Pothead brains in Buy a Ticket, Take a Ride
Revised: 11/23/2014 5:04 p.m.
- Nov. 18, 2014, 12:11 p.m.
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- Public
BREAKING NEWS, GUYS!
The brains of marijuana users are different, especially if they start young
These are users who use every day, three times a day or more. Those who smoke it less often do not show the difference.
This seems to effect the most famous area of the brain, the so-called reward center. This article describes how this part of the brain is smaller in marijuana users, also shows increased connectivity and structural integrity of brain tissue. The theory is that if the smaller volume is a bad thing, the brain compensates with additional connections and structures.
The worrying conclusion of this new data is that if we assume the smaller size is bad and the connections are compensating, the protective effects seemed to diminish with further use. At the 6-7 year mark, the potentially positive differences that may be compensating began to erode.
So from this article I could conclude that the safest course of action is to stop regularly smoking after approximately 7 years. I started smoking regularly at 19, so if I were to take this advice I would have to stop smoking next year. Yikes.
Like other studies, this one showed the difference is more dramatic in users who started when they were young. For that reason I have previously supposed it is safer to wait until at least after 18 or safest more like 25-30 to start smoking regularly.
However this study suggests that the potentially protective effects, the difference in structure and connectivity, is actually greater in users who started younger. So this challenged my assumption on whether or not regular users who started younger or older are in a better position.
It is not really known if the correlation is caused by marijuana use. We could assume marijuana use causes the brain to change, but maybe the people with different brains caused by some other unknown reason are more compelled to smoke marijuana. The article briefly discussed and linked another study from 2012 that suggested that certain 12-year-old non-users were more likely to start using marijuana later in life.
But although the brains are observably different we do not yet know what the difference means about our behavior or functioning in practical terms. For example, we could not find any evidence that marijuana lowers IQ. So, I would say, just because we know marijuana user’s brain is different doesn’t mean we need to start worrying about whether or not it is inferior to the unaltered brain.
Hell, for all we know, maybe the difference is an improvement! Maybe we are better off with smaller reward centers. Or, maybe the difference is actually a negative side effect, but the positive effects are still worthwhile despite its problems. From my anecdotal experience I would say marijuana improves my life. But I have not used for seven years.
Regardless, I am sure that if regular marijuana use is ultimately a disability, it is not such a dramatic disability that cannot be overcome. Obviously, there are people like Bill Maher who are life long smokers and have very successful respectable lives. Also, with legalization, we will be in a better position to understand what actually causes these differences and what the differences mean in practical terms.
Last updated November 23, 2014
Groucho's Ghost ⋅ November 18, 2014
Perhaps people with naturally smaller reward regions are more likely to become heavy users. With a smaller reward center it would take heavy use to achieve the same dopamine levels a neurotypical user would get from a small dose. The paper itself cites the study of 12-year-olds you mention and says that it is the same abnormally small OFC volume that is the predictive factor for MJ use later on.
They claim they have demonstrated a causal link, but do not state how they controlled for self-selection among applicants.