Health & Medicine

Smoking Weed Healthier than Tobacco

Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Apr 09, 2013 12:39 PM EDT

Many have known it all along, and that's why stoners rejoiced when two U.S. states legalized the recreational use and sale of marijuana. And a new study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors only further compliments that victory.

Published in January, the findings state that "using tobacco on its own (and/or) mixing it with cannabis may lead to worse physical health outcomes than using cannabis alone."

Researchers in Randwick, Australia recruited 350 adults over 40 and divided them into four groups: cannabis-only users, tobacco and cannabis users, tobacco-only users, and a control group of abstainers. The population size was small, but the authors concluded that the control and cannabis-only groups tended to report the best health, while the two tobacco-smoking groups fared the worst.

All three smoking groups reported significantly higher rates of emphysema than did the control group. But, all members of the cannabis-only group diagnosed with the debilitating lung disease had formerly been regular tobacco smokers.

They also noted that "mixing cannabis with tobacco may synergistically compromise health." 

Basically, putting smoke of any kind into your body isn't the best for you. In conclusion, doing either one in moderation is probably best (and only if you're in Washington or Colorado for weed, of course!) 

See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone

More on SCIENCEwr