Kids with high IQs more likely to try drugs - study

According to the findings of the study, girls who score high on intelligence tests are over twice more likely to experiment with marijuana, cocaine, and other illicit drugs as against those who fare low on the intelligence index.

The study
To compare the educational achievements with the lifetime drug usage the researchers enrolled 7,900 children aged 5 and followed them for 25 years.

All participants underwent IQ assessment tests at age 5 and 10. Later upon attaining ages 16 and 30, the participants were interviewed and surveyed about symptoms of psychological distress and illegal drug use, if any.

The findings of the study
35 percent men and 16 percent women had tried marijuana by the age of 30. Additionally, 9 percent men and 4 percent women had experimented with cocaine over the same period, researchers found.

Overall, the drug use was two times more prevalent in men than among women participants, researchers highlighted.

However, when intelligence effect was taken into account, researchers found that women who scored higher on IQ at age 5 were more than twice as likely to have experimented with illegal drugs later in life vis-à-vis women who with low IQ scores.

Why are smarter kids more likely to try drugs?
“People with high IQs are more likely to score high on personality scales of openness to experience,” said study’s lead author, James White, of the Center for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement at Cardiff University in Wales. “They may be more willing to experiment and seek out novel experiences.”

“The likely mechanism is openness to experience,” White concludes, “and, I think, it's also this idea of having an educated view of risk as well.”

The findings of the study are published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.