Community | November 24, 2011 | 14 comments

High IQ Linked to Drug Use

source: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/high-iq-linked-to-drug-use/

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EmperorThan
The "Just Say No" generation was often told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn't use drugs. Turns out, the adults may have been wrong.

A new British study finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children. The data come from the 1970 British Cohort Study, which has been following thousands of people over decades. The kids' IQs were tested at the ages of 5, 10 and 16. The study also asked about drug use and looked at education and other socioeconomic factors. Then when participants turned 30, they were asked whether they had used drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin in the past year.

Researchers discovered men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults. A high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158. An average IQ is 100. The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The lead researcher says he isn't surprised by the findings. "Previous research found for the most part people with high IQs lead a healthy life, but that they are more likely to drink to excess as adults," says James White a psychologist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom.

It's not clear why people with high childhood IQs are more likely to use illegal drugs. "We suspect they may be more open to new experiences and are more sensation seeking," says White. In the paper, White and his co-author also mention other studies that find high IQ kids may use drugs because they are bored or to cope with being different.

That seems to ring true for one of my childhood classmates. Tracey Helton Mitchell was one of the smartest kids in my middle school. But, by the time she was in her early 20's, Tracey was a heroin addict. I found out while flipping channels one sleepless night and stumbled upon the documentary "Black Tar Heroin."

"I was confident in my abilities but there was a dissonance," says Tracey, with whom I recently reconnected. "No matter what I did, what I said, where I went, I was never comfortable with the shell I carried called myself."

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/high-iq-linked-to-drug-use/
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14 comments // High IQ Linked to Drug Use

  • MotherForTruth
  • LibertynJusticeforAll
    • +3
      LibertynJusticeforAll  

    • US Patent 6630507 : The US Government patented cannabinoids (active chemicals in Marijuana) as neuroprotectants.

      mmm,mmm good
      Just like mama used to make

      Mother who breast feed their babies are giving them large amount of the neuroprotectant cannabinoid 2-AG. After childbirth it goes up 1000 fold in breast milk and is part of the bonding experience. Instead of hitting the bong they hit the boob. It's formed from the omega-6 fatty acid. This is why its so important to take omega 3, 6, and 9, so your body can build endocannabinoids.

      OK class, that's my lecture for the week. I've got to get back to building an expert system for some research I'm doing. I expect a 5000 word paper on the effects of endocannabinoids and exocannabinoids on the body by next Friday. Dismissed!

    • 6 months ago
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • LibertynJusticeforAll:

      http://Citirag.com

      If a picture is worth a thousand words, how's about 5 good
      stoned-to-da-bone facial expressions to substitute for the
      literacy cannabexam ? On the website Citirag.com, you can
      access all the Hollywood recognition who party down in party
      town. Cameron Diaz' expression will tell you: Like WOW man,
      did you get the number of that bhang that ran me over ?
      Matthew McConeghey's expression might translate as:
      " Gee I used to remember my own name, hold on a moment,
      I'll use my personal access device to call it up for you.
      Drew Barrymore's expression might translate as: " Geez they
      can land a man on the moon, but they still can't find a place
      to park in any safe area of L.A ! Yes, as Steve Martin used
      to say on classic Saturday Night Live from New York: " Like
      WOW, man ! Lets get smaaaaaaall. Heh.

    • 6 months ago
  • remanns
  • PressCore
    • +2
      PressCore  
    • remanns:

      Drat ! And all these many years I thought that wacky tobacy was only good
      for treating my insomnia. I never knew it it would find it's way from the dumb
      and dumerer to be prefered by the brainiacs. " But just so I will not feel so all
      alone, everybodymust get stoned, yeah " What do you think, Remanns ? If
      all the sane people in Texas did that good Texas Tea we'd have a better world, no ?

    • 6 months ago
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • squarethecircle
    • +1
      squarethecircle  

    • there most certainly is a direct link between LSD and higher IQ...I guess the people that are on the outside of the boxes just can't handle the reality we've been drug to.

      Pardon the pun.

    • 6 months ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • squarethecircle:

      Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Alice through the looking glass called
      Window Pane. Like taking off on an airplane with a looooonnnnnnnng
      runway using up 10-15 minutes. And don't forget the Red & Purple
      Oseline so named for the C.I.A. chemist whom Jimmy Hendrix popularized:
      " Purple Haze runnin' thru my brain. Nothing looks the quite same "
      When you can see the tree leaves breath in Summertime. And your
      dog or cat psychicly asks you: " Hey, man, why you looking so whacked ?
      Yes they called them the super 60s, when you could touch your mind and
      blow your toes, to put a subtle twist on ordinary reality. I had 20 trips, and
      no falls. Good balance does it every time.

    • 6 months ago
  • pjacobs51
  • RevKen
    • +2
      RevKen  

    • There is a difference between using and abusing drugs. I think the study might need to look deeper into the type of drug usage and the outcome of each life for any serious conclusions to be made.

    • 6 months ago
  • Anonmaly
    • +3
      Anonmaly  

    • I had a high child hood IQ... They all had me in special classes and even let us eat the play-doh & glue sometimes... Wait, come to think of it, some of the kids drooled, one stuttered, another was dyslexic...

      On second thought I'm pretty sure they lied to me about those "special" classes... I mean the short bus already had me wondering, but now....

      Never-mind... I still like substances.....

    • 6 months ago
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • Anonmaly:

      Most definitely. All my former high school associates treated them as if they
      were a passing trend. Not so for me. They're mind candy for the brainiacs
      of this world. I even smoked in grad school, and had no difficulty so long as
      conditions of normalcy prevailed. Being of Dutch descent, we understand it's
      the mind set more than anything that keys people up or down. I've read from
      community members in the professional trades, who found their experiences
      with substances clarifying, focusing, facilitating. I appreciate your Latinized
      choice of the term. My major was Psyche. Here's a thought. Take a plain
      8 X 11 sheet of lined paper, draw a line down the center from top to bottom,
      then label the left side with a positive, the right side with a negative.
      These values are meant to rate the optimistic and pessimistic connotations
      of each 4 letter Anglo Saxon word that rhymes with the word " drug " which
      is the past participle of the verb " to drag " for starters. List all the positive
      words that rhyme with drug on the left side, then all the negative terms on
      the right, and you'll come to a revelation not generaly passed around in our
      everyday conversations. It's no wonder the inexperienced public has such
      a negative attitude, or mind set, towards drugs. The dark emotions of pain,
      fear, violence are all connotated with simply the very trite, bad choice of that
      one word, over substance. Ie people sublimate themselves to believe the
      ugh ly ( another rhyming word ) aspects, not knowing they themselves add
      to or subtract from making that so-beyond the physiological effects- Cannabis
      is classified in the sedative/anesthetic/hypnotic class of substances, as alchohol
      is. But with one essential difference. All alchohol is toxic. No amount of
      cannabinoids is unless one smokes it. Vaporizers which don't burn it, and
      which take longer to get to register with the Amegdyla & Substantia Nigra
      parts of the brain, don't intoxicate anyone. Eating it is different too.

    • 6 months ago
  • KB723
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