A brand new study on the effects of long term marijuana use has found that it is not associated with a handful of health problems- aside from gum disease.
Madeline H Meier of Arizona State University and her researchers tracked the weed smoking habits of 1,037 New Zealanders from birth to middle age to look at what effect their habits had on common aspects of our physical health, including lung function, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body weight, blood sugar and dental health.
They found that, after controlling other factors known to affect health like use of tobacco and socioeconomic status, marijuana use showed no negative effect on ANY measure of health… Except dental health.
Meier and her team found that heavy weed smokers are less likely to brush and floss their teeth than non-weed smokers, but even after controlling for dental hygiene there was still a connection between smoking draw and poor dental health.
“In general, our findings showed that cannabis use over 20 years was unrelated to health problems in early midlife,” the study read.
“Across several domains of health (periodontal health, lung function, systemic inflammation, and metabolic health), clear evidence of an adverse association with cannabis use was apparent for only one domain, namely, [gum] health.
“By comparison, tobacco use was associated with worse [gum] health, lung function, systemic inflammation, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, and glucose levels in early midlife, as well as health decline from ages 26 to 38 years,” the study found.
So, although there are public health concerns about legalisation making weed “the next Big Tobacco”, the effects that smoking weed has on our health will never be as bad as that of tobacco.
Black the Ripper is definitely on to something…