Remember when the D.A.R.E. program brought police officers into classrooms to explain the dangers of acid’s gnarly rainbow zebra hallucinations? Well for one thing, I’m exaggerating. And another thing, acid doesn’t bring about hallucinations, but synesthesia. I’m no Timothy Leary child by the way.
Before I get lost in a thought cloud, a high IQ during childhood may be linked to illegal drug use, according to researchers who recently published their findings on the Journal of Epidemiology.
The authors based their findings on about 8,000 participants from an ongoing 1970 British Cohort Study by James White and G. David Batty. The longitudinal study looks at socioeconomic factors, educational attainment and lifetime drug use.
The participants’ IQ scores were taken at ages 5 and 10. The drug self-reports regarding illegal drugs from cocaine to LSD were given at ages 16 and 30.
I’m sure there were study dropouts and mortalities along the way. It’s been more than 40 years for crying out loud!
Perhaps those with higher IQ are more prone to novelty and stimulation, as we like to call our coming-of-age experimentation years. Apparently, those with higher IQs are easily bored and need to cope. It’s also good to keep in mind that the IQ rating scale is biased and doesn’t necessarily account for one’s intelligence, whether book or street smarts.
What happened to enrolling in after-school activities or afterschool SAT tutoring instead of meeting the back alley to visit Aunt Mary?
Then again, prescription drug spendings are also increasing. The study may only find a correlation, but as a whole, why are so many students dependent on study buddy speed aka Adderall? Why is our society addicted drugs?