Marijuana smoke causes more lung harm than tobacco: Research suggests

 This study raises concerns that the widely held belief that marijuana is safer than tobacco may not be accurate, according to the study's principal author, Dr. Giselle Revah, an assistant professor in the radiology department at the University of Ottawa in Ontario.

If you are inhaling anything, it may be dangerous to your lungs since, according to the American Lung Association, only clean air should enter your lungs.

The negative effects of marijuana use on health

The most commonly used psychoactive substance worldwide is marijuana, whose use has increased globally as a result of decriminalization and/or legalization in numerous nations. For instance, 20% of people over the age of 15 in Canada reported using marijuana over the previous three months. In a similar vein, about 13% of American adults reported using marijuana in the previous year.
Despite being the second most popular substance in the world to smoke after tobacco, marijuana can also be ingested by ingestion and vaporization. Compared to smoking tobacco, consuming marijuana frequently entails breathing in more smoke for longer periods of time. Furthermore, many people smoke marijuana without a filter.

Similar to tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke contains a number of compounds and carcinogens that can lead to respiratory problems. In fact, multiple studies have shown that smoking marijuana can cause respiratory issues like coughing up phlegm and wheezing, which are all frequently reported by tobacco smokers. When these symptoms are present, marijuana users' pulmonary function tests have been shown to change, which suggests that airway inflammation is probably present in these people.

 Research

The early study, which was published on Tuesday in Radiology, a publication of the Radiological Society of North America, compared computed tomography (CT) lung scans of 33 heavy cigarette smokers with 56 people who smoked marijuana and tobacco.

According to chest scans, marijuana smokers may be more prone than typical cigarette smokers to experience inflamed airways and a particular type of emphysema.

Canadian researchers examined the chest scans of marijuana smokers and tobacco-only smokers who were matched for age in their analysis, which was published on Tuesday in Radiology. They discovered that those who breathed marijuana were twice as likely to develop para septal emphysema than those who merely smoked cigrettes.Dr. Giselle Revah, a cardiothoracic radiologist at The Ottawa Hospital and one of the study's coauthors, described para septal emphysema as a condition affecting the tiny air sacs in the lungs that are in charge of eliminating carbon dioxide and absorbing oxygen.

Small holes are formed in the lungs when they are injured, which affects gas exchange, she explained.


According to Revah, there may be two reasons why marijuana smokers have a higher incidence of paraseptal emphysema. Joints don't have a filter like cigarettes do, and marijuana smokers inhale for a longer period of time.

Paraseptal emphysema can cause a number of distressing symptoms, although it is less deadly than the most prevalent form of emphysema associated with prolonged, heavy tobacco use, according to pulmonologist and longtime cannabis research

Read more: Chest CT findings in marijuana smokers

Symptoms of emphysema include:

breathing difficulty while climbing stairs.
a feeling that one's lungs are running out on air.
persistent wheeze and coughing
spitting up mucus
Fatigue.

According to Tashkin, paraseptal emphysema can occasionally result in a collapsed lung, which can be fatal.
No emphysema variant can be cured.

Future prospects

Larger prospective studies are required in the future to both corroborate the CT results from this investigation and to clarify any potential pathogenic pathways underlying the impact of marijuana smoke on lung damage. Furthermore, it is challenging to determine whether the CT results reported in this study were caused by marijuana smoke or if they were the result of synergistic effects of both marijuana and tobacco smoke on the lungs given the majority of marijuana smokers in this study also smoked tobacco.