‘I feel sorry for the researcher,’ says Wageningen neuropsychologist Gerry Jager. ‘When I was at Utrecht I did a similar study on the impact of Ecstasy and cannabis on young people. There too, we found no effect for moderate use. But that is not what the public wants to hear. People get cross with you because they think drink and drugs are bad.’
What are the similarities between this study and yours?
We too concluded that there were no issues with young people who regularly smoke a joint but are otherwise healthy and problem-free. This kind of study will always include young people with concentration and behaviour problems at school, but they don’t necessarily have anything to do with alcohol or drugs. The alcohol use could also be related to another underlying cause.’
And ‘coma drinking’ and binge drinking, then?
‘Among young people who indicate that they drink 20 beers a week, there are two extremes. Either they drink three beers a day, which does little or no harm, or they drink nothing all week and then down 20 beers on Saturday night. That is much worse, because then the alcohol becomes toxic. The details are important.’
Surely alcohol comes out of most studies as harmful?
‘There could be an element of publication bias here: it is difficult to get studies which show no correlation published. I hope that there will now be a follow-up study to check these results: longitudinal research in which you monitor the effect of alcohol on young people over several years. I hear that the Beer Knowledge Institute and TNO want to do a study of that kind.’