Photo via Flickr user Blind Nomad
Read: Can You Tell Which of These Ten-Year-Olds Took Cannabis Oil Today?If you needed another reason to quit blazing other than cops, sketchy-ass hippies, and crippling paranoia, here's one for you: Regular weed use makes you poorer and less happy, according to a study released this week.The report from researchers at UC Davis and Duke University report claims that the more you toke, the more likely you are to be broke—pot smokers who indulge four times or more a week eventually "ended up in a lower social class than their parents, with lower-paying, less skilled, and less prestigious jobs than those who were not regular cannabis smokers.""Our study found that regular cannabis users experienced downward social mobility and more financial problems—such as troubles with debt and cash flow—than those who did not," Magdalena Cerda, an associate professor of emergency medicine and leader of the study, said in a statement that accompanied the report.Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researcher's data comes from a project that has been tracking 1,000 pot smokers in Dunedin, New Zealand, for decades, which must be tedious work. Naturally, some people object to the findings, since it's hard to control for all the different variables that might affect people over the course of their lives. Another criticism is that weed is still illegal in New Zealand, and maybe some of the problems these people have had can be chalked up to the stigma and stress of breaking the law constantly, even if you never get caught.But the broadest possible reading of the study is probably unassailable: If you do a drug a bunch for years and years, it probably will fuck you up.