Trudeau has said he’s smoked pot several times in his life and makes no apologies ... He says that he was never known as the pot aficionado in the family and that he was never the one among his group of friends to buy the weed.....
Report: Marijuana hijacks normal brain functioning in teens, and many scientists believe the drug may have permanent effects on brain development.
Dr. Andra Smith, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare brain activity in youth ages 19 to 21 who did not smoke pot regularly, and those who had smoked at least one joint a week for three years or more. Urine samples confirmed their cannabis use.
In a series of published studies, Smith assessed the youth’s executive functioning – the umbrella term for mental processes involved in organizing, decision-making, planning and meeting long-term goals.
In a 2012 report, researchers from Duke University analyzed data from Dunedin and found that the earlier and more frequently a person smoked pot, the greater the loss of intelligence by age 38. Compared to their IQs measured at age 13, people who had started using cannabis as teens and maintained a daily pot habit into adulthood had, on average, a six-point drop in IQ. The decline was not trivial: By age 38, their average IQ was below that of 70 per cent of their peers, according to the report, published in the journal PNAS.
| IQ Range ("deviation IQ") | IQ Classification |
|---|---|
| 145–160 | Very gifted or highly advanced |
| 130–144 | Gifted or very advanced |
| 120–129 | Superior |
| 110–119 | High average |
| 90–109 | Average |
| 80–89 | Low average |
| 70–79 | Borderline impaired or delayed |
| 55–69 | Mildly impaired or delayed |
| 40–54 | Moderately impaired or delayed |
Canadian teens are more than twice as likely as adults to smoke pot – and have the highest rate of cannabis use in the developed world. Marijuana has become as much a part of Canada’s youth culture as hockey or Katy Perry.
Fully 28 per cent of Canadian children aged 11 to 15 admitted to using cannabis at least once in the past year (compared to 23 per cent in the United States, where pot is legal in the states of Colorado and Washington, and 17 per cent in the weed-friendly Netherlands), a 2013 United Nations Children’s Fund study found. As much as 5 per cent of Canadian adolescents – and as much as 10 per cent of Grade 12 students – smoke pot every day, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.
