After 20 years of studying, it turns out smoking weed once a week or a bit more apparently doesn’t harm the lungs and doesn’t do the kind of damage tobacco does.
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Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham revealed the data on Tuesday through the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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The results for heavy users don’t fare so well, they found that those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren’t enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.
It’s not clear why that is so, but it’s possible that the main active ingredient in marijuana, a chemical known as THC, makes the difference.
THC causes the “high” that users feel. It also helps fight inflammation and may counteract the effects of more irritating chemicals in the drug, said Dr. Donald Tashkin, a marijuana researcher and an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Like cigarette smokers, marijuana users can develop throat irritation and coughs, but the study didn’t focus on those. It also didn’t examine lung cancer, but other studies haven’t found any definitive link between marijuana use and cancer.
Unlike cigarette smokers, marijuana users tend to breathe in deeply when they inhale a joint, which some researchers think might strengthen lung tissue.
But the common lung function tests used in the study require the same kind of deep breathing that marijuana smokers are used to, so their good test results might partly reflect lots of practice, said Kertesz, a drug abuse researcher and preventive medicine specialist at the Alabama University.
Either way, for pot advocates and for those who feel the drug should be legalized or at least decriminalized – this is good news. Marijuana is still an illegal drug under federal law, although some states allow its use for medical purposes.
