Smoking pot in early teens increases drug abuse risk
Toronto, May 20: P e o p l e who start smoking marijuana in the beginning of their teens are at a higher risk of having a drug abuse problem by the age of 28, a study has found.
Researchers from by Universite de Montreal in Canada suggest that found that children in primary school need to be educated about the risks of starting pot smoking, especially now that the potency is much greater than it was in decades past and that public acceptance is being spurred by legalisation in many places.
The study found that those who started smoking pot between the age of 15 and 17 were at 44 per cent higher risk of developing a drug abuse problem. However, the risk was higher at 68 per cent for those who started at an earlier age.
“The odds of developing any drug abuse symptoms by age 28 were reduced by 31 per cent for each year of delayed onset of cannabis use in adolescence,” researchers said.
For the study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, researchers looked at data for 1,030 boys from some of the city’s impoverished neighbourhoods begun in the early 1980s.
Every year between ages 13 and 17, the boys were asked if they had consumed cannabis at all in the previous year.
At 17, and again at 20 and 28, they were asked not only whether they consumed cannabis, but also other drugs, including hallucinogens, cocaine, amphetamines, barbiturates, tranquilisers, heroin and inhalants.
Then the data were correlated with the age at which they started using cannabis.
The results confirmed the researchers' suspicions: the younger they started, the more likely the boys had a drug problem later as young men.
This is partly explained by the frequency with which they consumed cannabis and other drugs, but those who started before age 15 were at higher risk regardless of how often they consumed.
“The odds of developing any drug abuse symptoms by age 28 were non- significant if cannabis use had its onset at ages 15 to 17, but were significant and almost doubled each year if onset was before age 15,” researchers said.
Even if those who start smoking cannabis at 17 years were at lower risk, frequent users ( 20 or more times a year) at age 17 had almost double the chance of abuse by age 28 than occasional users.