A
team of US researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
showed that smoking marijuana is not linked to physical or mental
health problems like many argue.
Legalizing marijuana remains a controversial subject, particularly in the United States. Last month, Oregon became the fourth state to legalize recreational marijuana use after Alaska, Colorado and Washington.
However, many previous studies have shown that excessive consumption could cause a lot of serious side effects.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), chronic use of pot may increase the risk of depression. In addition, in the long-term, consumers may experience respiratory and cardiac problems. Fetal malformations are also given as potential risks.
Two other studies published in The Lancet in 2004 and in PLoS Med in 2006 indicate that young adolescents who use cannabis several times a week also increase the likelihood of using other drugs one day and develop psychoses, two phenomena that can jeopardize their health and social inclusion as adults.
To learn more, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, led by Professor Jordan Bechtold, followed 408 people from adolescence to age 36 years. Interrogations were conducted regularly throughout this period.
“The current study overcomes these limitations by investigating whether community-residing Black and White men who displayed different patterns of marijuana use from adolescence to the mid- 20s (from age 15 to 26) exhibited different self-reported physical (e.g., asthma, high blood pressure) and mental (e.g., depression, psychosis) health problems in their mid-30s,” said the authors of the study.
Participants were divided into four groups according to their marijuana use: low or non-users (46%), early chronic users (22%), those who had begun during adolescence but had stopped (11%) and those who had also started during adolescence but continued to smoke (21%).
“What we found was a bit surprising,” said Professor Jordan Bechtold. “After controlling all the variables that could skew the results, such as alcohol, tobacco, the use of hard drugs and economic status, the results showed that there was no difference in the occurrence of health problems between the different groups.”
The senior author of the study concluded: “We wanted to help inform the debate about legalizing marijuana, but this is a very complex issue and a study should not be taken in isolation.”
Legalizing marijuana remains a controversial subject, particularly in the United States. Last month, Oregon became the fourth state to legalize recreational marijuana use after Alaska, Colorado and Washington.
However, many previous studies have shown that excessive consumption could cause a lot of serious side effects.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), chronic use of pot may increase the risk of depression. In addition, in the long-term, consumers may experience respiratory and cardiac problems. Fetal malformations are also given as potential risks.
Two other studies published in The Lancet in 2004 and in PLoS Med in 2006 indicate that young adolescents who use cannabis several times a week also increase the likelihood of using other drugs one day and develop psychoses, two phenomena that can jeopardize their health and social inclusion as adults.
To learn more, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, led by Professor Jordan Bechtold, followed 408 people from adolescence to age 36 years. Interrogations were conducted regularly throughout this period.
“The current study overcomes these limitations by investigating whether community-residing Black and White men who displayed different patterns of marijuana use from adolescence to the mid- 20s (from age 15 to 26) exhibited different self-reported physical (e.g., asthma, high blood pressure) and mental (e.g., depression, psychosis) health problems in their mid-30s,” said the authors of the study.
Participants were divided into four groups according to their marijuana use: low or non-users (46%), early chronic users (22%), those who had begun during adolescence but had stopped (11%) and those who had also started during adolescence but continued to smoke (21%).
“What we found was a bit surprising,” said Professor Jordan Bechtold. “After controlling all the variables that could skew the results, such as alcohol, tobacco, the use of hard drugs and economic status, the results showed that there was no difference in the occurrence of health problems between the different groups.”
The senior author of the study concluded: “We wanted to help inform the debate about legalizing marijuana, but this is a very complex issue and a study should not be taken in isolation.”
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