Pubdate: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 2013 Tribune Newspapers Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82 Page: 17 PREVIOUS STUDY BLAMING LOWER IQ ON POT USE IS DISPUTED In late August, baby boomers (and others whose teen years were spent in a haze of marijuana smoke) seemed to get the comeuppance they had long feared: A study suggested that early and frequent pot smoking resulted in depressed intelligence scores well into adulthood. But a new analysis suggests that in assigning blame for the lower IQ scores they found, the authors of that study may themselves have gotten caught in a haze of confusion. Social and economic disadvantage in youth - a factor that predisposes kids to early marijuana use as well as to adult lives that suppress intelligence scores - may explain the earlier findings, asserts a Norwegian economist writing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ole Rogeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, Norway, pored over the August marijuana study in search of an alternative explanation for the pot smokers' loss of intelligence in adulthood. "Simulation results suggest that (socioeconomic status-related) cognitive decline is sufficient to reproduce" the results found in the early research, he wrote. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom