BBC News – Young cannabis smokers run risk of lower IQ, report claims
The “pothead” is a very lovable guy or gal: sweet, harmless, funny, easy-going, occasionally profound, even keeled, sporadically active and stupid. This last characteristic is up for debate, of course, because it is one of those insulting attributes that we espouse in stereotypes. Every stereotype contains at least one horrendously negative and insulting property, and those properties are usually the result of the human tendency to want to believe the worst about one’s neighbor at least part of the time.
The stupidity of the pothead, however, may be getting some scientific support. The above study suggests that lighting up earlier in life may be correlated with a lower measure of intelligence later in life. Believing this proposition may say more about one’s faith about the reliability of the intelligence quotient than the truth of diminished mental capacity of potheads. Nevertheless, kids should take this lesson to heart: wait until your brain is fully developed before you experiment with it.