Drug testing at festivals
In this edition, for the first time, we have a guest article from Fiona Spargo – Mabbs from the DSM Foundation, on drug testing at festivals. We felt this was important as as we talk to parents when we hold parent talks across the country, many worry about what happens when their teenagers head off to their first festivals. Fiona attended Bestival and found out about the controversial practice of allowing people to have their drugs tested for contamination anonymously. You can read her feature here:http://alcoholeducationtrust.org/parent-area/first-festivals/
On a similar theme, Canadian researchers investigated the links between alcohol and cannabis use on the teen brain. They found that the 3,800 teens they followed from age 13 for four years who used cannabis performed less well, especially in tests of memory and impulse control. The researchers said teenagers with worse memory and impulse control were also more likely than other teens to use alcohol and cannabis. However, an increase in cannabis use in 1 year was associated with lower test scores that year and also in the following year, suggesting that cannabis could have a lasting effect on their brain function.
Cannabis also seemed to have greater effects in younger teens compared with older teens The results also supported "a lasting, or neurotoxic, effect of cannabis" on inhibition control and working memory. You can read more about how cannabis can lead to health problems here: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/cannabis-the-facts/. Researchers took into account pupils' family income, gender, ethnicity and whether they lived with both biological parents. For alcohol: pupils who drank more alcohol more often over 4 years had poorer working memory, perceptual reasoning and inhibitory control too.
The main difficulty is that we still don't know with certainty whether teens who used alcohol and cannabis had worse brain function because of substance use, or whether they were more likely to use alcohol and cannabis because of their poorer brain function. This study gives teenagers another reason to think twice about using cannabis however. Cannabis 'more harmful than alcohol' for teen brains- BBC News, October 3 2018 Morin JG, Afzali MH, Bourque J, et al. A Population-Based Analysis of the Relationship Between Substance Use and Adolescent Cognitive DevelopmentThe American Journal of Psychiatry. Published online October 3 2018
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