a major development during our teen years. While this development is taking place, the use of marijuana, which inhibits connectivity and reduced volume of specific brain regions involved in executive functions such as memory, learning, and impulse control has a tendency to show its impact later on in life.
 
Many studies show the different impact this behavior and the continues use has on a developing brain, from lower scores on a test of verbal memory to a more recent study out of New Zealand which found persistent marijuana use disorder with frequent use starting in adolescence was associated with a loss of an average of 6 or up to 8 IQ points measured in mid-adulthood. These changes may still not gain your attention; however, the ones which will are the new forms of psychosis which the medical community has been faced with in the past few years due to higher THC in products. “‘There is no doubt,’ concludes Robin Murray, a professor of psychiatry at King’s College London, that cannabis use in young people increases the risk of developing schizophrenia as an adult.”