Cocaine use during adolescence is even more harmful than during adulthood

(Fundação de Amparo Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) Brazilian scientists found that addicts who began using cocaine before and after the age of 18 showed differences in sustained attention and working memory, among other brain functions. The research, made under controlled drug abstinence condition, measured cocaine's impact on more than a hundred drug users' cognition, and recommended multidisciplinary treatment for patients with an accentuated cognitive deficit.