According to a new study, marijuana and cigarettes may have more in common than many would like to believe.
The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, shows that people who have smoked marijuana for up to 20 years have a higher occurrence of gum disease than non-smokers.
In a survey that questioned a little over 1,000 New Zealanders, subjects were asked to self-report their use of marijuana at all stages in their life from birth to age 38. Among the 38-year-olds who regularly smoked for 15 to 20 years, researchers found that 55.6 percent had gum disease. In stark contrast, only 13.5 percent of the 38-year-olds who never used marijuana had gum disease.
“What we’re seeing is that cannabis may be harmful in some respects, but possibly not in every way,” says Avshalom Caspi, co-author of the study and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. “We need to recognize that heavy recreational cannabis use does have some adverse consequences, but overall damage to physical health is not apparent in this study.”
The study examined the areas of assessed “lung function, systemic inflammation and several measures of metabolic syndrome, including waist circumference, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, glucose control and body mass index.” No negative effects were found in these areas for pot smokers as much as they did for cigarette smokers.
“We don’t want people to think, ‘Hey, marijuana can’t hurt me,’ because other studies on this same sample of New Zealanders have shown that marijuana use is associated with increased risk of psychotic illness, IQ decline and downward socioeconomic mobility,” said Madeline Meier, assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University who conducted the study in conjunction with Professor Caspi at Duke University, and other colleagues at King’s College in the UK and the University of Otago in New Zealand.
