大麻會在快感過后很久損害駕駛技能

大麻會在快感過后很久損害駕駛技能

Running red lights. Driving at high speeds. Crossing center lines into the opposite lanes. Getting into accidents -- even hitting pedestrians. A new study found these were some of the dangerous driving behaviors of regular, heavy users of recreational weed who began using before the age of 16.

闖紅燈。高速駕駛。穿過中線進入相反的車道。遭遇交通事故——甚至撞到行人。一項新的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些是16歲之前就開始吸食大麻的人的一些危險駕駛行為。

Here's the catch: users drove this badly even when they were no longer high.

問題是：吸食者即使在不在興奮的情況下也會把車開得這么差。

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, asked chronic, heavy marijuana users to drive in a customized driving simulator.

這項研究發(fā)表在周二的《藥物和酒精依賴》雜志上，要求長期大量吸食大麻的人在定制的駕駛模擬器中駕駛。

"Heavy use was defined by daily or near daily use, a minimum of four or five times a week, with a lifetime exposure of 1.500 times," said Staci Gruber, director of the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) program at McLean Hospital, the largest psychiatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.

哈佛醫(yī)學院最大的精神病學教學醫(yī)院麥克萊恩醫(yī)院大麻調(diào)查神經(jīng)科學發(fā)現(xiàn)項目主任斯塔奇·格魯伯說：“重度使用的定義是每天或幾乎每天使用，每周至少四五次，一生接觸1500次。”

The worst drivers? Those who began using regularly before age 16.

那些在16歲之前就開始經(jīng)常使用藥物的人是最糟糕的司機嗎?

"Prior to age 16. the brain is especially neurodevelopmentally vulnerable, not just to cannabis but to other drugs, alcohol, illness, injury," Gruber said.

格魯伯說:“在16歲之前，大腦在神經(jīng)發(fā)育方面特別脆弱，不僅是大麻，還有其他毒品、酒精、疾病和傷害。”

"And when we looked at the cannabis users and separated those into early (before age 16) versus later onset of use, almost exclusively these differences between the two groups were attributed to the early onset group," Gruber said. "So it's really early exposure to cannabis that appears to confer greater difficulty with complex cognitive tasks like driving."

格魯伯說：“當我們研究大麻使用者，并將他們分為早期(16歲之前)和較晚開始使用大麻兩組，兩組之間幾乎所有的這些差異都歸因于早發(fā)組。”“因此，早期接觸大麻似乎會增加駕車等復雜認知任務(wù)的難度。”

That wasn't a real surprise, said study co-author Mary Kathryn Dahlgren, a post-doctoral fellow at MIND.

研究報告的合著者、MIND的博士后瑪麗·凱瑟琳·達爾格倫說，這并不奇怪。

"Research has consistently shown that early substance use, including the use of cannabis, is associated with poorer cognitive performance," Dahlgren said, "specifically tasks controlled by the most frontal part of the brain, the part behind the eyebrows."

達爾格倫說:“研究一直表明，早期的藥物使用，包括大麻的使用，與較差的認知能力有關(guān)，特別是由大腦最前部控制的任務(wù)，即眉毛后面的部分。”

That's also the part of the brain that controls our impulses, a major factor in appropriate behavior choices.

這也是大腦控制我們沖動的部分，是做出適當行為選擇的主要因素。

"We've documented the role of impulsivity in cannabis users previously, and it does appear that earlier onset may confer a decreased ability to inhibit inappropriate responses," Gruber said, adding that science doesn't completely understand the relationship.

格魯伯說:“我們之前已經(jīng)證明了沖動在大麻使用者中所起的作用，而且似乎更早開始吸食大麻會降低他們抑制不當反應(yīng)的能力。”他還補充說，科學還沒有完全理解兩者之間的關(guān)系。

"What comes first? Is it these impulsivity differences that drive early cannabis use? Is it early cannabis use that drives impulsivity differences? That question really needs to be addressed in future longitudinal studies that look at these folks before they ever begin using cannabis."

Does this same concern apply to users of medicinal marijuana? Not at all, Gruber says.

“什么是首要原因?是這些沖動的不同導致了大麻的早期使用嗎?還是早期的大麻使用導致了沖動的不同?這個問題確實需要在未來的縱向研究中解決，在這些人開始使用大麻之前進行研究。”