Smoking marijuana is dangerous. It can dull the brain of HIV patients

A new study has showed that more frequent current marijuana use is associated with a measure of cognitive dysfunction.

Weed smokers, beware. Previous studies have already linked smoking up to psychological problems and increased risk of stroke and heart failure. Now, a new study has linked marijuana use with cognitive dysfunction in people with HIV infection who have an alcohol or other drug use disorder. While researchers at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and Boston Medical Center (BMC) did not detect effects of lifetime cumulative exposure, the study showed that more frequent current marijuana use was associated with a measure of cognitive dysfunction on the Medical Outcomes Study HIV Health Survey cognitive function scale.

Co-author Richard Saitz noted that people with HIV infection have many reasons to have cognitive dysfunction, from the virus itself to medications for HIV infection and related conditions, particularly as they age. “They also have symptoms like chronic pain and mental health symptoms, and use of marijuana, medically or recreationally, may seem like an option to consider. But at least among people with substance use disorders, it appears to have detrimental effects on cognitive function.”

“Few, if any, studies have examined the combined effects that alcohol use and marijuana use may have on cognition in PLWH,” the authors wrote. “Such an understanding could contribute to efforts to reduce harmful substance use and prevent clinical consequences, particularly in an era in which ‘moderate’ drinking is at times discussed in terms of possible beneficial effects, and in which marijuana is discussed as a relatively safe and even therapeutic substance.”

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