Heavy marijuana use not linked to lung cancer


Despite popular belief, a new study shows that people who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer.


It seems even heavy, long-term marijuana users do not appear to increase the risk of head and neck cancers, such as cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat, or esophagus.


Senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles says the findings were a surprise as they expected to find that a history of heavy marijuana use would increase the risk of cancer from several years to decades after exposure to marijuana.


The study looked at people in Los Angeles County - 611 who developed lung cancer, 601 who developed cancer of the head or neck regions, and 1,040 people without cancer who were matched on age, gender and neighborhood.

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