Research Confirms Marijuana and Alcohol Use Associated with Lower Grades, Poor Academic Performance

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A new research confirms that alcohol and marijuana use is associated with declined grades, bad school performance and struggles in finding and keeping good jobs. The recent study scrutinizes the grade point averages (GPAs) of U.S. students who are engaged in alcohol and marijuana use but are likely to academically excel.

As reported by Reuters, the researchers monitored 1,142 college freshmen from Connecticut. They asked each participant according to their monthly alcohol and marijuana use. Other essential questions include how many days in a month they smoked weed or drank and the number of alcoholic drinks they consumed every occasion.

The students were grouped into three: those who used little or never used either marijuana or alcohol; those who drank a lot but didn't smoke much weed; and heavy users of both substances.

In the first semester, the group with students who drank a lot but didn't smoke much pot got lower grades. But eventually, they managed to reach the same grades with the group who used little or never used either of the substances mentioned.

While the heavy drinkers got an average GPA of 3.03, the group of sober students acquired an average GPA of 3.1. Nevertheless, grades continuously declined for the heavy down to an average GPA of 2.66. Yet, on the bright side, participants from the third group were able to enhance their performance and improve their grades eventually when they opted to control their alcohol and marijuana intake, Daily Mail stated.

According to the Inside Higher Ed, the research's senior author and Yale psychiatry and neuroscience professor Godfrey Pearlson claimed that both alcohol and marijuana use can lead to several outcomes on student academic accomplishment.

He also asserted that the time spent with friends who drink heavily and smoke weed is a time you didn't spend studying, which directly affects one's academic performance. He even added the harmful effects of marijuana smoking, which include impaired concentration and physical work.

An individual is likely to feel less stimulated to study when using marijuana. But the effects are reversible once controlled, just like what happened to those students from the third group whose grades began to improve.