Teen cannabis users less likely to finish school, get a degree

Young people who take cannabis regularly are over 60 per cent less likely to finish school or get a degree compared with those who have never used the drug, according to a study published today in The Lancet.

Daily users of cannabis in adolescence are seven times more likely to attempt suicide, 18 times more likely to become dependent on the drug and eight times more likely to use other drugs in later life, the review of almost 4,000 cannabis users found.

These effects were found even after researchers controlled for factors such as age, gender, ethnic background, socio-economic status, use of other drugs and mental illness. The risks increased relative to dose, with daily cannabis users showing the strongest effects.

The associations between frequency of cannabis use before age 17 and the outcomes in young adults

Results are Combined data from 3 studies, Australian Temperament Project, Christchurch Health and Development Study and the Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study.

Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug globally and its popularity is growing with young people. There are no figures for cannabis use among Irish under-15s, said Dr Joe Barry, head of the department of public health in Trinity College Dublin, but studies by the National Council on Drugs and Alcohol have found 4.5 per cent of 15- to 34-year-olds took the drug in the previous month.

Daily users

The Lancet study quotes higher usage rates. In England, 4 per cent of 11- to 15-year-olds report cannabis use in the past month, roughly 7 per cent of US high-school seniors are daily or near-daily users, and in Australia, around 1 per cent of 14- to 19-year-olds are daily users and 4 per cent weekly users.

In the study, a team of Australian and New Zealand researchers combined data from three large, long-running studies to find out more about the link between the frequency of cannabis use before the age of 17 and developmental outcomes such as educational attainment, depression and welfare dependence.

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Source: Paul Cullen, Irish Times, 10/09/14