Teen dope users ‘life’s future losers’
‘Cannabis users who started smoking as teenagers are more likely to suffer long-term harm, including poor mental health, than drinkers who started using alcohol as adolescents, a major study has found.
Heavy users of marijuana are also more likely to graduate to other drugs such as amphetamines and ecstasy than are teenage binge drinkers.
Involving nearly 2000 Victorian high school students aged 14 or 15, the landmark study has traced their progress since 1992, and provides the first comparison of the consequences of the two substances commonly used in teenage social situations.
Researcher George Patton, who conducted the study for Melbourne University’s Centre for Adolescent Heath, said that while both alcohol and cannabis carried health risks, the overwhelming evidence was that cannabis was “the drug for life’s future losers”.’
