Marijuana Leads To Brain Damage: Case Strengthened

In a research published in the journal, Archives of General Psychiatry, an Australian study has confirmed the link between marijuana use and brain damage. The study states that long term and excessive exposure to cannabis smoking can lead to brain damage, similar to that, in cases of mild-traumatic brain injury or premature ageing.

Not only this, the process is said to be an ongoing one, increasing in gravity with the increase in use. Thus, the more marijuana you smoke, the more your brain shrinks.

"This is a very exciting study because it proves for the first time what we have been really worried out. That brain problems are real and that people who smoke cannabis over a long term do get problems." Professor Jon Currie, the director of addiction medicine at St Vincent's Hospital, in Melbourne said.

The research subjects were people who had smoked more than 5 joints daily, over a span of ten years. The researchers took MRIdefine scans of 15 such men. The results found were amazing yet very clear in their depictions.

The hippocampus and amygdala parts of the brains of these men, which deal with memory and emotions respectively, had over the years become smaller in size, showing a quite clear and significant difference in size as compared to non smokers.

These abnormalities were found to be similar to those having undergone mild traumatic brain injury or premature ageing, as men in late 30s showed memory performances similar to those in their mid 50s.

Professor Currie says "If you've got heavy cannabis use over a period of time, you don't have to have pre-existing diseases. It is not just for people who have got schizophrenia, everyone who smokes cannabis for a long period of time, is at risk,"

But due to the small size of the sample of people studied, the executive director of the Australian National Council on Drugs, Gino Vumbaca says the study results need to be approached with caution. "I think in scientific studies we need to see this sort of work repeated and the results verified again in other studies," he said.

Mr Vumbaca also added that the use of cannabis has decreased over the years due to growing awareness among people regarding its harmful side effects. "It has gone down from people aged over 15. It was peaking at around 17, 18 per cent 10 years ago and it is down to just over 9 per cent now," he added.

However, the study throws enough light on the dark side of the use of this drug, validating the previously held view of its ill effects on brain health.

"My hope is that this can be used as a very, very clear warning to people. Get help, seek medical help, try and stop smoking, " said professor Curie, hopeful that such findings would prompt people to quit smoking the drug altogether.