A study released today by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people who smoke marijuana once a week or so do not suffer from reduced pulmonary function and may actually see improvements in their pulmonary function.
The study by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of California, San Francisco was released today by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In the following video, Dr. Stefan Kertesz, MD, of the University of Alabama Medical School, said researchers studied 5000 adults over a period of 20 years beginning in the 1980s.
He defined marijuana use by “joint years”, with one joint year comprised of smoking one joint a day for a year. He says that up to about seven joint years, users tend to see improved lung function but that improvement flattens out after seven joint years and lung function then decreases in some cases.
At very high levels of usage, he said the study indicates there could be harm to pulmonary function but that no harm was seen among moderate users.