Weed in Soeicity

John Damico

Clar 111

2:30-3:45

Marijuana use among children worry’s many people because they assume it is wasting away our youth and we have not been able to prove this because of a lack of a study before people use marijuana. In Peter Fried’s Study “Current and former Marijuana use… Effects on IQ in Young Adults” he test’s this theory by experiment. In this study they test marijuana use for seventy 17- to 20-year-olds through self-reporting and urinalysis and then they take the difference of their scores at 17 to 20 and subtracting their IQ score at 7-12 years (before marijuana use). They then compared the IQ scores of current heavy uses which they determined smoked at least 5 joints per week, current light users who smoked less than 5 joints per week, former users who had not smoked regularly for at least 3 months and non-users. This comparison then led to the following results. Heavy users showed a decrease in 4.1 points, compared to gains In IQ points for light current users (5.8), former users (3.5) and the non-users (2.6). This concluded that only heavy users showed a loss in IQ and everyone else showed a gain including ex heavy users who were now non-users. The survey concluded that marijuana does not have a long term negative impact on global intelligence. However this study is not completely accurate because of the definition of different kinds of smokers, and the fact of people said they had quit 3 months ahead, but one could not prove this because marijuana only shows up in the system for one month.

This study criteria was made inaccurate by definition. This survey defines a heavy smoker as smoking 5 or more joints a week, a light smoker as smoking under 5 joints a week. This is not accurate because there are so many ways of in taking marijuana that someone who smokes 5 joints a week could be considered a light smoker compared to someone eating multiple trays of marijuana brownies a week, or smoking different things such as multiple ounces out of...