The Impact Of Smoking Marijuana Regularly On Your Lungs, According To Science

Evolving attitudes about marijuana among the majority of Americans, as well as decriminalization laws starting to sweep the nation, have done little to quell questions about the health effects of longtime use among medical professionals, lawmakers, and people on both sides of an ongoing debate about the plant.
Even with a dearth of research, the general consensus in past decades has been that smoking marijuana regularly poses significant health risks. A new study out of Emory University in Atlanta, however, could challenge what has become the fundamental argument for maintaining the plant’s designation as a Schedule 1 drug.

“Lifetime marijuana use up to 20 joint-years is not associated with adverse changes in spirometric (exhalation strength) measures of lung health,” the study, featured in the medical journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society, concluded.

In an effort to measure marijuana’s impact on lung function, researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys to conduct a cross-sectional analysis measuring participants’ forced expiratory volume — defined as the amount of air one can forcibly exhale in one second. They found that adults between the ages of 18 and 59 who smoke one marijuana cigarette, also known as a joint, per day had the same expiratory volume as someone who didn’t partake in the plant.

The data collected suggests that it’s unlikely that prolonged marijuana use would cause respiratory diseases in a way that smoking tobacco would. While researchers at Emory University found that marijuana users who smoked joints reported coughing and having a sore throat — symptoms of bronchitis — they attributed that to the use of rolling papers, especially since those who used vaporizers reported similar problems less often.

The results of the Emory University study bear a striking similarity to previous research about marijuana’s effects on lung function. In 2012, government researchers found that people who smoked pot daily for seven years didn’t damage their lungs in a manner similar to that of tobacco smokers. A 2013 study conducted by Donald Tashkin, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles who has led long-term studies on the effects of tobacco inhalation, also confirmed that marijuana use alone didn’t cause significant abnormalities to the lungs.

“The distinction the Emory University study makes is not new,” Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, told ThinkProgress. “It’s ripe with citations from Donald Tashkin who has spent more than 40 years trying to answer the question of what happens to people when they smoke tobacco and marijuana. This new study took things further; today these products aren’t being smoked [in a way] that the product is carbonized and there’s ash. Putting marijuana in your lungs is not the healthiest decision you can make but it’s stark compared to the damage done by tobacco.”

While these findings could be used to further support decriminalization and legalization efforts, issues about other health consequences of pot use — and particularly how it affects long-term brain function in adolescents and fertility in men — remain unsettled, especially in light of research published on these matters.
That’s why lawmakers in states that have either decriminalized or legalized the sale and use of marijuana have expressed a desire to further study marijuana’s medical benefits and the long-term effects of inhalation. Proponents of additional pot research say that these lingering questions have stalled efforts to shape public policy that reflects empirical data rather than lawmakers’ biases.

This move for more research is out playing in Colorado, a state where the sale of marijuana has been legal for more nearly a year. While a panel of medical professionals in the state recently applauded state lawmakers for approving an $8 million grant for medical marijuana research, they said that dollar amount doesn’t suffice in filling conspicuous information gaps.

The panel pointed out that scientists know little about pot use among young adults, especially those between the ages of 18 and 25. Questions about the degree to which Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — marijuana’s active ingredient — would impair skiers have also surfaced. During its meeting earlier this month, the panel including doctors, toxicologists, and an addiction specialist agreed that physicians needed more information about pot’s effects on pregnant women.

That consensus hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from acting punitively against marijuana users, particularly those with child. Officials in Colorado introduced a bill requiring pot shops to post warnings about marijuana use by pregnant women. The legislation, if enacted, would also prohibit doctors from recommending medical marijuana to expectant mothers. With little information available about how marijuana affects the fetus, Republicans trying to pass the bill in a majority-Democratic legislature face a tough road ahead of them, further reaffirming the panel’s concerns about the lack of scholarship on the issue of marijuana.

Efforts to learn more about marijuana’s health effects, however, may be thwarted by the current federal restrictions on cultivation and the types of research that scientists can conduct. Those who want the government’s approval to study marijuana can only do so only to determine the amount of bodily harm its causes.
Once they jump that hurdle, scientists have to secure approval from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to obtain and transport large quantities of the plant from the government’s lone research repository at the University of Mississippi, a process that can add months and years to their research timeline.

Even when researchers finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel, they may find out that the federal government doesn’t have the strains of marijuana pertinent to their research. While lowering pot’s substance classification could lift barriers to research, the DEA has stubbornly maintained its position that the plant poses a significant danger to the public and has no accepted medical use.
“If we’re serious public policy people, we would let the scientist figure this out,” St. Pierre told ThinkProgress.

“Does one set of vegetative matter produce a certain range of carcinogens? If so, to what degree and amount? How do people consume it? This entire discussion should be based on science. But the laughable thing is that the government is against this type of research. All we have are anecdotes but we need science that meets the standards of a proper peer review.”

Calls for compassion in cannabis debate

The desperate parents of terminally ill children are calling on the Queensland government to show compassion and legalise medicinal cannabis.

Mothers who have surveyed Brisbane residents on the issue gathered outside the Queensland Health building on Monday.
Rozanne Burley told how medicinal cannabis had improved the quality of life for her teenage son Adam, who has a rare form of intractable epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome.

She said pharmaceutical drugs triggered horrific side effects amid Adam's irreversible brain damage, uncontrolled seizures and eating disorder.
Brittle bones from anti-convulsants have also caused him to fracture his hip.
Ms Burley introduced Adam to medicinal cannabis a year and a half ago.
"Within about a month, he started eating again," she told AAP.

"I took him off a couple of the pharmaceuticals as well and that ... along with the medicinal cannabis definitely caused him to be a bit more alert and responsive."
Ms Burley was visited by police officers who knew about the cannabis.
"They found out about his story and his condition and they actually apologised," she said.
"They thought I was just a mum giving him cannabis. They sort of turned a blind eye."

But she's torn between the risk of criminal charges and wanting to do the right thing as a parent.
"As a mum all I want is quality of life for my child because the drugs have just done nothing for him."
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has said he was "sympathetic" to the idea of medicinal cannabis, but any decision should be based on information from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Lanai Carter said both the Liberal National and Labor parties were taking a back seat on the issue.
"It is incredibly frustrating for us," she said.

New South Wales has planned a $9 million trial for medical cannabis which could potentially treat children with severe epilepsy, terminally ill adults and those undergoing chemotherapy.
But Ms Carter, who has travelled to the US with her son four times for treatment for a brain tumour and epilepsy, said clinical trials were not good enough.
"These children and terminally ill and chronically ill patients are suffering right now. They need that relief now," she said.

"People are compassionate and it's time that the government becomes compassionate too."
The renewed push comes after the court appearance of a 30-year-old Cairns father who was charged with using cannabis oil to treat his cancer-stricken daughter on Friday.
A spokesman for Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg later told AAP there had been no change in the government's position.

The NSW trial came about after all participants of the Standing Committee on Health acknowledged "the very serious side effects of unsupervised use of marijuana", he said.
"There are many well documented risks posed by cannabis consumption."

Could This Recent Study on Casual Marijuana Use Crush Marijuana's Momentum?

If you polled Americans a decade ago for their opinion on marijuana, there's a good chance you would have received an overwhelming number of responses against the idea of legalization. In fact, Gallup polls suggest that just one-in-four respondents were in favor of legalizing marijuana 10 years ago.
Marijuana's perception evolution
Nowadays things are far different. A Gallup poll in 2013 showed that nearly three in five people are in favor of marijuana's legalization. Furthermore, growing public acceptance of marijuana for its medical benefits and the tax revenue it can generate have led to 23 states approving marijuana for medical purposes and four legalizing it for recreational, adult use.

Source: Flickr user Cannabis Culture

But just because marijuana's momentum is increasing doesn't mean that the slate of studies highlighting its potential dangers have decreased in any meaningful way. Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that a majority of studies to date (and when I say majority I mean more than nine out of 10) have examined marijuana's negative effects rather than any benefits it might present, so the sheer number of negative studies could very well be due to this research imbalance.

Still, studies like the one presented in the Journal of Neuroscience by nine authors last year, including those from Harvard Medical School, Northwestern University, and Massachusetts General Hospital, concerning cannabis use in young adults, could remain a deterrent toward a rapid expansion of marijuana's potential uses in the medical field.
Will this study limit marijuana's momentum?
For the study, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRIs, to compare the brains of low-to-moderate marijuana users between the ages of 18 and 25 to a control group that didn't use marijuana of the same age range.

There were 40 people chosen for the study: 20 low-to-moderate marijuana users and 20 control group participants. In spite of running psychiatric evaluations to ensure that none of the 20 marijuana users were dependent on the drug, a discernible difference became apparent on the MRIs of young adult marijuana users relative to the control group.
Specifically, researchers compared the size, shape and density of the nucleus accumbens (the portion of the brain that controls motivation, pleasure and addiction) and the amygdala (which plays a central role in emotions), discovering that marijuana users had greater gray matter density and shape differences than nonusers.

The study was consistent with what researchers had witnessed in animal models, and higher marijuana use resulted in greater shape and volume abnormalities in the MRIs.

Source: Flickr user Torben Hansen

As National Institute on Drug Abuse researcher Carl Lupica noted in an interview with Science Daily, "This study suggests that even light to moderate recreational marijuana use can cause changes in brain anatomy. These observations are particularly interesting because previous studies have focused primarily on the brains of heavy marijuana smokers, and have largely ignored the brains of casual users."

On the flipside, it should also be noted that a 40-person study probably isn't representative of the entire population. In fact, the study points out that "causation cannot be determined, although marijuana exposure parametrically correlated with structural differences." Furthermore, no quantifiable marijuana metabolite levels were measured in patients, leaving researchers in the dark as to what amount of marijuana exposure the participants in its study were actually dealing with. In short, more studies than just this one would be needed to definitively say that marijuana has negative effects on the brains of casual young users.

Still a negative for medical marijuana
Despite needing additional research to be proven accurate, this and a number of other small studies that have delved into the mind-altering effects of marijuana on our nation's adolescents and young adults add enough doubt about its long term safety that the federal government is unlikely to change its stance on marijuana as a schedule 1 drug anytime soon.
Even more than that, these studies could make drug development difficult for pharmaceutical companies looking to fight tough-to-treat diseases with cannabinoids derived from the cannabis plant. For example, GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH  ) is currently developing a promising adult and pediatric drug known as Epidiolex, which uses CBD extract.

Source: GW Pharmaceuticals

In early clinical studies for Epidiolex, Dravet syndrome patients saw their convulsive seizure frequency fall by 56%, while patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome had a nearly similar 52% reduction in seizure frequency. These are rare epileptic diseases that often manifest in childhood; thus any drug derived from the cannabis plant that may need to be administered over the long run in adolescents could be a concern if marijuana in fact does have serious long-term effects on the brain.

The story here remains the same: We need more studies that look into the potential benefits and drawbacks of marijuana. We are beginning to see studies like this undertaken, but it takes time to develop a big picture view on the benefits and risks of marijuana when the studies were so far skewed in one direction for decades. It's possible we could discover a world of benefits for marijuana. We've already seen studies speak to its potential to help aggressive brain cancer patients as well as diabetes and Alzheimer's patients. Then again, there is a mountain of negative data to contend with as well.

Caveat emptor
From an investing perspective, marijuana still looks far too hit and miss for even long-minded investors. GW Pharmaceuticals is the go-to stock here if you are planning to dabble in the marijuana trade, but a recent failure from Sativex in the first of a three-part late-stage trial could take the wind out of its sails for the time being. Plus, with profitability still at least five years out, I'd suspect there are far better investment opportunities available.

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Federal judge weighs marijuana's classification

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge in California is weighing the constitutionality of a 45-year-old act that classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug along with LSD, cocaine and heroin.
U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller in Sacramento held a five-day fact-finding hearing on the classification question late last year, and final arguments are scheduled for next month, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. Her ruling is expected later this year.

The case marks the first time in decades that a judge has agreed to consider marijuana's designation as a Schedule 1 drug under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, the newspaper said. Under the act, Schedule 1 drugs have no medicinal purpose, are unsafe even under medical supervision and contain a high potential for abuse.
Mueller's decision to hold the hearing came in response to a pretrial defense motion in a federal case against alleged marijuana growers. Prosecutors unsuccessfully opposed the fact-finding effort.

A ruling against federal cannabis law would apply only to the defendants in the case and almost certainly would be appealed, the newspaper said. If the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined the law was unconstitutional, all the Western states would be affected.
Attorneys for the defendants have argued that the federal marijuana law violates the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. They contend the government enforces marijuana law unevenly — allowing distribution of cannabis in states where it is legal and cracking down elsewhere.

The prosecution countered that Congress legally placed pot in Schedule 1.
Zenia K. Gilg, a lawyer for the growers, told the Times that scientific understanding and public acceptance of marijuana have grown substantially since courts last examined the federal classification. She cited the November election, when voters in Alaska and Oregon decided to join Colorado and Washington in making cannabis legal for recreational use.

Most states already provide some legal protection for its use as medicine.
Prosecutors said in a brief filed Jan. 7 that the evidence presented in the hearing at most "established that there is some dispute among doctors as to whether marijuana is medicine."

The Congressional Ban of Medical Marijuana Comes to an End

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Harbor Village Florida warns against the wanton use of marijuana, and implores recreational and medical users alike to receive necessary marijuana education.

According to an article published by the the L.A. Times on Dec. 18th, 2014, congress surreptitiously ended the medical marijuana prohibition era in the obscure pages of the federal spending measure, which totaled 1,603 pages. Medical marijuana is an important medicine for many medical patients, yet it is a high-risk drug for abuse. In light of this abolished legislation, states where medical marijuana is legal will not be subjected to random seizures. Harbor Village Florida is an inpatient drug rehab service that specializes in treating patients suffering from drug addiction.

Conversely, the rehabilitation center is a proponent of marijuana use for patients in medical need, and stresses the necessity of proper prevention education and responsible medical usage.
The lifted ban is a keystone shift in future drug-related policies nationally. As such, lawmakers are seeking to repeal medical stipulations to recreational use. The divide among the people and policy makers alike will merit a lengthy battle for a national consensus.

As a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance, Bill Piper says, The war on medical marijuana is over, now the fight moves on to legalization of all marijuana. This is the strongest signal we have received from Congress [that] the policies have really shifted.
States that have already legalized recreational marijuana - including Washington and Colorado - are embarking on new ventures in edible marijuana- which may be adversely effecting those who consume it, as the THC levels appear to be augmented when consumed. Additionally, there has been mislabeling of THC on packaging, resulting in health ailments.

Protecting teens and children from abusing medical marijuana is becoming a top priority in these states. Recent marijuana awareness and education campaigns will launch in 2015, in an effort to educate the public on the responsible use of marijuana to avoid the need of inpatient drug rehab services. These lectures will be similar to that of the responsible use of alcohol seminars.
In the midst of the changing face of drug legislation, Harbor Village Florida seeks to prepare its facility for uncertain future outcomes.

The award winning medical staff recommends that eager users of marijuana for recreational purposes are cautious in their approach, as to avoid the need for inpatient drug rehab services. Additionally, Harbor Village implores those in need of medical marijuana use the drug only as prescribed by a certified medical doctor.
Located in the southern sunshine state, Florida, Harbor Village is an award winning inpatient drug rehab service center, whose aim is to revitalize the communitys drug addicts with 24 hour treatment. The center features dreamy spa getaways, luxury amenities, and offers imperative psychological care and stress management. Harbor Village Florida strives to exceed the needs of their clients so that they can lead a lucrative life.

Medical marijuana users score another win in court

The federal government has lost another round in a legal battle over whether medical marijuana users can continue to grow their own pot in their homes.
The Federal Court of Appeal today rejected the government's appeal of a March 21 court injunction that has temporarily allowed previously authorized medical marijuana patients to continue growing their own, or have pot grown for them, despite new federal regulations that outlawed home grows as of April.

A full trial on the constitutional challenge lodged by various medical marijuana patients is slated to begin Feb. 23 now that the court injunction has been upheld, Abbotsford lawyer John Conroy said.
The appeal ruling also requires the court to clarify the status of some patients who were left out of the injunction because their authorizations weren't valid at the time it was issued.

Conroy said he's optimistic about the trial but isn't reading too much into the latest ruling, which keeps a continued legal cloud over the new federal system of medical pot being provided only through licensed commercial producers.
"It is an indication that a judge looked at the facts and decided if we did not have an injunction people would suffer irreparable harm," Conroy said. "But the trial judge gets to revisit the whole situation."

An estimated 11,500  B.C. medical marijuana grow operations were legally being run by or on behalf of federally licensed users when the injunction was granted last March.
Other legal actions are also pending on behalf of medical marijuana users, including one that seeks a court order that medical marijuana users are entitled to obtain their cannabis in the form of oil or other extracts, not just the dried bud that is the only form allowed under the new mail-order production system.


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Up until now, US President Barack Obama had made little to no comments regarding the legalization of marijuana in two states of the Union; however, as Congress attempts to interfere, Obama's DC pot opinion prevails: he thinks the legislative body should stand down in the face of the legalized bill.
After the success of the bill that made Colorado the first state in the US to legalize cannabis as a recreational habit beyond medical use, Obama's DC pot stand becomes clear in the midst of a Congressional battle to stop the legislation: the will of the people of the District of Columbia should be respected.

According to ABC News, the latest Obama DC pot update says that the US president approves of the recreational use of the drug, as it was approved to be legalized in the state in a referendum last November, though further measures regarding this topic have been stopped by the United States Congress.
"We do not believe that Congress should spend a lot of time interfering with the ability of the citizens of the District of Columbia to make decisions related to how they should govern their community," said Josh Earnest, a White House representative, to Jonathan Karl earlier this week.

According to The Hill, the Obama DC pot statement came last Thursday, after the Congress has interfered in the DC law, blocking the recently approved legalization. When asked directly whether the president supported the general legalization of cannabis, Earnest replied that, since the people of the District of Columbia had voted yes on the ballot last November, the president believed that "on principle" their opinion regarding it should not be ruled out.

According to The Washington Times, the issue that drove Obama's DC pot statement was that Congress Republicans have intended to block the approve legalization by inserting a budget rider in the spending plan, which would prevent the city from spending its own money for legislation to loosen drug penalties - or, in this case, abolish them entirely.


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