Marijuana is easily one of the most controversial and iconic issues in recent times.  With more and more states legalizing the substance, you can sense that its prohibition will come to an end within the foreseeable future.  But, I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve been exposed to anti-marijuana propaganda.  Movies like Reefer Madness paint a deceiving picture of what it really is like to smoke the flower that so many people are adamantly against.

A 2012 Duke University Study claimed to have found that heavy marijuana use through adolescence and young adulthood was associated with declines in IQ; it is largely this study that many have used to cite declines in IQ as being caused by pot use during formative years.  However, other researchers have since criticized that study’s methods, claiming that the original research failed to account for other factors that could have affected cognitive development; things like cigarette use, alcohol use, mental illness and socioeconomic status.

Two new reports study the relationship between marijuana use and intelligence from two entirely different perspectives: The first examines the life trajectories of 2,235 British teenagers between ages 8 and 16, while the other looks at the differences between American identical twin pairs in which one twin uses marijuana and the other twin does not.

Both methods found no evidence that adolescent marijuana use leads to a decline in intelligence.  After adjusting for factors such as maternal health, mental health and other substance use, researchers come to the conclusion that “cannabis use by the age of 15 did not predict either lower teenage IQ scores or poorer educational performance.”

All of this evidence and research is not, however, saying that consistent, heavy marijuana use does not come with negative consequences.  There is a large number of negative physical and mental health outcomes linked to heavy marijuana use.  Marijuana is a drug, and just like any other drug, there are risk and benefits associated with its use.  But being accurate in both respects with regard to education is vital for those consuming it on a regular basis.