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Watch the covid-19 attack on the lungs in 3D 1:16
(CNN) - If you're smoking marijuana to relieve stress during the coronavirus pandemic quarantine, experts say it's time to think twice.
Smoking marijuana, even occasionally, can increase the risk of more serious complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
"What happens to the airways when you smoke cannabis is that it causes some degree of inflammation, very similar to bronchitis, very similar to the type of inflammation that cigarette smoking can cause," said Albert Rizzo, pulmonologist and medical director of the Association. American Lung. “Now you have some inflammation of the airways and you also have an infection. So yes, your chance of having more complications is there. "
But perhaps you could say that you have just started smoking and it is not much, what is the harm?
The problem, said Dr. Mitchell Glass, a pulmonologist and spokesperson for the American Lung Association, is that the last thing you want during a pandemic is to make it harder for a doctor to diagnose your symptoms.
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"Covid-19 is a lung disease," Glass said. "Do you really want to have a confounding variable if you need to see a doctor or health professional saying, 'Oh, and by the way, I'm not a regular cannabis user, but I decided to use cannabis to calm myself down.'
"You shouldn't do anything that could confuse the ability of healthcare workers to make a quick and accurate assessment of what's going on with you," he added.
Is that cough from smoking or coronavirus?
Smoking marijuana "chronically", defined as daily use, damages the lungs over a period of time. The bottom line "looks a lot like chronic bronchitis, which is, of course, one of the terms we use for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or Epoc," Glass said.
Smokers, people with Epoc and other chronic lung diseases, as well as people with moderate to severe asthma, are among those at high risk for severe disease from covid-19, including the worst case of put a fan on them to keep breathing.
Signs of lung damage from smoking, even a few cigarettes, can appear within days. While one or two shots of marijuana don't compare, there are some unique properties of a marijuana 'joint' that are definitely problematic for your lungs even if you're a new smoker, Glass said.
Think about what happens to a cigarette when you light it and leave it in an ashtray: it will quickly burn up to the filter, and there will be nothing but ash.
"He is surrounded by paper. It is completely dry. It is made to burn at a very high temperature, "Glass said.
Now think about how a marijuana cigarette burns: there is always some herb left, the "butt", as they say.
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"Marijuana burns at a much lower temperature than a commercially made cigarette," Glass said. "Because of that, the person is inhaling a certain amount of unburned plant material."
That irritates the lungs in the same way that ragweed, birch and oak pollen do in people allergic to them, he said.
"So right away, there are patients who would be increasingly susceptible to bronchospasm or cough because they have a more sensitive airway."
And since a dry cough is a key sign of covid-19, any cough caused by smoking marijuana could easily mimic that symptom, making diagnosis difficult.
The need to have a clear head
There is also another factor. As we all know, marijuana not only calms you, it also affects your ability to function, and that doesn't help you if you have a medical emergency during a pandemic.
"You are reducing anxiety, but that is still a change in the way you think, a change in the way you handle events, how you are capturing situations," Glass said.
“Then a healthcare worker who is dressed, gloved, possibly in a hazardous materials suit is trying to contact you. These are people who are trying to decide whether you should go home, enter the emergency room, or in the worst case, put on a fan, "he continued.
"They want the person giving their informed consent to have full control of their thought processes."
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More Americans use marijuana
In 2018, more than 43 million Americans ages 12 and older reported using marijuana in the past year, according to the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
About four million of them are people with "marijuana use disorder, which means that this has escalated to the point that it's a problem in their lives," said Jessica Hulsey, founder of the Addiction Policy Forum, which advocates for patients and their families struggling with substance use disorder and addiction.
“Experts from the National Institutes of Health published some guidelines for our patients and our families. They say marijuana use disorder could be a risk factor for covid-19 complications, "said Hulsey.
"Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes covid-19 could be an especially serious threat to tobacco or marijuana smokers or to vapers," the INS said in its announcement.
"We need to make sure that these users are aware that marijuana is essentially an underlying health condition," added Hulsey. "They should take extra precautions by minimizing use as much as possible, and even start a virtual treatment and recovery journey while everyone is trapped at home."
The national drug survey also found that more than a third of young adults ages 18 to 25 said they used marijuana during 2018, along with more than 13% of adults age 26 and older.
But it is not just young people. Earlier this year, a study found that use by older adults is increasing dramatically. In 2006, only 0.4% of people over the age of 65 reported using marijuana products in the past year. By 2018, more than 4% of the same older adults say they are now smoking marijuana, according to the study.
"Marijuana use among older people is not going up and down like other drugs. It's going in a straight line, ”study co-author Joseph Palamar, an associate professor of population health at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, said in an interview in February.
Are there even more Americans turning to grass during this time of crisis?
Simply put, no one knows. Each state handles the reports differently, Glass says, and sales estimates often combine THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana that produces the effect, and CBD, the medicinal compound, is now sold over the counter.
"I made some phone calls and the numbers ranged from literally a million to 30 million. So who knows how many people are taking cannabis to ease their anxiety during this time, ”Glass said.
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What to do?
If you don't smoke marijuana regularly, don't start, experts say.
"Don't confuse doctors with trying to figure out if your dry cough and behavioral change is due to the fact that you are a newbie to marijuana or associated with covid-19," Glass said.
"If you need to see a doctor, be sure to be very honest with them about when you last used it and how often you use it," Glass said, "so they can get a good, clear story about the impact of inhaling marijuana. in you".
Remember the bottom line when it comes to smoking and its relationship to covid-19, Rizzo said.
"It is common sense that anything you inhale that has been burned and contains particles or chemicals can inflame the airways," he said. "So you're already making your body fight off foreign particles before it even has to fight infection."
