Marijuana and Cognitive Declines. Does it Really Make You Dull?

Does marijuana really make you dumb?

Cognitive Declines

Anyone who smokes marijuana in quantity will know that their habit does negatively affect their mental performance. While using heavily, you just aren’t quite as sharp as you would be otherwise. Clinical studies replicate what's known by smokers and have demonstrated quite clearly a number of the cognitive deficits caused by heavy marijuana usage.

Poor Academic and Career Performance

Marijuana smokers in general aren't as likely to finish high school and also perform more poorly in college. Even on the job, self reports by heavy smokers indicate that a marijuana habit has real harmful implications for job performance and upwards career mobility. You just can’t remember, concentrate and express yourself as well under a semi permanent fog of marijuana.

A 24 Hour Mental Slow-Down

Clinical studies have shown that for about 24 hours after smoking a joint, marijuana smokers experience noticeable cognitive declines; declines in memory performance, declines in an ability to shift focus and attention between subjects as readily, declines in verbal, mathematical and reasoning performances and declines in concentration.

This means of course that if you have a daily marijuana habit, you are operating under a permanent state of lessened cognitive functioning, and you're just not quite as smart as you would otherwise be. Even when you abstain for a few days, marijuana seems to exert a lingering influence on performance, and after three days of abstinence, heavy smokers tested far more poorly on a number of tests of cognitive performance than did non smokers.

The Declines are Reversible

Thankfully, these declines seem to be almost completely temporary and with a month or more of abstinence, clinical studies show that marijuana smokers will once again perform equally well on measures of cognitive performance. You are not likely doing any long term damage structurally, and the good news is that you can recover completely; but for all those months and years that you use heavily, you don’t learn as well, don’t consolidate information as well, and can’t expect to advance as well. You are wasting years of opportunities to a habit that's supposed to be fun and relatively harmless, but it seems is anything but.