There are people who smoke weed everyday. They wake up to a toke, before breakfast and  their morning coffee. But is it harmful and excessive to smoke weed everyday?  What really are the facts, what happens to a person that consumes marijuana day after day, and year after year.  What does the research tell us about the dangers and benefits of heavy, daily marijuana use?

Daily Cannabis Consumption – The Benefits

Medical Marijuana has been found to treat or alleviate the following symptoms.

  • Contain Cramps
  • Lift Depression
  • Lower Eye Pressure
  • Lift Fatigue
  • Treat Headaches
  • Lower Blood Pressure
  • Lower Inflammation
  • Mitigate Insomnia
  • Enhance Appetite
  • Treat Muscle Spasms
  • Stop Nausea
  • Raise Pain Tolerance
  • Reduce of Stop Seizures
  • Reduce or Halt Spasticity
  • Lower Stress

CAN WEED MAKE YOU SICK?

The simple thinking is that marijuana smoking would be similar to smoking cigarettes and getting high all the time might destroy your liver or some organ, like alcohol.  Then you’re going to be addicted, just like cigs and booze.

This is the line of thinking that was used by the Fed back in the day to scare a very gullible public about the dangers cannabis.  In a study of a few thousand marijuana moderate to heavy users, it was found that there was no greater incidence of lung disorders, including cancer.  Also, it was found that moderate daily marijuana use was associated with an improvement in lung capacity.

Then there are the studies about the liver and other organs.  Moderate daily use is correlated with improved liver function and is not associated with organ damage of any type.

Onto addiction.  Marijuana is addictive to a small % of the population that partake and is several times less addictive than alcohol and there is no comparison with cigarettes, which is among the most of all addictive substances.  In addition, cannabis tends to moderate cravings found in drug abuse and obsessive compulsive behavior. This munchie inducing herb actually balances appetite to LOWER weight in the long run.

Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome is a very real reaction to smoking cannabis. You can read more about it in our Blog Post.

Daily cannabis smokers are more likely to go to the hospital. BS!

According doctors at the Boston Medical Center, people that consume marijuana daily are no more likely to visit a doctor than non-smokers.  Furthermore, many sick people that visited the hospital regularly have started using cannabis daily to treat their conditions and symptoms, so the real healthy effects of smoking marijuana daily could be masked somewhat.

This good news about the daily use of cannabis and your lungs is despite the fact that there is tar and other carcinogenic things in a joint, plus many illegal (and legal) growers use horrible pesticides and herbicides, that definitely irritate and damage lung tissue.

One of the benefits of legalization is the implementation of Quality Control, Testing and other consumer safety requirements which make Cannabis purchased through legally licensed dispensaries significantly more pure.

Daily Cannabis Consumption can treat Chronic Pain

Cannabis has been documented in European literature in the treatment of pain.  Queen Victoria’s physicians prescribed alcohol extracts of Indian Hemp (has THC) for her cramps and migraines.  Today, Whoopi Goldberg does the same for her cramps and migraines. Literally every study on pain shows that cannabinoids are much better tolerated as compared to addicting and body destroying opioids, and especially the synthetic ones.    If you glance at a weed consumer, you won’t be able to tell if they toke or not, but an opiate addict sticks out like a sore thumb, like a prison of war victim.

Cannabis has been used for millennia to treat pain. US Pharmacopeia in 1930 listed Cannabis and tinctures thereof, to be a potent painkiller and was especially good for women’s issues.  Literally every study done on marijuana indicates that it’s safe and it’s opioid counterparts are, in every case, found to be dangerous with potentially life threatening side effects.

Is the pharmaceutical industry is against marijuana. No, not any longer.

The medical researchers in the US are chomping at the bit to get on board and catch up with the rest of the world, a world that has a head start on the synthesis of cannabinoids and derivatives.  As legality looms large, the number of cannabis medicine related research events – that is positive studies and clinical trials aiming to explore the benefits – will explode. Sadly, as was the case of opium, cocaine and now cannabinoids, man made toxic chemical derivatives will likely supplant the natural, much more tolerable and effective (in the long term) herbals.

Medical studies suggest that cannabinoids are useful to treat diverse conditions, especially those related to inflammation, acute or chronic pain. The discovery of cannabinoid receptors, their activators (endocannabinoids and components of weed) how the body’s own chemicals are synthesized, transport, and degradation of these chemical  messengers, has equipped the medical community with with understanding to develop new chemical analogues.

They don’t know how weed works or how to prescribe it.

Some current treatments with highly addictive and toxic opioids and anti-inflammatory drugs are not effective for certain painful conditions. These same conditions may be treatable with non-toxic cannabinoids and analogues because the endogenous cannabinoid system components, CB1 receptors, are present in the nervous and immune system and work with the body’s own endocannabinoids in pain modulation. Cannabis cannabinoids like CBD and THC can supplement or replace the body’s own endocannabinoids (in short supply) to intervene in pain mechanisms.

“The herb is the healing of our nation, the alcohol is the destruction of it.” – Bob Marley

Smoking Weed every day makes you stupid. – Not really.

Regular weed smokers know that there are a few potheads in every crowd, people that fall in love with the herb, the holiday feeling, and like to live every moment in the “Bob Marley Zone”. And, there are some people who shouldn’t smoke cannabis (or consume anything, really). However, there is little to no evidence that smoking THC, or CBD with moderate THC, hampers cognitive ability.  Certainly, cognitive ability can be impaired with too much THC, but these effects are temporary and have no measured permanent effects in longtime users.

If you are an energetic, creative person, and your receptors like cannabinoids, the results can be extremely good, and the creative juices flow, doors and windows open to the canyons of your mind.  Weed especially compliments the overactive, overachiever, to tone it down and go at a slower and more wholesome pace.

Smoking too much weed will make me fat –   Nope

According to literature. the ingredients in weed, THC and CBD act to modulate the receptors that affect appetite, both up and down.  Generally, obese people don’t feel properly satisfied when they eat and continue to eat to feel better. It’s the lizard brain at work, an impulse in the subconscious brain generated by simple errant biochemical reactions gone wrong.  Cannabinoids and other drugs act as biochemical switches to turn on/off hunger, pain, inflammation and so on.

Some cannabinoids like THCV, a type of THC found in South African strains and derivatives, works in the reverse of regular THC to turn off hunger.  At the end of the day, the net effect of long term weed smokers is that they don’t put on extra weight, and in fact have substantially less fat on their bodies compared to their non-toking comrades.

The American Journal of Epidemiology published a study about daily marijuana users, which showed a lower risk of obesity than marijuana non-users, regular cannabis users have thinner waists and lower insulin levels than those cannabis-free.  Cannabis was the single best treatment for anorexia, because it stimulates a healthy appetite and reduced fears of getting fat.

Smoking Weed Daily is a gateway to other drug abuse. BS!

Wherever weed is legal, drug and abuse statistics go down, all of them and every case.   Back in the day, then you had sometimes had to go to a drug dealer for your weed and he also had some narcotics, then it was possible that a gateway effect existed.  This gateway effect had nothing to do with weed, but the circumstances, where weed was placed in an environment with shady players doing shady things.

Anyone that rents real estate knows that you want to rent to responsible weed smokers and not bing alcohol consumers.  Weed smokers pay the rent and don’t break things, while the drunks are generally a nightmare experience all round.

“Smoking cannabis regularly resulted in a 3 percent reduction in the probability of alcohol consumption and a 5 percent reduction in the probability of binge drinking among this younger group, the researchers found. Younger adults to substitute high caloric alcoholic beverages with lower-calorie marijuana ‘high,’ resulting in lower body weight and lower likelihood of obesity.”

Cannabis is bad for the heart.  BS

If your blood pressure is too low from medication, weed may lower is further to the point of blanking out.    In this case, rather than swear off weed, you might contact a doctor that is deep in cannabis based medicine experience and ask two questions.  Can my high blood pressure medicine be reduced, or could cannabinoids lower my blood pressure to normal levels all on its own.

Most clinical research revolves THC and CBD, the psychoactive and non-psychoactive components of most strains of cannabinoids.  Medical professionals are now leaning toward balanced cannabis medicines, including a variety of terpenes and other types of cannabinoids as opposed strains containing only psychoactive THC.  The benefits of the “other cannabinoids” such as CBD, CBN, CBC on the cardiovascular system and heart are only now being studied in any great detail.

Conclusion

Granted, we are not clinical researchers, however, we find no body of clinical nor anecdotal data to suggest that daily use of cannabis is harmful to one’s health. Given its low toxicity, in comparison to toxic pharmaceuticals, cannabis is indeed the choice for long term treatment.  With that said, the body will build up a tolerance and even reject THC if the dosage is too large and is taken for too long a period.

The research strongly indicates that any substance whether herbal or drug, natural or synthetic, taken in significant quantities that profoundly affect the body, should be cycled with a ration of something like 1:3 or 2:7 on:off.

This translates into one week to 10 days off weed per month.  If you can’t anty up and go weed free for a week here and there, then maybe, sir or madam, you do have a dependence issue.

Which leads us to a conversation about overuse.

Overuse, Addiction or Nothing to Worry About

For those of us in legal weed states, it’s ridiculously easy to indulge. There are $5 joints for sale in every neighborhood. But how do you know when you’re overindulging? Weed’s mild nature can make it difficult to spot developing problems. It doesn’t cause hangovers; it’s pretty easy to lead a functional life through a perpetual haze; and, unlike cocaine, alcohol, or coffee, quitting doesn’t usually result in withdrawal symptoms.

Still, experts say that pot addiction—or, as psychologists call it, cannabis use disorder—does exist, and out of control weed use can negatively impact both your wallet and your relationships. Plus, we still don’t know entirely how cannabis affects our cardiovascular and brain health.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, symptoms of cannabis use disorder include spending a “great deal of time” obtaining and using cannabis, as well as having “a strong desire or urge to use cannabis.”

In my case, both are true. I am a medical cannabis patient and I operate a cannabis tour company.

I use cannabis because I was in a bicycle accident many years ago and I crushed 12 vertebra in my spine as a result. I use both THC and CBD to help manage intense chronic pain.

As a Tour Operator, I spend a LOT of time talking about cannabis with my Guests and helping them to make good choices about their own cannabis consumption.

Do I think I have a problem with cannabis use? Not really. While it is true I consume more than most people, I use it medicinally and it provides me a benefit. And, besides, talking about cannabis is really fun!

Learn More, Take a Tour!

For more information about consuming cannabis, read our blog post Ways to Smoke Cannabis

Click here for information about Booking a Happy Travelers Tours Wine-and-Weed Tour