DUDE! WEED IS SAFER THAN CIGARETTES!

Small doses of pot won’t hurt your lungs like tobacco does, says a new 20-year-study.

Refuting claims that all marijuana use has a negative effect on respiratory health, researchers found that smoking two to three joints per month isn’t harmful.

“Tobacco takes you down that road toward breathlessness, but low to moderate levels of marijuana don’t,” said Dr. Stefan Kertesz, a co-author of the study, according to Health Day.

The research, which appears in the Jan. 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, comes from one of the longest and largest studies on the effects of marijuana use, USA Today reported.

Over two decades, researchers studied the lung capacity of more than 5,100 people aged 18-30 from four different cities: Oakland, Calif.; Chicago; Minneapolis; and Birmingham, Ala. Lung tests, during which participants’ were asked to blow into a tube, were administered every few years.

Tobacco users in the group smoked about eight to nine cigarettes per day, while marijuana users smoked an average of two to three times in the past month.

“That’s really different from Cheech and Chong,” Kertesz said. “Americans who smoke marijuana typically don’t smoke it every day.”

While marijuana use of the group was light, smoking pot was just as common as smoking tobacco, researchers found.

But it’s the tobacco users who should worry. The study shows that the substance, in any amount, unlike marijuana, reduces lung capacity.

Kertesz notes that respiratory risks do increase for people who smoke pot more frequently.

Critics of the study warn of marijuana’s non-respiratory risks.

“It is important to not forget the numerous other serious consequences of marijuana use,” said Calvina Fay, executive director of a Drug Free America Foundation, according to Health Day.

These include “cognitive and learning problems, psychosis, addiction, criminal behavior and impaired driving,” the website reported.

Others maintain that even small marijuana use can be harmful to your lungs.

“Several studies have clearly shown that even light marijuana smokers can develop serious bronchitis with symptoms of cough and phlegm production,” said Dr. Robert Hancox, a marijuana expert in New Zealand, according to Health Day.

“Studies have also demonstrated that smoking marijuana leads to abnormal lung function, but using different tests to those used by this study.

“What this study shows is that the pattern of lung damage seen with marijuana is not the same as caused by tobacco.”

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