Yasmina Kattou, edited by Laura Laplaud 06:53, February 03, 2023
According to a study of 9,000 cancer patients, patients with lung cancer who regularly used cannabis were on average 53 years old at the time of diagnosis.
Against 65 years for cigarette smokers.
Cannabis users develop lung cancer earlier than tobacco smokers, as revealed for the first time in a study conducted by French researchers on 9,000 cancer patients.
A phenomenon that worries since cannabis is the most consumed drug in the population and that 10.6% of French people consumed it in 2021, according to a report by the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
Even if cannabis is not officially classified as carcinogenic, proof is, by this study, that it causes as much damage, if not more, than tobacco.
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The average age of diagnosis of lung cancer is 53 years old.
53 years is the average age of diagnosis of lung cancer in a cannabis smoker against 65 years for cigarette fans.
The patients smoked three joints a day, which represents an average consumption for cannabis users.
Difficult to explain why cannabis causes an increased risk of developing early cancer, but hypotheses are raised by researchers.
"The tobacco smoker smokes tobacco with a filter, the cannabis smoker does not have a filter in his joint. He therefore inhales probably greater quantities of carcinogenic agents, whether tobacco and cannabis, and which will actually trigger the onset of lung cancer earlier", explains Didier Debieuvre, coordinator of the study which highlighted the dangers of cannabis.
On the other hand, according to the first elements of the study, cannabis smokers do not have more aggressive cancers than tobacco users.