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Respiratory Status of Seventy-Four Habitual Marijuana Smokers
Section snippets
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Healthy young, male volunteers, who considered themselves regular smokers of marijuana, were recruited through newspaper advertisements to participate in one or more studies of the cardiopulmonary and other biologic effects of cannabis at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for the Health Sciences.4, 5, 6, 16, 17 Of the 75 subjects selected for these studies, one black individual whose height was 198 cm (6 ft, 6 in) was excluded from the present analysis because of our
RESULTS
Physical examination of the 74 habitual marijuana smokers showed no abnormalities with respect to the heart and lungs. Only two of the marijuana smokers complained of definite respiratory symptoms (cough and sputum production). Two other marijuana smokers had a childhood history of asthma. Six individuals in the matched group of control subjects complained of cough and three of these raised phlegm and complained of wheeze; one additional control subject also complained of wheeze, but no subject
DISCUSSION
Since the matched control subjects were not questioned regarding their use of marijuana or other illicit drugs, the number of individuals in this control group who smoked marijuana is not known. However, the percentage of these subjects who used marijuana regularly could be estimated from the results of nationwide surveys conducted during the time that the control subjects were actually studied. According to these surveys, 6.7 percent of men in the 18-to-25-year age group who resided in urban
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are indebted to James W. Sayre, Ph.D., and Anne H. Coulson for their assistance in data management and analysis and to Gale Ivie for her secretarial help in preparing the manuscript.
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Presented at the Annual Meeting, American Thoracic Society, Boston, May, 1978.
Supported in part by Contract No. HSM 42-71-89 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and by Grant No. ES 01473-01 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, National Institutes of Health.
Manuscript received October 15; revision accepted December 27.