Cannabis has become a very popular drug over the past couple of decades. And while it may not be as detrimental to one’s health as was assumed when the drug was first introduced to Western civilizations, it still carries its own burdens, especially when it comes to memory loss.

A new study carried out by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found that abstaining from using cannabis for just one-month results in a significant improvement in memory in young adults and adolescents who use the drug on a regular basis. It’s the first study of it’s kind to track changes in cognitive function related to cannabis use.





The lead author of the paper is Randi Schuster, Ph.D., and director of Neuropsychology at the Center for Addiction Medicine in the MGH Department of Psychiatry. He says that there are two key pieces of evidence to take from this study. “The first is that adolescents learn better when they are not using cannabis. The second – which is the good news part of the story – is that at least some of the deficits associated with cannabis use are not permanent and actually improve pretty quickly after cannabis use stops.”

Adolescence is an extremely important time period in terms of brain maturation and the use of cannabis on a regular basis could have detrimental effects. One study carried out in 2016 found that adolescents aged 16 and under who used the drug regularly had greater difficulty in retaining new information. But this didn’t seem to be as much of a problem for users aged 17 and older.

A total of 88 participants aged between 16 and 25 took part in the study. All were from the Boston area and all acknowledged using cannabis on a regular basis (i.e. at least once a week). Researchers compared the cannabis user’s cognitive performance with a group of similarly aged non-users. Testing involved regular assessments of the participant’s thinking and memory.





At the end of the study period, it appeared that around 89 percent of those abstaining from cannabis continued to do so for 30 days. Among this group, the levels of cannabis found in their urine decreased steadily. For those continuing to use the drug, their urine biomarker levels remained the same. Upon testing the participant’s cognitive abilities, the researchers found that those who stopped using cannabis had significantly improved memory levels, even after the first week. The researchers saw no improvement in the cognitive functioning of those who continued to use cannabis.

“The ability to learn or ‘map down’ new information, which is a critical facet of success in the classroom, improved with sustained non-use of cannabis,” says Schuster. “Young cannabis users who stop regular – weekly or more – use may be better equipped to learn efficiently and therefore better positioned for academic success.”

So it seems, with the results from the study that abstaining from cannabis does, in fact, help adolescents learn better, while continued use could have detrimental effects. “There are still a lot of open questions to be studied, including whether attention might improve and memory continues to improve with longer periods of cannabis abstinence,” comments Schuster.





These questions and more will be addressed in the follow-up trial that will involve even younger participants – those aged between 13 and 19. A further trial will then follow that which will involve following cannabis users who abstain for six months to see if there is an improvement in their cognition beyond the 30 days and whether these improvements could affect school performance levels.

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