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New research suggests that a high childhood IQ may be linked to subsequent illegal drug use.
Researchers studied data from 8,000 people in the 1970 British Cohort Study, which is a large ongoing population based study.
The IQ scores of the participants were measured at the ages of 5 and 10 years by using a validated scale, and then the information that was gathered on self reported levels of psychological distress and drug use at the ages of 16 and 30.
The team found that about a third of men and a sixth of women had used marijuana by the age of 30, while 8.5 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 other drugs, with overall drug use being twice as common among men as among women.
The analysis showed that 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.
