Boys who smoke cannabis before puberty could be stunting their growth by more than four inches, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that youngsters who were addicted to the drug were far shorter than their non-smoking peers.
And they also discovered that rather than being a relaxing pass time, smoking dope actually makes the body more stressed in the long term.
"Marijuana use may provoke a stress response that stimulates onset of puberty but suppresses growth rate,” said study leader Dr Syed Shakeel Raza Rizvi, of the Agriculture University Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
Scientists at the Pir Mehr Ali Shah Agriculture University Rawalpindi in Pakistan studied the levels of certain hormones involved in growth and puberty in the blood of 220 non-smoking and 217 cannabis-addicted boys.
Levels of puberty-related hormones such as testosterone and luteinising hormone (LH) were increased in the cannabis smokers. In contrast, growth hormone levels in the group were decreased.
It was also found that non-smoking boys were on average four kilos heavier and 4.6 inches taller by the age of 20 than the dope smokers.
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The researchers also looked at the effect of smoking cannabis on levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, in 10 cannabis addicts.
They found that dope smokers have significantly higher levels of cortisol than non-smokers.
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Cannabis is the most widely available illicit drug in Europe, and it's estimated that it's been used by 80.5 million Europeans at least once in their life.
The proportion of 11-15 year olds in England who had used cannabis in the last year fell from 13.3 per cent in 2003 to 7 per cent in 2013, around 250,000 youngsters.
The latest report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) reveals that the highest prevalence of cannabis use is among 15 to 24-year-olds and is significantly higher among men than women.
Previous studies have looked at the effect of smoking cannabis in adult rats and humans, but this is the first time that the effects have been looked at in prebubescent boys.
Dr Rivzi said the the research may have a wider impact than just health, adding: "Early puberty is associated with younger age of onset of drinking and smoking, and early matures have higher levels of substance abuse because they enter the risk period at an early level of emotional maturity."
The researchers say their findings, presented at the European Congress of Endocrinology in Dublin, will lead to a better understanding of the dangers of drug abuse on growth and development in children.
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