Kids with high IQs are more likely to become drug-taking adults
By Virginia SmithNovember 16th, 2011, 5:00 pmComments (17)
According to new research, the smarter your kids are, the more likely they are to use drugs, as higher IQs in children correlated strongly to illegal drug use later in life. Could it be that this is a response to their heightened ability to recognize cruel, cruel reality?
Maybe! Researchers are still on the fence about this:
Although it is not yet clear exactly why there should be a link between high IQ and illicit drug use, the authors point to previous research, showing that highly intelligent people are open to experiences and keen on novelty and stimulation.
Essentially, this means that smart people are harder to keep entertained. But it's also possible they're just wounded after years of teasing for their nerdy ways:
Other research has also shown that brainy children are often easily bored and suffer at the hands of their peers for being different, "either of which could conceivably increase vulnerability to using drugs as an avoidant coping strategy," explain the authors.
Either way, maybe not a bad idea to lay off the Baby Mozart tapes if you don't want your kid growing up into a giant stoner. It's science!
Commentarium (17 Comments)
The article says "tried" illegal drugs, not became addicted to them. Contrary to Nancy Reagan, one can try illegal drugs and not become a "giant stoner," as you put it. I buy the novelty and experimentation argument.
Speaking as someone shuttled through various "accelerated" programs as a youth and a semi-professional drug user, I can personally speak to the "avoidant coping strategy." Especially if we're referring explicitly to high school.
oh my goodness you mean it's possible that the story of how drugs will ruin your life might not be true?
You can have a massive monkey on your back but still be a very high-functioning adult... as long as you were one in the first place, and you're smart enough to get hooked on drugs that don't have crippling long-term physical side effects, like blow or opiates. And you can go on that way basically forever as long as you are able to keep getting quality drugs. Ask a decent percentage of the 1%.
Just for the record I don't think people can get addicted to pot, not the same way. You can end up getting totally rutted-into a lifestyle that includes a lot of pot, but no one who doesn't have a shitload of other problems is laying awake at night pounding a fist into the wall because they can't get weed.
Lezley... Actually there is no such thing as "Hard of soft drugs".
Any drug that interacts with our brain has the potential to become an addictive drug, even the anti-addictive drugs!
pot does alter the structure of our brains and does interefere with the lifestyle.
The balance is on the risk of addiction. Post has a very close level of addiction potential compared to tobacco. Doesn't mean you will die horribly if you smoke one or to joints. But opposite to tobacco, it produces higher degrees of addiction and behavioural significant changes.
In fact...if you analyse the data, pot is very similar to the historical epidemiology of opium used centuries ago. It started small and grew to horrible proportions.
About the article. Not surprising, but correlation doesn't imply causation. There are probably other factors to take into account.
Every now and then, Hooksexup just gets its right...
The human head weighs how many grams?
i can attest to this
I have a PhD in the sciences, 2 Master's degrees and 2 Ivy League bachelor's degrees. I can't decide if I'm smart or if if I just liked being in school. I've always wanted to try marijuana, but there's too much of a bias towards it's intake in the form of smoking. My grandfather died very sadly from lung cancer after a life of smoking, and I'm determined never to let such dirty smoke enter my lungs. However, I'm also too lazy to cook; nobody else ever seems to have any laced brownies available for dessert.
Do you eat anything with butter in it at all? THC is fat soluble, so just boil up your stash with a couple of sticks of butter, strain out the leaves, and then use the butter in something you eat. Or so I heard at MIT, not that I ever would do something like that.
Haha, I love you profrobert!
Also, Jfs$2), you have time for a PhD and two Master's degrees but not enough time to whip up some goddamned brownies?
Mmm.... brownies :D actually.. i'm not a fan of brownies.. but since we can add it to ANYTHING With butter i may make a cake....... or maybe a cobbler... Perhaps an apple Pi? Oh.. bad math pun.
As profrobert, I've also heard that coffee filters make excellent strainers for a nice clean herby butter. Brownies are often the choice of people who don't manage to make a clean enough butter, so they want to hide it in something very sweet... personally, I've heard, that herbal butter can be super tasty on toast or noodles. It also refrigerates well. I've heard.
On an entirely different topic, I can't tolerate smoking at all, Jfs. I don't think any casual high would be worth the discomfort, danger, and general grossness of smoking.
I have a realllly high tolorence to most things. Pain, alcohol, drugs, and even headache medicine. I've tried with many different ways of smoking, (joints, bongs, steam rollers, pipes, and blunts,) however the only two that are effective being out of a blunt to the head or a really good hit from a bong only last 5-10 minutes and takes way too much smoking to be worth it. And no, it wasnt shitty weed. Its been really good shit, more than just one time. I wonder if eating it would be better.
Re: taking drugs because you are "open to experiences", there are a good number of smart people out there who take psychedelic drugs to learn more about themselves, become better people, and expand their minds. I've tried to do this and it's exhausting, scary, but very rewarding. Not all drugs are bad, kids.
i drink strong belgian beers to cope with the powerful stupidity around me.
In today's climate in the States, I think the argument could be made "higher-IQ people gravitate toward drugs" on exactly the same ratio as "lower-IQ people gravitate toward drugs."
Different reasoning, of course, but that's all theoretical.
Purely anecdotally, the higher-IQ scale people I know tend to be more curious than the average-to-lower-IQ scale folk. They're often also a bit more cocksure about their ability to "handle" drugs and/or changes in their lives.
Now you say something