With well over two-thirds of Americans in favor of legalized cannabis, it's high time to weed out some old myths.
Some of those misconceptions were actively cultivated during Richard Nixon’s 1971 “War on Drugs,” when, says Harvard Medical School instructor and cannabis care specialist Peter Grinspoon, MD, “there was a deliberate ‘moral panic’ about cannabis.”
Today, with recreational weed available in 24 states and DC, and with medicinal cannabis approved in 14 more, researchers are taking a closer look at the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabinoids, and terpene, and finding some remarkable truths – as well as some stubborn misunderstandings. Dr. Grinspoon, author of “Seeing Through the Smoke,” helps dispel some of the fallacies.
Myth: Cannabis is a highly addictive “gateway drug.”.
Truth: Cannabis can be habit-forming, but it pales in comparison to opiates, alcohol, and other substances. No evidence exists that cannabis increases heroin, alcohol, cocaine, and barbiturates consumption, as reconfirmed in a 2023 Colorado study that found no “gateway effect.”
“If anything, for some, cannabis can be a gateway off other drugs,” Dr. Grinspoon says.
Myth: Cannabis overdose is deadly.
Truth: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and other organizations researchers have not documented any deaths caused by cannabis alone. That’s because cannabis – unlike opiates and other drugs that target the breathing centers – affects the memory and emotional centers of the brain. While overindulgence can cause fleeting unease, the NIDA report asserts it doesn't kill.
“Researchers have given monkeys 600,000 milligrams of Cannabis and not killed them, although the animals were obviously sick and miserable,” Grinspoon says. People respond similarly.
Myth: Cannabis offers limited medical benefits.
Truth: Cannabis measurably improves insomnia, anxiety, muscle spasticity, and various kinds of pain. Medical cannabis lowers lower eye pressure in glaucoma, diminishes nausea from chemotherapy, and calms symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn's disease, epilepsy, seizures, and multiple sclerosis (MS). According to participants in a small 2021 study, it also fosters better sleep.
Myth: Smoking cannabis causes lung cancer.
Truth: Smoking is never healthy, but a large-scale 2006 UCLA probe not only found no connection between cannabis and lung cancer development. It may also have unearthed cannabis’s protective function. The study’s authors theorized that THC may have anti-tumor properties that diminish the likelihood of lung cancer.
Indeed, disease risk among the heaviest cannabis smokers, who consume far less than the average 25 cigarettes a day typical of heavy tobacco users, is even lower. Moreover, about 14 percent of adults use edibles, and many others opt for cannabis-infused topical creams or lotions; dabbling (breathing in vaporized concentrates); drinks; concentrates, capsules; and suppositories. All of these completely spare the lungs.
Myth: Cannabis is always harmless.
Truth: Cannabis can be risky for teens, whose brains are still developing. It has unknown effects on pregnant or lactating women. And it can destabilize people who are susceptible to psychosis. What researchers do agree upon, however, is that cannabis does not cause psychiatric conditions.
“The rates of cannabis use have gone up by factors of about a thousand since the 1950s, but schizophrenia has remained rock-steady at about one percent of the population,” Grinspoon says.
Myth: We completely understand cannabis.
Truth: Our current knowledge is largely based on unstandardized cannabis, that is, or weed that may have been tainted or demonstrates inconsistent potency.
“Illegal cannabis can have mold and pesticides, and we don’t know how it was prepared or stored,” Grinspoon says.
“Studying legal cannabis will clarify the discussion,” he notes.
Academic studies are bound to grow, well, like weeds as the cannabis industry approaches the $40 billion mark this year.
