Marijuana Smokers Who Also Smoke Tobacco May Be At Increased Risk For Lung Damage, Preliminary Study Suggests
CNN (11/15, LaMotte) reports smoking marijuana “while being a tobacco smoker may increase damage to the respiratory system,” according to a preliminary study published in the journal Radiology that “compared computed tomography (CT) chest scans from 56 people who smoked marijuana and tobacco with lung scans of 33 people who had been heavy cigarette smokers for over 25 years.” About “75% of the people in the study who smoked marijuana and tobacco had emphysema,” while “about 67% of the tobacco-only smokers had emphysema” and “only 5% of the nonsmokers had the disease.”MedPage Today (11/15, Putka) reports “emphysema and airway inflammation were more common among marijuana smokers compared with tobacco-only smokers, according to” the “small retrospective case-control study.”
Medscape (11/15, Coffey, Subscription Publication) reports that “more than 40% of the marijuana group was younger than 50 years, and all of the tobacco-only users were 50 or older.”
