Srinagar, Nov 26: A study has revealed that long term
use of cannabis affects cognitive functions and can cause
severe dysfunction in working memory.
The study conducted by Zoya Mir, a noted clinical
Psychologist along with Dr Yasir Rather Professor,
Department of Psychiatry (IMHANS) GMC Srinagar to
understand the cognitive functioning of people who smoke
cannabis has revealed that it can give short term relief but
affects cognitive functions.
The study has revealed that cannabis affects the
visuospatial processing of an individual and hence
affecting them while driving a vehicle.
It also said that cannabis affects the inhibition function and
cognitive flexibility, the two core executive functions meant
for planning and decision making.
“So people who use cannabis will have difficulty in
controlling their impulses and will have impaired decision
making. This impairment affects their daily life, their
personal, social as well as academic or occupational life
without them even noticing it,” Zoya said.
Also, she said that use of cannabis results in mild
impairment on mental flexibility, set shifting and attention
while on recent and remote memory no dysfunction was
seen in the majority of the participants.
"Our study findings suggested severe impairments in
working memory, attention and concentration ability,
learning new information, visual and verbal memory, '' she
said.
A very common myth among youngsters is that cannabis
doesn't affect our cognition and it isn't addictive. But the
research doesn't approve it,” she told.
Majority of patients with Cannabis Dependence Syndrome
(78%) lived in nuclear families and this could have a
possible explanation because urban areas tend to have
more nuclear families with both parents working, higher
socio-economic status which somewhere puts children off
the radar of regular supervision and being alone. “So,
children of such families are more prone to use cannabis.
Around 98% of people using cannabis were unmarried
which indicates that the unmarried population were more
inclined towards using substances,” Mir said.
