Studies suggest youth who use cannabis have lower grades, more likely to drop out
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Key takeaways:
- Teens who used cannabis were less likely to achieve A or B grades compared with non-cannabis users.
- Using cannabis more frequently or at a younger age exacerbated the effects.
Teens and young adults who used cannabis had lower grades and school attendance and were less likely to complete high school or college compared with their peers who did not use cannabis, according to recent findings.
“Adolescence and young adulthood are critical periods for brain development and increasing acceptance and legalization of cannabis have raised concerns about implications for academic performance,” Olsen Chan, BHSc, research team lead at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and a medical student at the University of Toronto, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Pediatrics. “Chronic use among adolescents has been linked to long-term changes in brain architecture, resulting in impaired information processing and decreased cognitive, memory and attentive capacity in adulthood.”
The systematic review and meta-analysis included 63 studies with 438,329 participants. Of 31 studies, the median average age of participants was 16 years (interquartile range [IQR], 15-20), and the proportion of girls and women was 52% (IQR, 48%-58%) in 47 studies. The researchers searched for associations between youth cannabis use and academic performance, absenteeism, high school completion or dropout, postsecondary education and unemployment.
Among 47 studies, 33% (95% CI, 25%-41%) of participants reported using cannabis at baseline.
Students who used cannabis were less likely to have A or B grades in school compared with nonusers (OR = 0.61; 95% CI, 0.52-0.71). Two studies showed that more frequent use was associated with lower grades. Students who used cannabis weekly or daily had lower odds of achieving A or B grades compared with those using cannabis less than weekly (OR = 0.58; 95% CI, 0.53-0.64 vs. OR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.69-0.75).
Absenteeism was also more common among cannabis users (OR = 2.31; 95% CI, 1.76-3.03), according to nine studies in the review. Students who used cannabis frequently had higher rates of absenteeism than less frequent users (OR = 6.2; 95% CI, 5.51-6.98 vs. OR = 3.1; 95% CI, 2.96-3.25).
Nine studies reported that cannabis use was associated with higher odds of dropping out of school (OR = 2.19; 95% CI, 1.73-2.78), and six studies showed the odds of completing high school were lower among cannabis users (OR = 0.5; 95% CI, 0.33-0.76), especially among students who began using cannabis at age 16 years or younger (OR = 0.42; 95% CI, 0.28-0.63).
Cannabis use also affected postsecondary education. Young adults who used cannabis were less likely to enroll in a university (OR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.6-0.87) or receive a postsecondary degree (OR = 0.69; 95% CI, 0.62-0.77).
The researchers found increased odds for unemployment among cannabis users, but the finding was based on low-certainty evidence, they said.
“This systematic review and meta-analysis found moderate-certainty evidence that cannabis use during adolescence and young adulthood is probably associated with increased school absenteeism and dropout and reduced likelihood of obtaining high academic grades, graduating high school, enrolling in university or postsecondary degree attainment,” the researchers wrote. “More frequent cannabis use and earlier onset were associated with worse academic outcomes.”
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