Weedless Wednesday: cannabis isn't the problem, but maybe tobacco is

[A customer smokes a marijuana and tobacco joint at Frankie Sports Bar and Grill in Olympia, Washington. photo: Reuters]

You might be surprised to hear that Weedless Wednesday is not an anti-legalization campaign or a cannabis addiction awareness initiative, but a day for people to butt out their cigarettes. (“The tobacco plant is in fact a weed,” organizers say on the Facebook event page.)

The event today is part of National Non-Smoking Week, aimed at bringing public attention to the benefits of quitting. “The idea behind Weedless Wednesday,” according to the website, “is to promote a ‘one day at a time’ approach to quitting smoking, a concept appealing to many smokers who may be discouraged at the thought of an entire week – or lifetime – without cigarettes, but who may be able to cope with one smoke-free day.”

While many people worry that legalization could increase cannabis use among youth users, more and more research tells us we should focus our after school anti-smoking efforts on cigarettes. A new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggests that tobacco might be a bigger problem than we know.

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It is well known in the scientific community that when studying the impact of cannabis, it’s difficult to control for tobacco use. This is especially true among young people because so many smoke the two substances together. In fact, 91 per cent of the users in this latest study smoked the two together. Aimed at refuting a 2012 study from Duke University that claimed cannabis smoking causes IQ loss in young people, this new study has done that and more.

Researchers looked at the habits of 2,235 teenagers, from age 15 to 16, and compared their IQ and performance at school. When they controlled their results for other possible influences, like alcohol and tobacco use, they found no change in the cognitive abilities of students who had used cannabis more than 50 times. What they found instead was a trend among tobacco users. Whether they used cannabis or not, tobacco smokers showed a measured decline in IQ and educational performance during the year-long study.

While our scientific understanding of cannabis is still maturing, today you have one more reason to butt out that cigarette, even if you still plan to light that joint.