It’s not good for you if you’re still smoking pot at 30.
Around the world, people are slowly getting used to marijuana. The plant is becoming more and more popular among people, whether they use it for medical reasons, to calm down, or for fun. There is, however, a new study that questions whether or not it is useful for adults. In particular, adults aged 30 and up. This means that people in this group might want to think about giving up the habit.
It might not be a good idea to smoke pot after 30.
Are you at least 30 years old and do you like smoking joints sometimes or all the time? Well, research done in Australia says you might want to stop the habit. They looked at how marijuana users’ lives turned out, and for adults over 30, the news wasn’t good.
An academic group from The University of Queensland looked at what are called “success outcomes” for people who use both amphetamines and marijuana. They looked at information about drug use from more than 8,000 moms and 2,000 kids between the ages of 21 and 30. The team found that use led to lower success rates based on nine different factors, such as
Learning
Earnings
Having a home
Status of a relationship
Said they were happy
What’s more important is that these lower success rates only happened to people who kept smoking pot after they turned 30.
Problems with the Study
Don’t get too upset if you think you have to quit by age 30 or that you should have already. Several problems with this study make it possible that their results may or may not really be useful.
- Weird Data
The first is that this data comes from Australia and is made up of only mothers who are women. Plus, it’s very local, so it might not do a good job of showing other countries. A few of the records go all the way back to 1981. Of course, this might not be true for today’s modern, global population.
- Signs of Success
There is also the matter of what criteria they have used to decide if someone is successful. For instance, owning a home and being in a relationship are two markers. These both have a lot to do with geography and culture. If you want to own a home, it depends on your personal goals and where you live, not on how successful you are. Whether you have a family or have to decide to put down roots in a place also plays a role. Being a homeowner does not always mean you are successful, especially with the rise of the digital nomad lifestyle.
When you think about what it means to be successful, relationship status is another tricky one. This could also be affected by a lot of different cultures and places. There are, after all, a lot of successful single people in the world, and a lot of pairs that are having problems in many other areas of their lives. You may value being in a relationship, so it may be an important part of your personal life success. But that doesn’t mean that everyone will be successful.
- Using other drugs
Also, the study didn’t check to see if the people who were labeled as “highly unsuccessful” used other drugs along with marijuana and/or amphetamines.
In their paper, the researchers said, “We do not have enough information on other illegal drugs that may be being used, such as ecstasy, opiates, and even synthetic drugs.” “Some people who use cannabis and amphetamines may also use a number of other drugs, and it’s possible that our results are more indicative of drug use in general than of the use of cannabis and amphetamines in particular.”
What Does This Mean For You?
For the record, the study shows that trying drugs a few times as a teen doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have a failed adult life. What it does mean, though, is that you should watch out that it doesn’t turn into something you need as an adult. Some adults may have trouble with their work, their relationships, and their ability to keep their life stable if they use drugs like marijuana too much.
So feel free to smoke pot if you want to. Make sure it doesn’t take over your life and don’t do too much of it. If the habit is making you unmotivated, costing you too much money, or getting in the way of your work or personal duties, you might want to give it up.