NEWS
EVENTS
Clever Teens Twice as Likely to Smoke Cannabis!
Clever children are twice as likely to smoke cannabis as teenagers, a new study has found.
The study was conducted by University College London (UCL) and analysed 6,059 people from different backgrounds in England over a nine year period. They gathered information about their academic success from the age of 11, then looked at their drug use at different stages of their adolescence.
Those who were high achievers at the age of 11 were twice as likely to drink persistently in their late teenage years. They are, however, less likely to smoke cigarettes than those with less academic success.
The study also found that these behaviours continued beyond adolescence into adulthood.
This suggests that the common idea that clever teenagers only temporarily ‘experiment’ with drugs is false. The decision to smoke cannabis is not juvenile or immature, but a genuine lifestyle choice for smart adults.
So what are the reasons that clever people are more likely to smoke cannabis?
Their parents are more likely to pass on health warnings about tobacco and alcohol when they were children, rather than cannabis. Smarter teenagers also have more curious minds and want to be accepted more by their older peers.
Let’s hope more of these studies continue to show the reality of drug use. An honest conversation with factual statistics is the best way to defeat scaremongering about drugs from ignorant authority figures.
