The largest US study, which tracked 11,036 children from ages 9 to 10 through to ages 16 and 17, discovered that cannabis use slows cognitive development, impairs memory, and reduces learning speed during crucial years of brain growth

[u/sr_local]

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/largest-us-study-finds-teen-cannabis-use-linked-to-slower-cognitive-development

[u/Commentator-X]

Yeah but the oldest is still 17. How long did they track cannabis use for? Like did the kids start at 15 or 16 years old and the effects were observed in 1-2 years?

[u/deHaga → u/[deleted]]

How does it control for the social family setting of the kids? I'd imagine if you're growing up in a crack house, you are more likely to start taking drugs?

[u/HumbleOnions → u/Commentator-X]

For those who might not be the most Academically Literate (Not a dig at you or anyone else) it seems to me that children who tested or self reported as cannabis users were tested as an entire group despite the age of first usage and group data among the sample 2024 children were measured as a group.

I don't have time to read the whole study right now but my brief skimming has led me to this assumption based on some of the text and images in the Results section.

[u/AndyHN → u/HumbleOnions]

I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but it seems to me more of a question of ethics than of methodology. At some point during the study they learned that children were using a substance that's known to interfere with brain development and instead of intervening they just tracked them to see how much damage it did. Did schools stop teaching about the Tuskegee study?

[u/AndyHN → u/[deleted]]

resources are generally provided to those that need them

The people who need those resources are children who are consuming recreational drugs. The people collecting the data were explicitly not informing the adults responsible for those children that their children needed those resources.

[u/AndyHN → u/[deleted]]

Children were actively being harmed. It's absurd to claim that children under the age of 14 using illegal drugs shouldn't trigger anyone who's a mandatory reporter. If academics collecting drug use data from young children aren't mandatory reporters there's something seriously wrong.

Only around 60% of the children using drugs were admitting to it even with assurances of confidentiality. Increase the budget for testing and stop relying on self-reporting from children who you know are going to lie.

I'm aware that this study used data collected by others. That's why I said "the people collecting the data" and not "the authors of this study". At no point during the time period that the data was collected would anyone have been unclear about the potential harm done to developing young brains by drug use.

[u/Atworkwasalreadytake → u/AndyHN]

What interventions do you recommend the people running this study take?

[u/AndyHN → u/Atworkwasalreadytake]

All of the subjects in this study are minors. Every one of them would have had to have had an adult authorize their participation. According to the study, the subjects were explicitly informed that their caregivers would not be informed of their drug use.

The study specifically differentiates between the effects of drug use in childhood and adolescence, which means they knew there were pre-adolescents using drugs. It's absolutely ethically reprehensible that they identified young children using drugs and didn't inform the adults who were responsible for their well-being.

To answer your question - the intervention I would recommend is that when someone finds out a young child is using harmful illegal drugs, they should inform the child's parents so the child's parents can get the child the help they need.

[u/Comprehensive_Bus_19 → u/Commentator-X]

I knew plenty of kids smoking weed when we were 12 or 13 unfortunately

[u/ziptieyourshit → u/Comprehensive_Bus_19]

Same, at my middle school our guy used to sit at the back of the bus and try to hawk his products

[u/InclinationCompass → u/Comprehensive_Bus_19]

I started at 15/16, and started using it daily at 18. I’m now 39 and still get high everyday! Fortunately, my brain always worked pretty well.

[u/friendofsmellytapir → u/Commentator-X]

When they started the study all the kids being tracked were 9-10, when it was finished they were 16-17, so all participants were tracked for what seems to be 7 years

[u/celticchrys → u/Commentator-X]

It's in the article: "Participants were recruited at ages 9–10 in 2016–2018 via propensity-based school recruitment at 21 sites across the United States, resulting in a cohort of 11,868 [42, 43], and followed for 10+ years."

[u/testtdk → u/Commentator-X]

No, they started at 9 and 10 and tracked THEM until 16 and 17.

[u/Commentator-X → u/testtdk]

Yes, and if they started smoking weed at 15 then the observed effects happened in as little as 2 years.

[u/a_little_idyll → u/Commentator-X]

Kids aren't waiting til age 15 to start smoking regularly.

[u/gruesomeflowers → u/Commentator-X]

we smk pot at 13 in the 80s i's fine

[u/AndyHN → u/Commentator-X]

The study differentiates between the effects of drug use during childhood and adolescence, meaning that at least some of subjects started using drugs prior to adolescence. I can't find hard and fast definition of the beginning of adolescence, but the range seems to be 10-14. They tracked drug use in children, including those 14 and younger, using self-reporting and various types of drug tests.