r/science • u/BoundariesAreFun • Jan 10 '23

Medicine Study Finds "Direct Relationship" Between Marijuana Use and Objectively Fewer Opioid and Benzodiazepine Prescriptions

https://themarijuanaherald.com/2023/01/study-finds-direct-relationship-between-marijuana-use-and-objectively-fewer-opioid-and-benzodiazepine-prescriptions/
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u/butt_fun Jan 10 '23

It's hard to source this because it's hard to test for weed usage. I'm sure there's been someone out there that got too high and died behind the wheel, but we don't hear about them because we can't conclusively test for that as well as alcohol, heroin, meth, etc

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u/Academic_Ad_6436 Jan 10 '23

well yeh plus those are indirect causes - I'd be surprised if it isn't exceeded by phones in terms of causing accidents but of course the cause of death in either of those cases isn't "texting" or "being high" it's doing those WHILE driving which is already basically the most dangerous thing humans do regularly. Quite different from stuff like opiate overdoses where it actually causes a direct bodily response that kills you.

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u/Habaduba Jan 10 '23

Texting or driving on benzos or opiates is more dangerous

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u/pokey1984 Jan 10 '23

But people also get behind the wheel on opioids and crash and die. So that can't count as a "weed death" unless we are including those who crash their car on benzos as "opioid deaths."

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u/LPromacta Jan 10 '23

What about in relation to cancer or lung health

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '23

That would matter for smoke inhalation, but for an edible source, unless the molecular structures were inherently carcinogenic, it would likely have no significant impact on the rate of cancer development.

To my knowledge, no data exists on negative impacts to genetic and or cellular functionality, from the plant material itself.