A 2012 study conducted by researchers at UC San Diego failed to show deleterious effects on the adolescent brain from cannabis use.

For more than twenty years, National Institute of Mental Health neuroscientist Dr. Jay Giedd has studied the development of the adolescent brain.

Using an approach that details the damage on adolescent brains from alcohol and drugs, the program encourages parents to call each other to check on their children's after-school activities.

Dr. Madras spent years researching the long-term damage of drugs and alcohol in the still-developing adolescent brain.

The developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of alcohol.

Alcohol abuse during adolescence greatly increases the risk of developing an alcohol use disorder in adulthood due to changes to neurocircuitry that alcohol abuse causes in the vulnerable developing adolescent brain.

The adolescent brain, Dr. Chambers said, is just as vulnerable to drug and alcohol addiction as it is to tobacco.

The damage, all three assert, is more serious for teenagers than it is for adults because the adolescent brain is still developing.

And jurors may not necessarily accept expert testimony concerning recent research showing that the adolescent brain is not fully developed.

These findings may indicate that there is some aspect of the adolescent brain, or the neurobiological processes of adolescence, that prompts the development of childhood amnesia.