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November 14th, 2011
06:30 PM ET
High IQ linked to drug useThe "Just Say No" generation was often told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn't use drugs. Turns out, the adults may have been wrong. A new British study finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children. The data come from the 1970 British Cohort Study, which has been following thousands of people over decades. The kids' IQs were tested at the ages of 5, 10 and 16. The study also asked about drug use and looked at education and other socioeconomic factors. Then when participants turned 30, they were asked whether they had used drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin in the past year. The lead researcher says he isn't surprised by the findings. "Previous research found for the most part people with high IQs lead a healthy life, but that they are more likely to drink to excess as adults," says James White a psychologist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. It's not clear why people with high childhood IQs are more likely to use illegal drugs. "We suspect they may be more open to new experiences and are more sensation seeking," says White. In the paper, White and his co-author also mention other studies that find high IQ kids may use drugs because they are bored or to cope with being different. That seems to ring true for one of my childhood classmates. Tracey Helton Mitchell was one of the smartest kids in my middle school. But, by the time she was in her early 20's, Tracey was a heroin addict. I found out while flipping channels one sleepless night and stumbled upon the documentary "Black Tar Heroin." "I was confident in my abilities but there was a dissonance," says Tracey, with whom I recently reconnected. "No matter what I did, what I said, where I went, I was never comfortable with the shell I carried called myself."
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Smart people get bored.
I used to do a lot of drugs and some would consider me smart, 1320 SAT, ~30 ACT, dont remember was smoking pot regularly then, ~4.0 High School, but drugs destroyed my brain, I get laughed at on a regular basis in college courses now for being slow to catch up on things and i have been sober for 2+ years, I was literally one of the sharpest tools in the shed at one point in my younger years. The reason smart people use drugs more frequently is because they are usually the first to question any rules out there, while dumb folks will follow rules blindly. The VERY smart ones (not me), tend to stay away from drugs altogether because they value their brain
As someone with an IQ of 162, I agree. Most people bore me to death.
Zach – It's not that the drugs made you dumb. It's that 90%+ of high schools don't challenge people with above average IQ's, while as Universities do. Also, standardized testing does not equal intelligence. If you're in a college with any kind of good professors they will scoff at standardized testing, and if you can't learn through the Socratic method then school obviously failed you.
i find it ironic that you are bragging about your intelligence but misused the word literally in such a foolish manner
Ask every 4 year old if they can dance...they all dance around the room. Ask them if they can sing...oh I sing the best and off they go. Ask every 4 year old if they can draw or paint...who can't? Ask these same kinds in 3 short years and 90% of them will respond the opposite. Smart people realize sooner how F$$$ed up they are because of the society they are raised in. They realize how unhappy everyone around them are. Drugs provide a false feeling that everything is under your control. This is not news...we've known this for 50 years
You are RETARDED.
Just what we need. Some other person or group of people stating or beleiving that their must be something wrong with us because we think differently. Will they ever grow up and stop slandering or blaming the smart kids, because they don't uderstand. Its not our fault or shortcoming. Its theirs. Years of trying to soothe their inadeqaucy fears and its still nothing but more of the same "How doe we bring those that have worked harder and know more than us down". Oh lets try the "they're all drug addicts approch", like we did with OWS or at least plant that idea even if we didn't explicity say it.
Dumb people are always on vacation and enjoying fun,smart people need to use drugs to dumb down and feel good.
I pray to God that you are just trolling on purpose....if not....sighs* (maybe youre just 15yo)
Many here have had similar experiences to myself growing up. At 47, this is the first real discussion I have witnessed on this topic. I think more should be done to help those youngsters facing the same dilemma now. Public school actually contributes to drug use in these situations.
I would propose a national/international association that facilitates dialogue of this sort, to prevent multi-generational grief.
What on earth does any of that mean? And how can you suggest public schools have anything to do with it?
Well there is a big difference in drug use and drug adiction..... Higher IQ are users not addicts. Users can leave drugs when they want because they understand the word responsability, they study, have jobs and support their habbits while they use it..... Drug adicts steal from their own mothers, kill, etc they are leaches of society
They under stand 'repsonsability', eh? Not to be confused with responsibility.
The truth is more likely to be; a whole constellation of reasons why someone with a high IQ (which is the measurement along only a very few – easily quantified – axes of human intelligence) may be predisposed to drug use. No standardized IQ test I am aware of tests 'willpower', there are a variety of ways of measuring demonstrations of willpower, but no Stanford-Binet equivalent. (Again, of which I am aware. I am a physicist, not a psychiatrist.)
Moreover the notion that addiction is entirely 'choice based', and that those in possession of high standardized IQs are also possessed of increased facility to overcome psychological and/or neurochemical addiction, is positively primeval. Psychological addiction has more to do with neurotic behavior and neurotic personalities. Neurochemical addiction has more to do with altering the mechanics of the brain, usually the reward or pain centers, to the point that the brain or body loses function without the introduced chemical.
Anyways, I don't normally post on here, but I think your opinion about the science of addiction is dated and dangerous.
consuming drugs is the fastest way to release stress. Are all the higher IQs people will more likely choosing the faster solution? but with a bad consequence?
Just like MS below. Smart people see things for what it is. No Illusions. Average people, without realizing it, use ignorance as optimism and think realism is only pessimism.
Smart people often need the drugs when they look around and see how messed up everything is.
lol very true
too true. Not just that, but how helpless to make it any different any of us really are.
Yes, and it's the junkies who got high, voted for Obama, putting this country into a tail spin, and proceeded to 'occupy' people who chose NOT to ruin their own lives. Nothing 'intelligent' about that, is there? Oh, wait. You guys can't answer that.
I don't know. I scored a 164 on an IQ test taken in high school. I also made a perfect score on the ACT exam. Always made good grades in school without ever studying. According to this, I should probably be addicted to every known drug out there. Aside from a few drinks every year, I don't even come close to drugs. Never smoked. Never tried any illegal drugs. Don't even like to take prescription or OTC meds. But, I agree that we do get bored easily and we get frustrated on a daily basis from dealing with people.
You didn't score 164.
Teri, How can you be so smart and yet make one of the most basic logic blunders. The article said that 30 year old British people with high IQs were twice as likely to have used drugs in the past year as 30 year old British people with low IQs. And despite your high IQ, you twisted that statistic into "According to this, I should probably be addicted to every known drug out there." That is just plain pathetic. I hope you enjoyed this opportunity to brag about your IQ score (although I also suggest you take another one now, just for fun) and your ACT score. Now in your free time you can read a basic statistics book and an Intro to Logic text and see if you can do better next time.
Not with that grammar you didn't...
If you scored 164, what am I thinking right now?
Hey Teri, if you were as smart as you say you would realize the massive error in using a single persons empirical evidence to discredit a several decade long study involving thousands of people.
Yeah, if you had a 164 IQ, you would know that this:
"According to this, I should probably be addicted to every known drug out there."
Is not what the article or study is saying. At all.
If you were half as smart as you claim you are, you would understand the difference between statistical correlation and counter-examples. 164 my a$$. You just sound pompous and insecure.
I'm cracking up at how this self-proclaimed genius got flamed–by multiple replies–for bragging while simultaneously getting caught in a ridiculous logical blunder. It doesn't take a statistician to know that this person is FOS.
1+64...that's the score you're thinking about.
only a handfull of people in the word (less then 1000) have made that number. and i really don't think you are one of them
The IQ test scale only goes to 150. Are you sure your test result wasn't 146? In addition, you used the reductio ad absurdum logical fallacy in response to a clear statement: you're equating the *increased probability* of an event with a 100% probability. So, instead of assuming that you'd go from an 18% probability of using drugs to a 27% percent probability, you assumed that any increase in probability would mean you were guaranteed to have a 100% probability of not only using drugs, but using *all* drugs – a clearly absurd and unwarranted assumption.
There's 3 main reasons,
1) While sitting in class it gets pretty boring waiting on everyone else to figure out what's going on. Homework isn't required to learn what's being studied so we end up with free time on our hands and no real need to remain sober.
2) Curiosity. While we sit around waiting on a system built for the less fortunate we wonder, "Why shouldn't we do that? What is it like?"
3) I forgot where I was going with this...oh yeah, we enjoy the challange of a level playing field.
Best post I've read all year!
Bravo!!!!
First, you say "we" as if your claiming to part of this group of extraordinary IQs. Second, according to my calculations your "challange" should be spelled "challenge". FAIL. Geniuses proofread.
Genius, that would be "There are 3 Main Reasons" the verb needs to match the subject (3 is plural)
The last two paragraphs completely ruin the journalistic integrity of the article. We don't care about your friend–her experience is hardly a statistical proof of the study.
Ok Pot sure it may or may not be true but, if you are truly smart your not going to touch coke or heroin which will eventually destroy your life.
One explanation could be that people with higher IQ scores may have a tendancy to think more about what the meaning of life may be, other than what their parents or clergy may have told them. Once they are open to the possibility that there is no purpose to life other than what you want it to be, some people deal with the void by numbing their minds. Some kill themselves when stress is too high, others retreat into fantasy, people can deal with it through "legal" distractions or work, and a few lucky ones are truly OK with the nature of existence and thrive in the uncertainty.
Say whaaaa?
Brains has nothing to do with rug or alcohol use...
...most people with addictive personalities are ADHD, so they obsess, and overuse drugs or alcohol when they do use and drink, otherwise...same old same old...
The IQ test is really flawed. So I wouldn't think that would be the best guideline for a study.
Besides that, I would look to see how many in this study were depressed. This just grabs headlines because it is an interesting result. It may not even be the data point with the highest correlation. (Which does not mean causation.)
"The IQ test is really flawed..."
That's what they tell the stupid kids so they will feel better about themselves. I'm just sayin...
my IQ is "high."
ha ha! That's funny! You are a smartie!!
I don't know if I'd recommend LSD. While I did completely understand that Matter is subject to perception and the planet was in pain from toxins, I also thought a 6' pink bunny rabbit was stalking me. I found it all kind of scary to be honest and only ever smoke MJ. I wouldn't even try anything harder after trying LSD once (and never again).
MJ helps a lot with anxiety and isn't as addictive as a lot of prescription medicaitons. It also helps with obsessing behavior. Not OCD but just over thinnking something to the point its causing you undue stress. It lets you move on to other, healthier, thoughts.
I do feel guilty about relying on MJ though and think I drink too much too. Its a self-care issue. Too bad gov'ts didn't spend as much money on helping people find alternative methods to deal with mental health issues as they do the war on drugs.
I score 140 on IQ Tests. No drugs, no smokes, drinks light as additions to meals. Wouldn't really consider an IQ of 107 being "high". I would consider an IQ of 100 as being low, even as an average.
If you had 140 you wouldnt be on CNN.
This is BS...Somebody's idea of a case study so they can smoke weed and not feel like they are an idiot...Smoking weed and drinking should be done only as a reward for having worked hard over a long period of time, not everyday when you get off work...
Considering that this is part of a large longitudinal cohort study... which is a far more advanced design than a case study... the correlation is interesting and worth replicating in other populations.
correlation does not equal causation. that's all i need to say.
No shiite sheerlock.
Could it be because intelligence is treated like an abnormality, instead of something that should be harnessed? After years of wasting away bored in a classroom, you may wonder what ELSE they have told you that was untrue. Maybe something would bring you down to the "normal" thinking. You don't fit it with the pure geniuses, but you're 35 points above "average". Like a bat, you're neither beast nor bird. Drugs serve as a great equalizer.
When people stop confusing 'pretentious' with 'intelligent', then it ceases to become an abnormality.
Maybe because people with High IQ end up making more money, and drugs are expensive?
This is absolutely true in my experience. My straight-arrow friends aren't very interesting and pretty dumb in general. They cannot even understand the difference between a time-dependent Schrödinger equation and a non-time dependent Schrödinger equation sober, LOL. Whenever we get stoned I completely stop trying.
*I
Trust me, the doobie in the box is dead. Take it out and Lazarus that bad puppy.
You obviously just started using. Give it a couple of years, and you'll be having problems with simple algebraic equations. While your "boring" friends are becoming highly successful in life, you're pondering things that you have no idea how to apply practical application to. In fact, reality will become blurred. Before you know it, life has already passed you by. Fortunately for you, you're not yet to the point where it's stopped becoming "fun". How do I know? Because you're still in the arrogance stage. There's a reason we equate 'pot heads' to 'dumb people'. Give it some more time.
@Derrique Stuckey Been smoking and doing acid for close to 20 years, little man. I am successful, have great kids and a great wife. I am rich for all intents and purposes. For you to throw your story up, and pretend you know what you're talking about is that pretentious thing you spoke of previously. You don't know ANYTHING, but obviously have yourself fooled into thinking you do. Your little illusions can come crashing down as quickly as they were built. I don't wish it upon you, but nothing makes for a better riches to rags story than a pompous buffoon and his narrow mind being served a little humility.
This study must be biased in favor of pot smokers. It is not called the "philosopher's drug" for nothing. It mellows people out and helps them to put very vivid images in their mind together with words and music. It helps you REALLY understand what a song, show, or movie is REALLY about, not to mention helping you in the conjuring of new ideas, lyrics, and plotlines. It helps you foooocus in a mellooooow way. Alcoholics just go with the flow without thinking, but potheads are the ones that will say "Hey, I don't think that is right, but maybe THIS is!" Uncle Sam don't want people THINKING and QUESTIONING things. I live in a tourist economy where there are a LOT of artists of all different types, many of them very successful and wealthy. Guess what drug they ALL do? Marijuana.
Me smart monkey. Me go banana. Now space monkey. Got beer? Hi other monkeys!
stupid people do what other stupid people tell them to do. smart people, such as myself, like to experience things on their own and don't listen to stupid people. stupid people are boring and are the downfall of society. why you ask? because stupid people breed more than smart people...we are too buys taking drugs and having a good time.
Easiest way to deal with all the dumb people? Make yourself their equals
...as i misspell my words...lol
You also forgot to capitalize the words at the beginning of your sentences.
Ignorance is bliss, and those with superior intellect get bored with monotony. Movies and TV shows are predictable, and neither funny nor educational. They can see that life on Earth is not what it used to be. It has passed the pinnacle of humanity and is on a downward spiral towards idiocracy. Smart people don't want to be hindered with this information 24/7, and therefore seek out drugs as a cerebral escape from their own conscious'.
Drugs can be mind-expanding... especially entheogens and exotic hallucinogens. Intelligent people want to know more.......and want to feel more. This society and mundane daily life is can be very limited. To be alive is to search for more meaning and taste deeper understanding.
I open a beer at a job interview and they look at me like I'm an idiot. Next time, I'm taking my crack pipe and show them what a high IQ I have.
If you have any trouble understanding this, simply imagine what it would be like if people with an IQ of 70 made up the majority of our population. With <70 being considered mildly retarded, and the average (majority) at 100, it's not too hard to extrapolate that dealing with average people drives those in the 130s to drugs. The only way to relate is to meet them on their level, by dulling the mind.
What are you talking about? It seems that a majority of people have an IQ of 70. Sure, 100 may have been the average at one point, but I'm pretty sure years of crap television and the idiot explosion in reproduction has brought that number down rapidly.
Smoking pot makes it easier to deal with people that have miraculously managed to "Forest Gump" their way through life. When I'm high I'm not thinking about how much I despise the other person and wondering how they've survived with the mental acuity of a jar of mayonnaise.
if you're IQ is 130+ everyone else on average is more or less a retard compared to you. drugs help tolerate living in a sea of retardation
Smart people are curious and curious people seem to be smart.
The Smarter kids Grew up in A Better Enviorment and Wasn't Around Drugs! Once They Got from Under Their Parents Wings, They Couldn't Stay out The Projects And now Buying Dope From The Less Smarter Than Them Dope Dealers!
If you capitalize enough words, it makes it true!
What a dumb piece of sensational article. High IQ is neither a measure of success in family life nor personal life, now it is just a quality of drug use, I am glad to be dumb. The good thing about these IQ'ed people is they do not run or abuse the society for money, they are more greener than these dumb capitalists.
Steve Jobs did acid and now this is a story. Very sad.
acid was controlled before it could even be studied well. it makes people more open. its a psychadelic.. nothing like the other drugs. it has so much to teach responsible people.. its a blessing for the human race. psychadelics need to be explored... they are a infinite source of wisdom. why cant you learn that? ... just call it all drugs and frown... thanks for being another un educated fear based robot.
Uneducated is one word you scholar. Have gone to college and experimented with my fair share. You missed the point.
Great. Now all the idiot pot heads are going to see this as validation for their asinine belief that they really are smarter and more sophisticated than everyone else, without really understanding the research or its implications.
Yes, pot heads theorize things that could only possibly make sense to THEM, because they're high. Naturally, one feels superior, when constructing his or her own world.
In a nutshell. Dumb people are usually poor. Smart people are generally wealthy. Drugs like heroine and cocaine cost a lot of money, the results shouldn't surprising.
"Just say NO". Smarter people are more likely to ask "why?". They are more likely to ask questions and find their own answers. They are more likely to question authority.
It's because we get bored and need something to entertain us. The mind keeps going and needs more, so we reach out.
The last paragraph in the article pegs it for me perfectly.
The war on drugs is the biggest war on the American people in history. People of all IQ's are smart enough to realize that the government should stop this prohibition and war on the American people $70,000,000,000 is wasted on the war on drugs. The reason smart people do drugs is they realize the hypocrisy of this outdated prohibition.
thanks george. your comment shows that you have an open mind. yr words give me hope for the human race. i hope many come to understand.. we need it
People with higher IQs are more likely to take drugs because they can probably afford it.
Let's all be honest here – there are a lot of smart individuals among all societal classes, but the people who would score well on these IQ tests are more likely to have had good schooling. Good schooling means they probably came from good homes and/or affluent families. Good homes/affluent families will likely have more disposable income than the average family. Money equals opportunity. Having grown up around a bunch of relatively affluent communities, I knew/heard about plenty of kids from rich families that spent their parents money on drugs.
intelligence isn't how smart you are(how much you know), but rather how you use what you know. However great or little that amount is.
"It's not clear why people with high childhood IQs are more likely to use illegal drugs."
Well duh! Its because the smart ones are socially outcast in a school system that glorifies sports or cliquish popularity contests. When the schools start glorifying .... Academics... then we, us, them and the nation will be better off.
This author is an idiot. She talks as if drug addicts are caused by drugs. Addicts will abuse anything. Drugs are not the cause of addiction they are an inert object. Many people enjoy drugs recreationally and are able to manage all aspects of their lives. What a doofus the author of this article is. She tries to take a small incident from her youth and apply it to smart people. Legalize all drugs, that is the high IQ decision. Quit wasting resources on a failed prohibition.
Yes, and this is why you're out in the freezing cold, protesting, and I'm inside, warm, drinking a beer after work.
D.G. – I like how you think that alcohol isn't a drug. Much less a poison.
It may have started that way, but I've known quite a few stoners in my day that weren't the sharpest tool in the shed!
Everybody is much more intelligent BEFORE they start using. Talk to these "smart" people 5 years later, and see what you're left with. Naturally, the author of this article doesn't seem to have much of an IQ, because this report is completely pointless.
I'd bet you don't have a lot of experience, but you have lots of opinion. I'm sure that will take you far in life.
@bluh – I'm 32 years old and five years from retirement. I've EARNED my opinion.
Well congrats. Now for a big "who cares!?!?!" Pat yourself on the back there big dog. I guess you're just smarter than everybody else. Or daddy got you a good job at the firm and helped you through school. I'm banking on the latter.
First, kudos to @Gwenn G.; loved your comment, "when you're smart, you're made to feel as if you are somehow wrong all the time." I have an IQ of 148, two BAs and a law degree, and, NO, I did not get them by virtue of my "station" in life, I got them AFTER a bad divorce, while raising an infant, a toddler, and working two jobs, while carrying full credit-hour loads at school. And guess who couldn't get a date, despite being very, very attractive?! Or, even indulging in a drink at a bar, overhearing a conversation next to me about the stock market, I commented, "Well, it behooves us to bear in mind the stock market is preducated largely on psychology. I mean, what else can explain a bull market steadfastly hovering at 10 to 12,000 in the economy of the past decade?" SILENCE. (Gee, fellas, was it something I *said*?). Meanwhile, some foot-dragged at the other end of the bar, who's probably got more seafood on board than Red Lobster on Saturday night, has a gaggle of men hanging off of her, as she points to the football game on the big-screen TV and says, "Now, what do you call the cute guy who throws the ball, again? The 'what-back?'". Not even decent-looking, clearly has not bathed. But SHE will always be acceptable, and I will always be shunned. We often drink or drug to escape the ISOLATION our intelects, education, gender, natural desire to discuss and debate with others, to be accepted for who we are. Gimme a double.
Were I single I would not shun you, and I would understand precisely where you are coming from. Being married, happily and respectful of my wife, I would hope to befriend someone of your caliber. I so much despise being stuck in a society where minimalists get the rewards and those of us who make things happen get to support the deadbeats through taxation. One of my greatest pleasures in by finding ways to "legally" pay as little as possible in taxes, then give a tax auditor a lot of grief through my CPA and finance attorney during an "investigation" as she/he burns precious resources trying to prove I owe more than I paid. Everything else is boring other than those challenges in business I manage to glean out and pursue, then the idiots come out playing, "me too", and tear along in this "new way of doing things", as I go on looking for something else to have fun with in life after plundering opportunities where I can.