Major Study Finds No Lung Damage for Marijuana Smokers

Among the most frequent words to fall from the lips of your typical anti-pot propagandist are almost always some sort of insistence that the stuff destroys your lungs. According to them, you hippies are all gonna choke on your bongs, and probably a lot sooner than you think.

But marijuana's reputed legacy of respiratory havoc has always had a funny way of never actually happening to anyone. Important new research will hopefully help bury the nonsense once and for all.

Jan. 10, 2012 -- Woodstock generation, breathe easy. One of the largest and longest studies ever to look at the effect of marijuana smoking on lung health finds that pot smoking doesn’t appear to cause chronic breathing trouble.

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In fact, the study found that the lung function of most marijuana smokers actually improved slightly over time. [WebMD]

Why isn't marijuana bad for your lungs? I don't know. Intuitively, I understand why many have assumed that it would be. But it just isn't. It isn't tobacco, and the things you know about tobacco's harms simply aren’t relevant to the discussion of marijuana on any level whatsoever, including what happens when you set it on fire and inhale it into your lungs.

Obviously, it will take a hopelessly long time for this fact to sink in among the frenzied anti-drug fanatics who've fantasized for decades about marijuana's fictitious effects on lung function. Fortunately, due to their healthy lifestyles, most marijuana smokers will probably live long enough to see the day when everyone stops predicting their premature death.