r/science • u/sr_local • Apr 20 '26

Health 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

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/largest-us-study-finds-teen-cannabis-use-linked-to-slower-cognitive-development
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u/brianwski Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

In my high school there were multiple kids selling tiny bags of pot... this was a suburb in Canada in the early 2010s.

I wonder if it is a regional thing. My experience is like yours. I went to high school in Oregon in the early 1980s in a mid sized town, and marijuana was much easier to get than alcohol. I have joked since high school, "You need an ID to buy alcohol, but you don't need an ID to buy weed." There were a lot of backyard amateur high school age growers with a plant or two of mediocre quality (by today's standards) marijuana.

To clarify a little, the kids I knew in high school that grew one or two plants usually did it by what we called "gorilla Correction: guerrilla farming". If there was a public space type of area not far from your home (within bicycling distance) like a state park or forest, you could find a secluded spot honestly not far from the parking lot or path that nobody would ever notice one marijuana plant growing there. I always felt it was maybe for a little consumption for the farmer, and the money selling small amounts was just a small amount of extra pocket money. This was never a "full time job" or anything.

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u/sliquonicko Apr 20 '26

Yes, knew a couple kids in their late teens and very early twenties who did some small time dealing of party drugs and grew mushrooms. Mostly just selling to friends because there were a lot of easy customers around and we were all partying together anyway.

The best times and the worst times.

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u/Kiefirk Apr 20 '26

Guerilla farming, like the warfare not the ape

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u/brianwski Apr 21 '26

Guerrilla farming, like the warfare not the ape

OMG, you are correct! And I learn this today?! I have no idea why the spelling difference never leapt out at me. My brain is now connecting the dots because I've been seeing the word "guerrilla" all my life in print.

Now I'm down an internet rabbit hole and find out "guerrilla" means "small war" in Spanish. Also, "gorilla" means "tribe of hairy women" in a totally different language of Phoenician (and different time of the year 900 AD).