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There’s a Good Reason Smoking Medical Marijuana Is Not Encouraged

 

Pay a visit to the Beehive Farmacy in Salt Lake City, Utah and you’ll find beautifully packaged marijuana flower ready for your consumption. But guess what? You cannot legally smoke that stuff in the Beehive State. The best you can do is consume it in a dry vaporizer or add it to your own recipes at home. Smoking medical cannabis is not allowed.

 

Smoking medical cannabis is obviously discouraged in Utah. But the Beehive State isn’t alone. Most states with legal medical cannabis programs do their best to discourage smoking; many of them have joined Utah in banning the practice.

 

States are not trying to killjoys here. They are not trying to stick it to medical cannabis users. There is a very good reason they don’t encourage smoking: it’s bad for your health. There are other ways to consume medical cannabis that do not involve inhaling the byproducts of combustion. Those are the methods state lawmakers tend to encourage.

 

Cannabis Smoke and Lung Disease

 

Most of us are quite familiar with the fight against tobacco that began in the 1980s. Anti-smoking activists joined forces with government officials to go after Big Tobacco. Meanwhile, the medical community concentrated on helping consumers understand just how bad cigarette smoke is for the lungs. The end result: we are all well aware of the link between tobacco smoking and lung disease. It is not a secret.

 

Strangely, there is a similar link between cannabis smoke and lung disease that people are not willing to talk about. In the drive to legalize marijuana across the nation, pro-marijuana activists are conveniently dismissing the fact that marijuana smoke can be just as bad for the lungs. How bad?

 

A 2022 study published in the Radiology journal suggests that lung inflammation and emphysema are actually more common in marijuana smokers compared to tobacco-only smokers and their nonsmoking counterparts.

 

Similar Compounds, Similar Results

 

Although the constituents of tobacco and marijuana smoke may differ to some degree, both types of smoke contain the same types of compounds. They both contain toxins and carcinogens. Therefore, it’s a stretch to say that marijuana smoke isn’t as harmful.

 

It is also disingenuous to say that marijuana users have historically escaped unharmed after years of smoking. The fact is that no one has done any substantial research into lung disease risks among marijuana smokers. Until this most recent research, little effort had been made to understand marijuana smoke and its potential to cause emphysema.

 

Nonetheless, we now know that emphysema and lung inflammation are very real problems for marijuana users. Researchers speculate there could be two contributing factors in play:

 

  • Lack of Filtration – Tobacco cigarettes tend to be filtered. Marijuana joints are not. Therefore, marijuana users are inhaling unfiltered smoke.

 

  • Holding the Smoke – Where tobacco users tend to inhale followed by very quick exhalation, marijuana users tend to hold the smoke in their lungs for a few seconds to maximize THC absorption. Researchers say this practice could be a major contributor to inflammation and emphysema.

 

Even without scientific research, common sense dictates that inhaling any kind of smoke is bad for your health. Why anyone would think that marijuana smoke is safe is beyond me. It doesn’t compute.

 

Now You Know

 

Now you know why states with legal medical cannabis programs discourage patients from smoking cannabis flower. They would rather patients utilize vapes, gummies, tinctures, or capsules. They do not want patients exposing themselves to potentially dangerous smoke that could easily mitigate the benefits of medical cannabis symptom relief by leading to lung inflammation and emphysema. Avoiding cannabis smoke is just good sense.

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