Girls with high IQs more likely to use illegal drugs in later life

Girls with a high childhood IQ are being linked to illegal drug use in later life.

Research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, finds that by the age of 30, one in three men and one in six women had used cannabis in the previous 12 months.

But, when intelligence was factored in, men with high IQ scores at the age of 5 were around 50 per cent more likely to have used amphetamines, ecstasy, and several illicit drugs than those with low scores, 25 years later.

And women were more than twice as likely to have used cannabis and cocaine as those with low IQ scores.

The authors have taken their findings on data from around 8,000 people in the 1970 British Cohort Study.