Doctors Say Marijuana Smoke Carries “Many of the Same Toxins as Tobacco”

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Brendan Murray, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

As GoLocal reported, Oregon and Colorado’s recreational marijuana market are experiencing a bit of a windfall, and dispensaries are popping up throughout Massachusetts. With that increase in people toking up comes renewed concerns about the health risks, and benefits, associated with the cannabis plant.

Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, told GoLocal that while there are serious health risks that arise when the cannabis plant is smoked, there are also medicinal benefits to using marijuana in other forms.

“There are risks any time you are smoking something. There are definitely risks associated with smoking marijuana, things like lung disease and certainly cancer,” Brawley said. “However, there are certainly some medicinal, beneficial uses for the plant that should be explored.”

Marijuana Poses Health Risks

According to the American Lung Association, many of the same health risks caused by tobacco smoke can also be found in marijuana smoke.

“Smoke is harmful to lung health. Whether from burning wood, tobacco or marijuana, toxins and carcinogens are released from the combustion of materials,” a spokesman from the American Lung Association said. “Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke.”

Marijuana smoke can be especially harmful, according to the American Lung Association, because of the differences between how marijuana and tobacco are typically consumed. Marijuana smokers typically inhale the smoke deeper into their lungs and hold smoke in their lungs and airways for longer than tobacco users, causing a higher exposure to toxins and carcinogens.

Dr. Ronald Dunlap, former President of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said that “there is insufficient scientific information about the safety of marijuana.”

“Patients should remember that marijuana lacks the rigorous testing of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration,” Dunlap said. “That claims for its effectiveness have not been scientifically proven; and, that it poses health risks of toxins and cognitive impairment, the last condition being especially risky for young patients.”

Dunlap said there are also concerns regarding the relationships between medical marijuana patients and the doctors who prescribe them the drug.
“We are further concerned about the growth of certification centers dealing only with patients seeking marijuana,” Dunlap said. “They appear to sidestep the Department of Public Health regulation of an ‘ongoing physician-patient relationship’ in the general course of medical practice as a requirement for certification. Implications for occupational health and safety are other questions raised by marijuana use.”

Dunlap said the MMS would not endorse or approve the use of smoked cannabis as a medicine until “marijuana is approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration and is no longer classified in schedule I by the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

Medical Research Needed

Brawley, chief medical officer with the American Cancer Association, said that despite all of those health risks, marijuana may have nearly as many health benefits to offer. However, exactly what medicinal effects the cannabis plant may hold are still unknown, as few large-scale studies have been done on the subject.

“There have certainly been some signs that marijuana has plenty of medicinal qualities,” Brawley said. “Even though it's become medically legal and even recreationally legal in many states, marijuana is still highly illegal under federal law, which means it is difficult to conduct tests on.”

Brawley said that forms of cannabis consumption that do not require combustions—such as edibles, beverages, topical ointments and even pill capsules—could offer new treatment options to sick patients.

“This needs very rigorous scientific testing,” Brawley said. “We need to figure out what doses cause what effect. Right now there is not enough reliable research data to really say what medicinal effects this plant has to offer.”