Could Failure to use Marijuana Responsibly for 5-6 Years as an Adult Pose the Same Mental and General Health Risks as Childhood Use or Even Failure to Exercise?

  Recent research has confirmed findings from the early 2000s which showed an increase in IQ among responsible adult users of marijuana in comparison to those who never used cannabis. While childhood use has been shown to be indicative of negative health consequences concurrent with reduced prolactin levels, looking into the effects of marijuana as a predictor or causal agent in positive health effects outside of the realm of cancer prevention has been relatively untilled ground. That builds on previous research which explored the possibility of using cannabis to reduce levels of dependence on other products with responsible adult use, even as childhood use has been proven to negatively impact the odds of responsible adult use. This paper will review some of the basic facts which longitudinal studies have demonstrated as an effect of responsible adult marijuana use, and how those effects can play out on a society while evaluating some very glaring inconsistencies or limiting factors which have presented.

  The impact of IQ on income and social class has been long established and is well publicized in today's highly technological global community. Less known are its predictive values for life expectancy and more severe mental health complications. Childhood IQ can predict mortality between groups with great discrepancies (Whalley). Lower childhood IQ has been associated with many mental health issues, though it has been shown to predict a lower rate of adult mania, an interesting anomaly which may merit some attention but does not disturb the nature of this trend (Koenen). While the impact of changes in IQ from adult or childhood use of marijuana, whether positive or negative, on life expectancy are minimal, paling in comparison to regular physical activity, which can add as much as a decade, or somewhat akin to tobacco use, shown to remove 1-2 years (Ferrucci), among a population these changes can demonstrate a viable advantage which should not be overlooked. 

  A horizontal shift in IQ can double the highly gifted and geniuses among a society with an average IQ of 98, such as the USA, and will continue to produce significant gains as IQ increases. Massive gains have been seen in the past (Flynn), with many factors that can be held responsible from removing environmental toxins such as lead to increased availability of educational factors which can play roles. The gains which are being described have yielded greater total and proportional numbers of college and high school graduates, which is yielding advantages to all spectrums of society (Moretti). There is no reason this trend should not remain the case.

  Responsible adult use of marijuana has been shown to increase IQ in a causal fashion (Fried) in a manner equivalent to the decline in IQ associated with childhood use. Heavy use is here substituted with childhood use because of later research which showed that the probability of becoming dependent on marijuana are around half of that of alcohol at age 18 and virtually zero by age 21 (Chen). Recent research has shown that the increase in IQ is a causal consequence of cannabis exposure, and not one of a predictive nature, a conclusion largely apparent from research (Filbey). That was research which also helped to investigate some of the mechanisms behind higher brain functioning. This would appear to now be a manner of basic deductive reasoning to see that this increase in IQ also will give a concrete benefit to society with responsible adult use encouraged by the spreading legalization of recreational marijuana.

  Some problems have presented, however, and many of the same issues which have negatively impacted attempts to prohibit cannabis now impede an honest recommendation of use for the purpose of mental health at least, though the anti-cancer properties appear to be solid in nature. Many mental health disorders are accompanied by self-inflicted harm, hard drug use, and other certain outcomes which leads to a negative stigma and a serious approach towards treatment. Early childhood use has been shown, commiserate with a declining IQ and mental functioning, to increase such negative outcomes along with other negative physical and mental effects including decreased mortality (Manrique). Interestingly, however, responsible adult use has "only" been found to result in equivalent outcomes among responsible adult users as those who had never used in all methods of evaluation including hard drug use and mortality from all causes (Andreasson). 

  The research outlined previously does not indicate any limiting factors which should be present in regards to mental health or life expectancy concerns: all countries involved in such research do have room for improvement which far outweighs any contribution from cannabis use of virtually any nature. It is unlikely that there is an organization responsible for the wholesale massacre of 1-2% of the marijuana using community, or slightly early termination of individual marijuana users that could explain the lost additional productivity, life expectancy, and mental health gains which are to be expected in any country, much less the developed countries where this research has taken place, so this particular confounding situation will have to stand as an anomaly or unexplained phenomenon. That statement may appear provocative and the latter precludes the former. Should the former be the case, the mental health gains would still be evident without a targeted shock among the mentally ill. There could also be an issue with multiple research studies, notably the work of Whalley, which would alter this conclusion should heightened IQ not causally impact greater life expectancies, or perhaps most likely, that the Swedish researchers led by Andreasson vastly overestimated the use of marijuana by the conscripts in their study, with heavy use occurring in childhood users but without the vast numbers of extraneous responsible adult users in excess of the childhood users which present in the USA, and naturally with a substance of the type. That is deemed as most likely due to the tendency of European cultures to expose younger children to age-restricted substances than in America, at least. The nature of a bell curve does indicate that the lower tail of IQ performance will demonstrate a limited effect on outliers with further horizontal shocks, so the failure to materialize significant declines in hard drug use or self-inflicted harm and other indicators of lower intellect are not outside of expectations and does not indicate confounding material or discrepancies in research.

  Finally, some issues have been noted with application of the positive and negative health benefits of cannabis to adults from a financial perspective, in terms of productivity gained. While there is no question that the general economy has fared more effectively in a large part due to intellectual progress and increasing regulations which have made American children and adults healthier, application of this theory has fallen apart when applied to responsible adult users of marijuana (Cerdá). As a group, according to research, the increase in IQ should be easily described as an economic shock, giving a great advantage in terms of productivity and social class. Both of these are frustratingly missing after economic research. Unlike the discrepancy in life expectancy, and perhaps exacerbating that conundrum, there are pieces of information which present to address this situation. Because childhood and responsible adult use are not distinctions made previously in research on health care costs, it must be assumed that the costs of childhood marijuana users tend to be much higher as a result of marijuana dependence and psychological or physical manifestations of this. Therefore, research showing that cannabis users as a population have the same per capita health care utilization as those who have never used could be interpreted to show significant gains among the responsible adult users (Fuster). As health care can make up hundreds of thousands of dollars over a life time, and is among the dominant expenses both for an individual and for the government, this may be communication of the gained productivity from cannabis use to healthier lifestyles or investments, if not more financially frugal decisions.

  The research is fascinating and demanding in nature. Seeing the demographic dispersion among groups of people after laboratory or controlled experiments which add a political or social aspect to the work is relatively rare. It can be concluded that responsible adult use of marijuana does indeed result in productivity gains associated with the increased IQ, and equal to the detrimental effects from childhood use. These gains in the current population of marijuana users, as a significant minority, are invested heavily into healthcare, though there is a low likelihood that this would continue with a regulated industry, while the trend may remain to some extent. In terms of life expectancy, the results are anything but clear, and this deserves further attention, investigation, or experimentation. While childhood users face increased mortality risks as expected, the responsible adult users live exactly the same lifespan as those who have never used. The 1-2% gap between expected and actual life expectancies is not explained by limits on health care returns: countries have greater life expectancies than the USA. It does not detract from the massive predicted and realized gains of responsible adult users of marijuana in terms of productivity and health care, or tarnish in anyway the great impact legalized recreational marijuana will have on the United States of America and the world in coming years.

References: 

Andreasson, S., and P. Allebeck. "Cannabis and mortality among young men A longitudinal study of Swedish conscripts." Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 18.1 (1990): 9-15.

Cerdá, Magdalena, et al. "Persistent Cannabis Dependence and Alcohol Dependence Represent Risks for Midlife Economic and Social Problems A Longitudinal Cohort Study." Clinical Psychological Science (2016): 2167702616630958.

Chen, Chuan-Yu, Megan S. O’Brien, and James C. Anthony. "Who becomes cannabis dependent soon after onset of use? Epidemiological evidence from the United States: 2000–2001." Drug and alcohol dependence 79.1 (2005): 11-22.

Ferrucci, Luigi, et al. "Smoking, physical activity, and active life expectancy." American journal of epidemiology 149.7 (1999): 645-653.

Filbey, Francesca M., et al. "Preliminary findings demonstrating latent effects of early adolescent marijuana use onset on cortical architecture." Developmental cognitive neuroscience 16 (2015): 16-22.

Flynn, James R. "The mean IQ of Americans: Massive gains 1932 to 1978." Psychological bulletin 95.1 (1984): 29.
Fried, Peter, et al. "Current and former marijuana use: preliminary findings of a longitudinal study of effects on IQ in young adults." Canadian Medical Association Journal 166.7 (2002): 887-891.

Fuster, Daniel, et al. "No detectable association between frequency of marijuana use and health or healthcare utilization among primary care patients who screen positive for drug use." Journal of general internal medicine 29.1 (2014): 133-139.

Koenen, Karestan C., et al. "Childhood IQ and adult mental disorders: a test of the cognitive reserve hypothesis." American Journal of Psychiatry (2009).

Manrique-Garcia, Edison, et al. "Cannabis use and depression: a longitudinal study of a national cohort of Swedish conscripts." BMC psychiatry 12.1 (2012): 1.

Moretti, Enrico. "Estimating the social return to higher education: evidence from longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data." Journal of econometrics121.1 (2004): 175-212.

Scallet, Andrew C. "Neurotoxicology of cannabis and THC: a review of chronic exposure studies in animals." Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 40.3 (1991): 671-676.
Whalley, Lawrence J., and Ian J. Deary. "Longitudinal cohort study of childhood IQ and survival up to age 76." Bmj 322.7290 (2001): 819.

The Recreational Marijuana Logic Tree:

Graphic obtained with permissions on Googleplus

Even a tiny bush like this has 1024 individual leaves, here is a logic tree which tries to break down some of the most important points on marijuana legalization:

Recreational Marijuana logic tree:

Marijuana and Crime:

   2 million of 4 million parolees have tried marijuana. 200 million of 350 million Americans have tried marijuana. 16% of prisoners are there solely for marijuana charges, which means that marijuana users commit significantly less crimes than those who do not make the life style choice. While data on intoxication from marijuana use and driving is not complete, the Federal Government has found that the likelihood of marijuana users to be involved in traffic fatalities is approximately the same as the non-using and non-drinking populations.

   Legalization of marijuana is estimated in the first year to have cost the South American Cartels nearly 4 billion dollars. Since 1970, when the majority of marijuana users also used other narcotics, the rate of co-dependence has fallen steadily, with the 50-50 point being reached in the 90’s. The vast majority of marijuana users now use marijuana exclusively. The rate of hard drug use in the nation has also dropped in a similar fashion from 10% to as low as .5%.
Marijuana and foreign policy:
   Unlike previous attempts to make marijuana illegal, when supporting foreign fighters in marijuana producing countries offered an incentive for the United States to encourage or foster an illegal trade in marijuana, and rigorously enforce prohibition, today foreign policy goals have changed and these rebels, whether in South American countries that during the cold war may have swung to communism, or in Afghanistan and the Middle East, now do not provide the same incentive to prohibit. In fact, as these organizations have struck against the United States in the past militarily or economically, continued prohibition may be a breach in national security by providing necessary means to acquire funding for enemies of the state. This is especially true in cases in which users are dependent on marijuana, either for medical purposes or as maintenance medication for co-occuring addictions. 

Marijuana and Education:

   Marijuana has been shown to increase IQ by a significant amount in current and former users with responsible adult use. This is exemplified by a lower crime rate, and after adjustment for marijuana-related legal or social sanctions, higher educational performance. This has also been causally proven with brain imaging work that shows marijuana increases functional connectivity.

Marijuana and public health:

   Marijuana has been shown to have a protective effect on the lungs and bronchial system. THC has been proven to attack cancer cells, and reduce both the prevalence and the exacerbation of cancer-related disease. While it is true that marijuana consumed as a child (the age the state of Vermont looks to set with legalization is 21, though further research here is being done) will negatively affect bone density in a manner similar to alcohol use over time, this effect is also matched by an increase in bone density with responsible adult use.

   Marijuana has medical benefits for those with terminal illness, which may extend lives significantly. Social discrimination or segregation may have a significant impact on these populations.

Marijuana and dependence or potential for abuse

   Research has shown that marijuana releases slightly less dopamine than a good meal, about half that of a sexual encounter or alcohol use and between 3 and 20 times less than other illegal or prescription narcotics available in the USA. Release of certain dopamine receptors initiated by marijuana use have been proven in adults to have a positive effect on various hormones, while not negatively affecting sperm count or other fertility measures, though in pregnant women some negative effects can be determined.

   It has also been proven that marijuana use acts as a result of the same receptors of the brain that coffee blocks, the adenosine receptors. While low doses of caffeine will reduce the amount of THC cravings, high doses will allow someone to take larger amounts of THC, and feel the need to do so. This is yet to be proven as effective treatment, but has the potential to provide a unique advantage to marijuana that drugs or alcohol do not.

The marijuana community and illegal or unconstitutional discrimination or attacks:

   Production of synthetic THC or spice, a schedule 1 substance, occurred in the United States legally for around 3 years. In 2010 alone over 11,000 Americans were hospitalized pursuant to consumption of the drug, which was classified by the White House as three times to 800 times more addictive than marijuana when they were added to the Controlled Substances Act with the Safety and Innovation Act of 2012. Dozens were killed. This is a direct result of job application urine screening and marijuana prohibition which resulted in use of the substance; many people did not even know this was not legitimate marijuana. 

   As noted before, marijuana use is not associated with fatal traffic accidents, but there are states such as Vermont, which have significant (a 5X increase from the national average) and consistently deviant marijuana traffic fatalities, suggesting social discrimination or prejudice in these areas. There are not corresponding states with abnormally low marijuana-related traffic fatalities, suggesting this is not the result of random distribution.

   RICO funds intended for legal prosecution of narcotics cases have been diverted to anti-marijuana lobby efforts. Organizations were found to divert money as well from pharmaceutical corporations to anti-marijuana efforts, in a massive breach of scientific ethics. This resulted in some pseudo-science arising in the anti-marijuana field, which was non-reproducible, something extremely rare in the world of academics and indicative of a massive economic investment in preventing the legalization and regulation of marijuana.

Open letter to the chair of the Judicial Committee in the Vermont State Senate on relative incarceration rates and marijuana:

Hello,
Would it be possible to push this up to a matter of state security and constitutional crisis? I do not have access to Vermont's statistics on incarceration, but after adjustment for those incarcerated solely on the virtue of marijuana charges and then number of marijuana smokers per capita, all data readily available on a national scale, it became apparent that the amount of incarceration in the marijuana smoking community is less than that of the alcohol drinking community, and only slightly higher than those who consume no substances whatsoever, if at all. Both alcohol and marijuana using communities have 10X less incarceration than users of other hard narcotics for which statistics are collected for. Combined with the national study on road safety and marijuana use which shows that marijuana use fatalities are the same as those who do not drink or drug (it is known that Vermont does have a weird anomaly which has more marijuana related fatalities than federal statistics, though the trend remains steady in our state), the implication is that every year there are 10's of thousands of unnecessary automobile deaths, even with only a modest substitution factor in relation to marijuana use and alcohol or other drugs (which, given the trajectory since the 1970's when around 90% of users of marijuana also used other narcotics to today, with the 50-50 point being reached in the 1990's, today hard drug use among marijuana users is lower than the national hard drug use in the 1980's and low enough to show the logical fallacy in the gateway theory, can be assumed to be much greater than modest). Finally, I do not believe there are constitutional grounds for incarcerating a community of people who do not commit crimes in a greater amount than the general population (or at all, if there is no evidence of causality between the group identity, such as a gang, religion, or drug use, and the crime which could be economic, violent, or mischievous in nature). If sources are needed, I am happy to supply them. Furthermore, if there are Vermont specific statistics which either confirm, do not match (as happened with the traffic fatalities), or directly conflict with federal statistics, please inform me, this would be useful for my recreational marijuana community on googleplus.
Thank you,
Paul Fischer

Marijuana may not only protect against lung damage, but also help nicotine product users regulate or quit their product, and has the potential to aid with other chemical dependencies.

One of the most persistent reasons that people favor marijuana use, legalization, and regulation is due to the assertion that smoking marijuana does not do damage to the lungs, while tobacco smokers have a high certainty of dying from their habit. While the claims have been modulated to some extent, this assertion has held true in cohort studies of medical and recreational marijuana use in California, and attempts to determine causality actually found that the smoke from marijuana offers a protective effect to the lungs of users.

Something that has not been addressed as fully, is the impact of THC on the brain and fighting addiction. Nicotine is among the most addictive substances in the world when taken in amounts of 15-20 mg per day and greater for an extended period of time, the threshold for chemical dependence. It has also been shown to do damage to the dentate gyrus of the brain, which contains about 90% of the brain’s memories, at these levels of intake.

Marijuana smokers experience an increase in functional connectivity in the brain, which has been causally associated with an increase in IQ. The dentate gyrus is among the parts of the brain which experience elevated levels of neurogenesis as a result of exposure to an active compound in marijuana, THC. Recent research conducted at Duke University found that tobacco smokers who were able to quit experienced elevated levels of connectivity in the brain as well, while those who relapsed or became heavier smokers tended to lack this connectivity.

This research is of extreme importance as both nicotine products and other addictive substances or pharmaceuticals grip many users in this country. While it is important to make these activities less addictive, for example by limiting the amount of nicotine in a dose, ironically enough the opposite of what manufacturers of cigarettes did decades ago (though to be fair this may have been a simple reaction against hyperbolic at the least and malevolent or unfounded research at the worst targeted at tobacco), or educating people about what level of intake can be diagnosed as chemically dependent, and should be seen as a warning sign of addiction (as a good doctor will do with any prescription), it is also important to develop methods of ensuring successful recovery in the event of chemical dependence.

While marijuana has been prescribed before prohibition, and has a cultural connotation as a substituting product allowing people with chemical dependence to recover past withdrawal for centuries, the nature of its medical value is just starting to be explored now. Of particular interest is whether the factors affecting recovery for nicotine can contribute to recovery from other substances; research carried out suggests that the underlying genetic factors behind addiction are “highly correlated” at the least. Using brain scan technology to see this effect will be exciting at the least, and this particular vein of research is among the most enticing for public health.

Works Cited:

Abrous, Djoher Nora, et al. "Nicotine self-administration impairs hippocampal plasticity." The Journal of neuroscience 22.9 (2002): 3656-3662.

Addicott, Merideth A., et al. "Increased Functional Connectivity in an Insula-Based Network is Associated with Improved Smoking Cessation Outcomes." Neuropsychopharmacology (2015).

Filbey, Francesca M., et al. "Long-term effects of marijuana use on the brain."Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.47 (2014): 16913-16918.

Fried, Peter et al. “Current and Former Marijuana Use: Preliminary Findings of a Longitudinal Study of Effects on IQ in Young Adults.” CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal 166.7 (2002): 887–891.

Doweiko, Harold. Concepts of chemical dependency. Cengage Learning, 2011.

Hashibe, Mia, et al. "Marijuana use and the risk of lung and upper aerodigestive tract cancers: results of a population-based case-control study." Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 15.10 (2006): 1829-1834.

Jiang, Wen, et al. "Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogenesis and produce anxiolytic-and antidepressant-like effects." Journal of Clinical Investigation 115.11 (2005): 3104.

Kempker, Jordan A., Eric G. Honig, and Greg S. Martin. "Effects of Marijuana Exposure on Expiratory Airflow: A Study of Adults who Participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Study." Annals of the American Thoracic Society ja (2014).

Kendler, Kenneth S., John Myers, and Carol A. Prescott. "Specificity of genetic and environmental risk factors for symptoms of cannabis, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine dependence." Archives of General Psychiatry 64.11 (2007): 1313-1320.

Ling, H. W., and CB Wynn Parry. "The amount of nicotine absorbed in smoking." British journal of pharmacology and chemotherapy 4.3 (1949): 313-314.