\nThe majority of Americans believe inhaling marijuana smoke is safer than inhaling tobacco smoke, a new study shows.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nThe most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health found nearly 20% of Americans aged 12 or older had used marijuana at least once in the past year, whether by smoking, vaping, or consuming edibles. Among people aged 18\u201325, more than a third had used marijuana in the past year.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nWhile marijuana has grown in legality over recent years, the effects of inhaling marijuana smoke are still largely unstudied. Meanwhile, there are multiple bodies of research demonstrating the harmful effects of inhaling tobacco smoke, from lung cancer to emphysema.\n<\/p>\n \nPerhaps it is a longer history of research that makes tobacco smoke seem more harmful than marijuana smoke.\n<\/p>\n \nThe new study showed there appears to be a disconnect between how people perceive marijuana smoke to impact their health and how it actually does.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m sure there are differences between different types of smoke, and differences in the exact way they impact the lungs, but I don\u2019t think we have any evidence that inhaling smoke is OK for our lungs,\u201d Beth Cohen, MD, a professor of Medicine at UCSF who co-led the new research told Health<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSmoke is smoke, and smoke is bad for your health,\u201d she said\n<\/p>\n Getty Images \/ Inside Creative House<\/p>\n <\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n \nTo understand the public perception of marijuana smoke, Cohen and her team surveyed more than 5,000 adults living in the United States.\n<\/p>\n \nThey asked people to report their view of the health impacts of smoking tobacco every day compared to daily cannabis smoking. This included both the effects of first- and second-hand smoke.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nThe researchers found that people\u2019s perceptions of the health effects of inhaling marijuana smoke are changing, even compared to just a few years ago.\n<\/p>\n \nIn 2021, 44% of adults surveyed believed smoking marijuana every day is safer than smoking tobacco every day, compared to about 37% in 2017.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nThe same trend was seen in perceptions of secondhand smoke.\n<\/p>\n \nIn 2017, about 35% of people believed secondhand cannabis smoke to be safer than secondhand cigarette smoke, compared to about 40% in 2021.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nCohen explained this perception as likely due to the fact that cannabis is becoming more widely accepted, while tobacco users are being met with more restrictions.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCannabis has this increasing presence that normalizes it. People perceive that as, \u2018This is something I\u2019m seeing more frequently and it\u2019s now legal for me to use, so it must be safe,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n What You Need to Know If You Want to Quit Smoking <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span> <\/p>\n \nAlthough cannabis smoke does carry health consequences, differences in how frequently a person is inhaling smoke likely play a big role in how the smoke\u2014whether it\u2019s from cannabis or tobacco\u2014impacts their health.\n<\/p>\n \nWhile people who smoke tobacco often do so multiple times a day for years on end, people who smoke cannabis usually don\u2019t do so as frequently, said Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, an associate professor of medicine and director of the Tobacco Treatment Clinic at Johns Hopkins Medicine. \n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThis difference in usage is a significant factor in why tobacco, which is typically consumed extensively throughout the day and accumulating its harms over many years, has so many health risks associated with it,\u201d Galiatsatos told Health<\/em>.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \nBecause marijuana is typically smoked less frequently than tobacco, the negative impacts it does have are likely not as significant as tobacco.\n<\/p>\n \nStill, \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s really convincing data on this idea that cannabis smoke is hugely different and safer, at least from a chemical perspective,\u201d said Cohen.\n<\/p>\n <\/span> <\/p>\n \nThe legality of cannabis has blocked researchers from being able to conduct quality epidemiological studies on people who smoke cannabis, as they have been able to do with tobacco smokers.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s hard to show long-term damage of exposure from such products in laboratory studies,\u201d said Galiatsatos. \u201cTobacco\u2019s link to cancer was proven by epidemiology studies following veterans over decades, who\u2019d had autopsies when they died.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nRestrictions around cannabis have kept similar public health studies on marijuana smoke from occurring and have led to under-reporting among marijuana smokers.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe research that has been done so far on long-term effects is inadequate,\u201d said Cohen, who noted that chemically speaking, pure tobacco smoke contains much of the same particles that marijuana smoke does, even if the added chemicals present in many cigarettes aren\u2019t added to cannabis.\n<\/p>\n \nNow that cannabis is legal in many states, companies hoping to sell it also have an incentive to push certain health claims, whether or not there is research to back them.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe do know that there are harmful substances in cannabis smoke that are known to cause damage, so I would be very concerned about the health effects of smoking or vaping cannabis,\u201d she said. \u201cWe really need to have better information to give people so they can make those informed decisions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n A New Smart Necklace Could Help Smokers Avoid Relapse and Quit Tobacco for Good<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new study shows that a majority of Americans believe that inhaling marijuana smoke is safer than inhaling tobacco smoke. Researchers believe this is largely due to the growing legality of cannabis, and the well-known negative side effects of tobacco. Study authors note that more quality research is needed on the effects of cannabis, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1273,410],"tags":[1274,116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Man](\"https:\/\/www.health.com\/thmb\/7pJ5Pc6bQeQcUfEcYqJFLYW3akM=\/1500x0\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()\/GettyImages-1227577461-b70c5c2dd182470783e0ad930cacccd7.jpg\")
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\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Increasing Acceptance of Cannabis, Decreasing Support of Tobacco <\/span> <\/h2>\n
A Difference in Smoking Frequency <\/span> <\/h2>\n
Difficult to Research <\/span> <\/h2>\n