The Worst Side Effect Of Smoking Pot For 20 Years Is Gum Disease, Study Finds

[cleanhippie]

A new report on the health effects of smoking cannabis has found that long-term pot smoking is about as harmful as not flossing. The study, published in the June edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, follows the health of a thousand 18-year-olds who either smoked pot or tobacco over a 20-year time period.

Researchers found that by age 38, those who had smoked pot had poorer gum health than those who smoked tobacco. However, the researchers conclude, “cannabis use was unrelated to other physical health problems.”

“Unlike cannabis use, tobacco use was associated with worse lung function, systemic inflammation, and metabolic health at age 38 years,” they write.

The new study joins a growing stack of recent research that’s found pot smoking to have little to no effect on lung health. But it helps fill a needed gap in research on chronic pot use — an area where the lack of evidence has stalled bills working to legalize marijuana.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/06/08/3785731/20-years-smoking-pot-gum-disease/

Pot, safer than alcohol and cigarettes. Yet thousands still go to jail for it.

[bemildred]

1. That sounds about right. Keep your mouth clean.

And it will make you dopey, but that goes away.

[cleanhippie]

3. That's a falsehood, as well.

Many people can use cannabis without acting like a "stoner."

[bemildred]

4. It depends on dosage, and variety.

Not that you are wrong, but sometimes a good nights sleep is the idea.

[RobinA]

2. As a Smoker

who has not smoked for two years but is not a militant anti-smoker, as well as a former inhaler who looks forward to inhaling legally in the future, I find it a little hard to believe that inhaling any burning plant material could have no negative effect on lungs. Maybe it just isn't harmful in the amounts people normally smoke pot. Most people aren't pack a day pot smokers.