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Is inhaling marijuana smoke safer than inhaling smoke from tobacco? A majority of American adults say yes, according to a new survey, and they also believe there is less harm to adults and children from secondhand marijuana smoke than tobacco smoke.
However, those beliefs are just not true, said lead study author Dr. Beth Cohen, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and co-director of UCSF’s program in residency investigation methods and epidemiology.
“When you burn something, whether it is tobacco or cannabis, it creates toxic compounds, carcinogens, and particulate matter that are harmful to health,” she said in an email. “It’s the combustion that’s the problem, so this idea that because cannabis is ‘natural’ burning and inhaling it is fine is just wrong.”
While many longitudinal studies on the health impact of inhaling marijuana are still under way, there are “plenty of toxins and tar” in cannabis smoke that can hurt the lungs, said Carol Boyd, founding director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She was not involved in the new study.
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