A new study says that smoking marijuana is not as harmless as pot legalization proponents say. Dr. Daniel Amen, a traumatic brain injury expert and author of “Feel Better Fast and Make It last,” has collected 150,000 brain scans on people from 120 countries at his clinics.
“We just published a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease on 62,000 of those scans, looking at how the brain ages from 9-months to 105. Then we looked at what accelerates brain aging and schizophrenia was the worst, but what shocked us, the second-worst was if you had a diagnoses of marijuana use. It was worse than alcohol use. It was worse than smoking.”
The report showed that people who are heavy marijuana users had a significant lack of blood flow in the right hippocampus, the area of the brain that helps with memory formation.
“What we’ve noticed over the last 30 years is it just prematurely ages the brain.”
He says the increasing legalization of pot means it’s time to take a closer look at its affects.
“The idea that it’s good for you is something we should be thinking about.”
Dr. Amen was a guest on 790 KABC.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News