Study adds to evidence that cigarettes are gateway to marijuana
Teen smokers who rationalize their use of cigarettes by saying, “At least, I’m not doing drugs,” may not always be able to use that line.
New research to be presented Sunday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC, supports the theory that cigarettes are a gateway drug to marijuana.
“Contrary to what we would expect, we also found that students who smoked both tobacco and marijuana were more likely to smoke more tobacco than those who smoked only tobacco,” said study author Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, FAAP, an investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington.
Dr. Moreno and her colleagues randomly selected incoming college students from two universities - one in the Northwest and one in the Midwest - to participate in the longitudinal study. Students were interviewed prior to entering college and again at the end of their freshman year regarding their attitudes, intentio
Specifically, students were asked if they had used tobacco or marijuana ever in their lives and in the past 28 days. Researchers also assessed the quantity and frequency of marijuana and tobacco use in the past 28 days.
Results showed that prior to entering college, 33 percent of the 315 participants reported lifetime tobacco use, and 43 percent of lifetime users were current users. In addition, tobacco users were more likely to have used marijuana than those who did not use tobacco.
Marijuana use has long been heatedly debated by people around the world; from politicians not wanting to legalize it, to a couple of teenagers in a basement lighting a joint up, everyone has their opinion. But when it comes to pitting marijuana smoking against cigarette smoking, do they have any differences?
When it comes to similarities, it’s clear: society frowns upon those who smoke cigarettes because it’s bad for the health of both the smoker and everyone around him, while those who smoke weed are frowned upon as throwing away their lives because of addiction.
With the similarity being the fact that people frown on its use and that smokers smoke it; is there any difference between marijuana smoking and cigarette smoking in terms of health?
Marijuana use across the world is rampant. The United States, in 2009, reportedly had 16.7 million people ages 12 and up smoking joint, while in South Australia, 14.9 percent of its population aged 14 years old and up were using in 2010, according to the Drug and Alcohol Services, South Australia.
With this in mind, yes, there is a difference between the two when it comes to health. In a recent study done by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, researchers discovered that when it comes to the lungs, cigarette smoking is still bad, but when it comes to marijuana smoking, results show that occasional marijuana use was linked to increased lung air flow rates and an increase in lung capacity.
But before anyone goes out and gets a hold of a doobie, it’s important to remember that smoking a joint is illegal in some places, and though it may have benefits for the lungs, marijuana use still has adverse health effects.
By the end of their freshman year, 66 percent of participants who reported tobacco use prior to entering college remained current users with an average of 34 tobacco episodes per month. Of these, 53 percent reported concurrent marijuana use. Overall, users of both substances averaged significantly more tobacco episodes per month than current users of tobacco only (42 vs. 24).
“These findings are significant because in the past year we have seen legislation passed that legalizes marijuana in two states,” Dr. Moreno said. “While the impact of these laws on marijuana use is a critical issue, our findings suggest that we should also consider whether increased marijuana use will impact tobacco use among older adolescents.”