Cannabis isn't the health problem - it's the tobacco you mix it with

Posted on 24 May 2017

Europe may seem like an increasingly divided continent, but there is one thing that unites its people: an obsession with using tobacco to smoke cannabis.

Ian Hamilton, Mental Health lecturer, writes for The Conversation. "Europe may seem like an increasingly divided continent, but there is one thing that unites its people: an obsession with using tobacco to smoke cannabis. Up to 90% of Europeans combine tobacco with cannabis, according to the latest Global Drug Survey. By comparison, only 8% of Americans smoke cannabis this way.

Cannabis is illegal in the UK – and many other European countries – and it has known harms, but the reality is that many people use the drug anyway. Consequently, policy needs to reflect this reality.

For many Europeans, cannabis is a gateway drug to tobacco as many people are first exposed to tobacco when they smoke their first joint, a phenomenon referred to as the reverse gateway effect.

Smoking (combusting) anything is bad for your lungs. Smoking changes the properties of a substance, often forming toxic and carcinogenic compounds. For cannabis this includes brain changes that are thought to impair cognitive functioning, particularly in adolescents. And the harmful effects of smoking tobacco are well known. More than 8m people die each year as a result of smoking tobacco – mostly from cancer and cardiovascular disease.

To read the full article visit https://theconversation.com/cannabis-isnt-the-health-problem-its-the-tobacco-you-mix-with-it-77067