“It surprised us, we thought we would find more negative breathing symptoms in cigarette and e-cigarette users,” study author Carol Boyd, co-director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health, told the University, said. of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“Cigarettes and e-cigarettes are undoubtedly unhealthy and not good for the lungs. However, the evaporation of marijuana looks even worse,” she said.
“Since many teens who use nicotine vape also vaporize cannabis, I recommend parents treat all vaping as a risky behavior (just like alcohol or drug use),” Boyd said in an email.
Vaping weed is associated with a dangerous, newly identified lung disease called EVALI, an abbreviation for e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-related lung injury.
The disease was first identified in August 2019 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when otherwise healthy young people were hospitalized for serious, sometimes fatal, lung infections across the country.
A link was soon found between the deadly new condition and evaporation, with an important role being played by vitamin E acetate, a sticky oil substance often added to vaping products to thicken or dilute the oil in the cartridges. .
It is particularly prevalent in evaporative products containing THC, the major psychoactive compound in marijuana.
“According to the CDC, 84% of EVALI cases were related to products containing cannabis,” Boyd said.
Five respiratory problems
A fourth wave of the PATH study asked nearly 15,000 teens between the ages of 12 and 17 to describe their last cigarette, e-cigarette and weed use, as well as the total time they dipped marijuana during their “lifetime” . “
Each teen was also asked if they had any of these five symptoms in the past year: wheezing or wheezing in the chest; disturbed sleep due to wheezing; limited speech due to panting. wheezing during or after exercise and a dry cough at night, which was not due to cold or chest infection.
After analyzing the data, Boyd and her team found that the use of ‘cannabis vaping’ by adolescents is associated with all five negative respiratory symptoms.
“This does not apply to the use of cigarettes or e-cigarettes,” Boyd said.
The study was limited by the original questions posed in the PATH study, which did not enable the researchers to fully investigate vaping cannabis over time. A domestic survey, the longitudinal study, also excludes teens living in institutions that “could use higher prices for marijuana,” Boyd said.
Despite these limitations, “the current study had a large national sample and we found a strong association between lifetime cannabis use with ENDS (electronic nicotine delivery systems) and respiratory symptoms during a critical stage of development among the youth, “Boyd said.
Would these health problems also apply to adults evaporating weeds? The study was not designed to test this, Boyd said, but ‘vaping THC / CBD is a relatively new behavior, and so not many individuals over the age of 25’s cannabis evaporated as teenagers. We have too little data for an assessment. “
That does not mean vaping is safe, Boyd stressed.
“I’m often approached by both parents and teens who think cannabis vap is ‘OK’ and better than smoking (a joint, stump, dobie, etc.) and they ask, ‘Vaping is safe – right?’
My response: ‘You are misleading yourself. We know that it is unhealthy to inhale hot tobacco / cannabis smoke into your lungs and that it can cause bronchitis or life-threatening breathing problems.
“And yet you seem to believe that heating chemicals (including carcinogens) in a vapor and inhaling it is healthy? My answer is, ‘No, it’s not a healthy behavior.’ “