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Teens who smoke marijuana are more likely to fall asleep during class, according to a new study.

The latest findings revealed that one in ten adolescent participants suffering narcolepsy-like symptoms like excessive daytime sleepiness tested positive for marijuana.

"Our findings highlight and support the important step of obtaining a urine drug screen, in any patients older than 13 years of age, before accepting test findings consistent with narcolepsy, prior to physicians confirming this diagnosis," senior author Mark L. Splaingard, MD, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital, said in a news release. "Urine drug screening is also important in any population studies looking at the prevalence of narcolepsy in adolescents, especially with the recent trend in marijuana decriminalization and legalization."

The ten-year study involved 383 children. Researchers noted that 43 percent of kids with positive marijuana urine results had exhibited symptoms consistent with narcolepsy or abnormal REM sleep patterns.

"We believe that many of the children who had positive urine drug testing for marijuana and testing consistent with narcolepsy had improvement of the symptom of excessive day time sleepiness after enrollment in a community drug program, because most didn't come back for repeat diagnostic studies once they were drug-free," said Splaingard, also a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

"A key finding of this study is that marijuana use may be associated with excessive daytime sleepiness in some teenagers," concluded Splaingard. "A negative urine drug screen finding is an important part of the clinical evaluation before accepting a diagnosis of narcolepsy and starting treatment in a teenager."