Huge Study Shows Smoking Cannabis Doesn’t Harm Lung Function

A study out on Tuesday suggests that smoking cannabis may not be harmful to your lungs. The decades-long study from researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the University of Alabama was published in the Journal of he American Medical Association.

The study is one of the largest and longest studies of the effects of marijuana on health. It seems that cannabis does not do the kind of harm that smoking tobacco does, even though the act of inhaling burning materials into your lungs is relatively the same. The findings came from the analyzed data from participants in a 20-year federally-funded health study in young adults that began in 1985. Their analysis was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

They looked at 5,115 men and women from the ages of 18 to 30 in four cities, Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland and Minneapolis. Both White and Black populations were equally represented. Overall, about 37% of the participants were reported occasional marijuana use.

Researchers did several lung function tests throughout the 20 year study. On average, most of the marijuana users were also cigarette smokers, 17 percent of the participants were smokers, but not marijuana users. Although, the typical smoker smokes about 9 cigarettes a day, the typical marijuana smoker in the the study only smoke joints a few times a month. With all of the data, the study authors were able to calculate the effects of tobacco and marijuana separately, both in people who used only one or the other, and in people who used both. They also considered other factors that could influence lung function, including air pollution in cities studied.

The analyses showed that cannabis smoking did not appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. The cigarette smokers’ test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores.

The researchers caution that the results may not be applied to heavy user of marijuana, since there were too few of them among the participants, those that smoked at least two joints daily. Just like cigarettes, those that smoke cannabis can develop throat irritation and coughs, although the study didn’t look at those, or examine lung cancer rates among the participants. Other studies haven’t found any definitive link between marijuana use and cancer.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/01/11/marijuana-doesnt-appear-to-harm-lung-function-study-finds/