Health & Medicine - Posted by Christopher Jones-Cardiff on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 7:50 - 4 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...High IQ in girls tied to adult drug use
While it is not clear exactly why there is a link between high IQ and illicit drug use, research shows that people with a high IQ are more open to new experiences and keen on novelty and stimulation. (Credit: iStockphoto)
CARDIFF U. (UK) — Girls with high childhood IQs are more than twice as likely to take illegal drugs in their 30s, a new study shows.
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Researchers examined data from just under 8,000 people in the 1970 British Cohort Study, a large ongoing population-based study, which looks at lifetime drug use, socioeconomic factors, and educational attainment.
The IQ scores of the participants were measured at the ages of 5 and 10 years, using validated scales. Information was gathered on self-reported levels of psychological distress and drug use at the age of 16, and again at the age of 30.
Drugs assessed at 16 included cannabis and cocaine; and at 30 included cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, and ecstasy.
By the age of 30, around one in three men (35.4 percent) and one in six women (15.9 percent) had used cannabis, while 8.6 percent of men and 3.6 percent of women had used cocaine, in the previous 12 months. A similar pattern of use was found for the other drugs, with overall drug use twice as common among men as among women.
Men with high IQ scores at the age of 5 were around 50 percent more likely to have used amphetamines, ecstasy, and several illicit drugs than those with low scores, 25 years later.
The link was even stronger among women, who were more than twice as likely to have used cannabis and cocaine as those with low IQ scores. The same associations emerged between a high IQ score at the age of 10 and subsequent use of cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines, and cocaine, although this was only evident at the age of 30.
“Although most studies suggest that higher child or adolescent IQ prompts the adoption of a healthy lifestyle as an adult, other studies have linked higher childhood IQ scores to excess alcohol intake and alcohol dependency in adulthood,” says James White from the Center for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement at Cardiff University in a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
“Although it is not yet clear exactly why there should be a link between high IQ and illicit drug use, previous research has shown that people with a high IQ are more open to new experiences and keen on novelty and stimulation.
“There is a clear need for future epidemiological and experimental studies to explore these and other pathways.”
Recognized risk factors for drug use, such as, levels of anxiety/depression during adolescence, parental social class, level of education, social class at age 30 and monthly income were all taken into account during analysis of the study’s findings.
More news from Cardiff University: www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/
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4 Comments
Jillian Galloway
Jacob
Every time I read this title, it seems like the title is making a fallacy argument. “High IQ in girls tied to adult drug use” is misleading. “Girls with high IQs more likely to have adult drug use” seems more apt. Suggesting that high IQ is tied to adult drug use seems to suggest that using drugs in your 30s gives you a higher IQ.
Patrick Emmett
I would be interested in data indicating whether there is any connection between high IQ, adult drug use, and any subsequent awareness, resulting from high IQ, of the dissonance between society’s stated ideals and the actuality of life as lived. In other words, people with higher IQs might be more aware of how fucked up our social systems are and feel a need to drown out this consciousness.
Monty H.
Yes, stated ideals — perhaps females with a high IQ experience failure (including perceived failure) at a lower threshold and with more intensity? If you have an ” average” IQ or lower, expectations fall at a certain level (lower than a peer with a high IQ) so any achievement perceived as being greater than expected gets positive feedback. However, someone who is expected to achieve on a consistently high level (and so gets little positive feedback for that, since it’s expected) may get more negative feedback for their failures. This could lead to substance abuse due to depression ?
This makes sense. Wild animals can be observed going out of their way to ingest substances that they know will get them high. If elephants, cats and caribou are doing it then you know that the ancestors of human beings were also doing it way before we came down from the trees. We have *always* sought out altered states of consciousness – it’s as normal a part of being human as our drives for sex, shelter and food.