Researchers: “Lazy Stoner” Stereotype NOT Supported by Evidence

“Lazy stoner” NO MORE!

UK Researchers Find Cannabis Abstainers LESS Motivated Than Cannabis Consumers

—>This is NOT A JOKE!<—

Ms Martine Skumlien is a PhD student in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Her research centers around the impact of regular cannabis use on brain and cognition, with a particular emphasis on use in adolescence, in which she utilizes behavioral data along with fMRI in her work.

Ms. Martine Skumlien, MRes, is a researcher affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK -and- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK, and was lead researcher of a team of 16 that recently published their findings in the 14 August 2022 edition of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.

In the research entitled “Anhedonia, apathy, pleasure, and effort-based decision-making in adult and adolescent cannabis users and controls,” [also at: International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, pyac056, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijnp/pyac056] the results showed that non-cannabis users “had higher levels of anhedonia than cannabis users.” Anhedonia is the clinical term referring to the inability to feel or experience pleasure.

In their conclusion, the researchers wrote, “Our results suggest that cannabis use at a frequency of three to four days per week is not associated with apathy, effort-based decision-making for reward, reward wanting, or reward liking in adults or adolescents. Cannabis users had lower anhedonia than controls, albeit at a small effect size. These findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that non-acute cannabis use is associated with amotivation.”

READ THAT LAST LINE AGAIN:

“These findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that non-acute cannabis use is associated with amotivation.”

Also referred to as “avolition,” amotivation is a lack of motivation or reduced drive to complete goal-directed activities.

In other words, the researchers found that individuals who did NOT use cannabis (referred to as “controls,” or the “control group”), had GREATER instances of lower motivation than those who did consume cannabis.

To be part of the control group participants had to have “used cannabis or tobacco at least once, but less than 10 lifetime uses of cannabis; and having no cannabis use in the month prior to the baseline session.”

Further, to ensure that the control group did not have any unsuspected surprises, or outliers that may have influenced or skewed the data and findings, individuals who had taken any psychotropic medication on a daily basis, had in the past-month received treatment for a mental health condition (including cannabis dependence), or used of any one illicit drug more than twice per month over the past three months were excluded.

Everyone who participated in the study gave their written, informed consent to do so.

Further, “the study was approved by the University College London ethics committee, project ID 5929/003, and conducted in line with the Declaration of Helsinki.”

The researchers found that “There was no correlation between anhedonia and cannabis use frequency.”

They further found that “Cannabis users had significantly lower levels of anhedonia than controls. In summary, the hypothesis that non-acute cannabis use is associated with reward processing impairments was not supported.”

Participants used cannabis on average four days per week (similarly to other studies) and frequency of use did not correlate with apathy or anhedonia.

Researchers also found that that cannabis consumers typically abstained from consumption at least 12 hours, and more often 2 days, which minimized any residual effects of recent cannabis use.

The research team also noted that “the three most recent studies [found] a positive association between cannabis use and willingness to expend effort for reward.” In other words, participants who were MORE willing to put forth effort (had more motivation) were more likely to have consumed cannabis than those who did not (members of the control group). In response to those findings, the team wrote that “our results suggest that cannabis use is not associated with reduced subjective wanting or liking of food, money, and music rewards.”

Regarding cannabis consumption by teens and adults, and any differences between the two age groups, they found that generally, “adolescents had higher anhedonia and apathy compared with adults,” but that cannabis consumption was not not the cause that difference, and that the frequency of consumption was similar in teens and adults.

The research team also noted that large-scale studies done earlier studying adolescents did not find any association between cannabis consumption and apathy, nor any increased risk for apathy when compared to adults, and specifically noted that “our study is the first to directly compare adolescent and adult cannabis users in the same study.”

They further clarified that “our results, together with previous evidence, suggest that adolescents are not at a greater vulnerability to cannabis-related apathy, disrupted effort-based decision-making, or blunted reward wanting or liking compared to adults,” but noted that long-term studies would be needed to make any confirmation.

Regarding any widely-made claims made that cannabis consumption was harmful to the brain, the research team found that among their research participants, there was no significant differences in adults or adolescents for depression, anxiety, or psychotic-like symptoms, verbal episodic memory, spatial working memory, or response inhibition.” Those are significant findings.

The researchers made specific effort to note that their research and its findings were not the “be-all, end-all” to questions surrounding cannabis consumption in adults and adolescents, and stated so several times throughout the 40 pages of their research.

They concluded that, “non-acute cannabis use at a moderate frequency of on average four days per week was not linked with disrupted reward processing in either adults or adolescents,” that “adolescents were not at greater vulnerability to effects of cannabis on the assessed reward processing outcome,” and that “evidence does not support an amotivational syndrome in cannabis users non-acutely, despite persistent “stoner” stereotypes.”

“Our findings should help to reduce stigma experienced by people who use cannabis by further dispelling claims of the “amotivational syndrome,” which increasingly appears lacking in scientific support.”