Shock study shows smoking marijuana causes irreversible damage to memory

A NEW study has showed smoking marijuana can cause irreversible damage to short-term memory.

By Sean Martin

 

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The damage caused by cannabis is irreversible

Marijuana has become easily available in the US and experts in the UK have called on laws surrounding the drug to be more relaxed.
But a report published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at the affects that it had on thousands of young adults in the States.
A team from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland tracked the progress of 3,500 recreational marijuana users over the course of 25 years and carried out tests on verbal memory speed and functioning.

 

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A man lights up a joint

Around 80 per cent of the participants reported using marijuana at the beginning of the study, with just 12 per cent carrying on using it until the end.
As the years went by, the team found that verbal memory scores decreased for marijuana users.
For every five years of smoking cannabis, half of the smokers would remember one less word from a list of 15 tested words.

 

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Dr Reto Auer from the university said: “Recreational marijuana users use it to get high, to benefit from the transient change it produces.
“But this transient effect might have long-term consequences on the way the brain processes information and could also have direct toxic effects on neurons.
“We did not expect to find such a consistent association with verbal memory for chronic exposure to marijuana.”

 

Co-author of the study Wayne Hall said: “Cannabis is a drug, and like all drugs, it can harm users when used in particular ways.
“This message needs to be communicated to all cannabis users and especially those in U.S. states where medical or recreational cannabis use by adults is now legal.”