Not Cigarettes but Marijuana for Healthy Lungs

If you are a marijuana advocate, it is time for some celebration! A new study has revealed that consuming marijuana is way harmless for the lungs than smoking tobacco. The researchers studied over 20 years of data from 5,000 adults and found out that there was significant lung damage in tobacco smokers compared with those who smoked pot. Tobacco smokers worsened their air flow and lung volume with every butt they smoked. In the case of marijuana consumers, if they smoked one joint a day, their air flow increased up to a certain level.

The researchers admit that they were surprised to see a different pattern of association with marijuana exposure, which they did not expect when they began their research. What they had set forth to find was the consistent loss of lung function with an increasing exposure to two of the most addictive elements that exist in the environment.

The study was funded by the NIH and published in the Journal of American Medical association. It measured the rate of air flow or how fast one could blow out air from the lungs and the lung volume in 18 to 30 year old adults from different regions such as Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland and Minneapolis.

Despite the relief for marijuana users, the researchers caution that the findings of the study do not point to the health benefits of using marijuana heavily. Mark Pletcher, MD, MPH, associate professor in the Division of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco and the paper’s lead head said that the findings are based on the occasional use of marijuana and therefore, may not be applicable to those who extensively indulge in marijuana.