Toxins in marijuana smoke can be harmful to health, research shows

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People who smoked marijuana alone had higher blood and urine levels of several smoking-related toxins such as naphthalene, acrylamide and acrylonitrile than non-smokers, according to the study published Monday in the journal EClinicalMedicine.

“Use of marijuana is on the rise in the United States with a growing number of states legalizing it for medical and non-medical purposes – including five other states in the 2020 election,” said senior author Dr. Dana Gabuzda, a principal investigator in cancer immunology and virology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said in a statement.

“The increase has raised new concerns about the potential health effects of marijuana smoke, which is known to contain some of the same toxic combustion products found in tobacco smoke,” Gabuzda said.

Tobacco smokers

The new study presented data from three studies involving 245 HIV-positive and HIV-negative participants. Researchers said they chose to study people with HIV infection because of the high prevalence of tobacco and marijuana smoking typically found in this population.

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Medical data was compared with blood and urine samples of various chemicals produced by the breakdown of nicotine or the combustion of tobacco or marijuana.

Tobacco and tobacco marijuana smokers had higher levels of naphthalene, acrylamide and acrylonitrile than smokers who smoked marijuana alone. Tobacco smokers also had elevated levels of a chemical called acrolein in their blood and urine. Acrolein is a known cause of cardiovascular disease in tobacco smokers.

However, marijuana smokers did not have higher levels of acrolein in their body.

“This is the first study to compare exposure to acrolein and other harmful smoking-related chemicals over time in exclusive marijuana smokers and tobacco smokers, and to see if those exposures are linked to cardiovascular disease,” said Gabuzda.

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Acrolein is a chemical with a burnt, sweet, pungent odor that results from the burning of fuels such as gasoline or oil and organic matter such as tobacco. The chemical is not added to cigarettes; acrolein is produced by the combustion of sugars present in tobacco when smoked.

Short-term exposure to acrolein can cause irritation and congestion of the upper respiratory tract. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, it can be toxic to humans at extreme levels after inhalation, oral, or dermal exposure.

Weed smokers

While cannabis smokers had higher levels of naphthalene, acrylamide and acrylonitrile in blood and urine than nonsmokers, even higher concentrations were found in people who smoked tobacco or a combination of marijuana and tobacco.

Acrylamide is a chemical used to make paper, plastic and dyes, but it is also produced when vegetables such as potatoes are heated to high temperatures. It is also a constituent of tobacco smoke.

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“People are exposed to significantly more acrylamide from tobacco smoke than from food. People who smoke have three to five times higher levels of acrylamide exposure markers in their blood than nonsmokers,” said the National Cancer Institute.
According to the American Cancer Society, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies acrylamide as a “probable human carcinogen,” while the US National Toxicology Program says it “can reasonably be expected to be a human carcinogen,” based on animal studies.
Acrylonitrile is typically used in plastics and fiber manufacturers. “Cigarette smoking can be a major source of acrylonitrile indoor air pollution,” said the World Health Organization.
Symptoms of acrylonitrile poisoning include “limb weakness, labored and irregular breathing, dizziness and impaired judgment, cyanosis, nausea, collapse and convulsions,” the US Environmental Protection Agency said. And a “statistically significant increase in lung cancer incidence has been reported in several studies of chronically exposed workers.”

The EPA classifies acrylonitrile as a “probable human carcinogen.”

Naphthalene, used in mothballs, can cause “headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, malaise, confusion, anemia, jaundice, convulsions, and coma,” according to the EPA.
The highest indoor levels of naphthalene are found in the homes of cigarette smokers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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