WASHINGTON -- In the 20 years since California first legalized medicinal marijuana, the industry enjoyed significant growth in terms of size and sales. Currently, two dozen states have legalized marijuana for medicinal use and four states (and Washington, D.C.) have legalized the drug for recreational use. According to the cannabis research firm ArcView Market Research, sales in those legal states totaled $5.4 billion in 2015 and could grow as large as $22 billion by 2020.
Yet, despite allowing states to regulate marijuana without interference, the federal government has not started discussions about legalizing cannabis nationally. The reasons given by both Congress and President Barack Obama, according to a Motley Fool report, have centered around a lack of concrete data on the effects of marijuana use.
Earlier this month, researchers published the results of a long-term marijuana use study in JAMA Psychiatry, the results of which may answer some of the concerns raised on the federal level. Conducted by 10 researchers from New Zealand, the University of California, Davis, Duke University, Arizona State University and King's College London, the study looked at what effect cannabis use had on a number of common health measures, such as lung function, blood pressure, body mass index and waist circumference.
Just more than 1,000 adults from Dunedin, New Zealand, participated in the study, self-reporting physical health information and frequency of marijuana use. The researchers used lab results for other health factors, such as lung function, systemic inflammation, metabolic health and periodontal health. This information was collected at ages 18, 21, 26, 32 and 38 and considered a number of factors, including tobacco use, childhood health and childhood socioeconomic status.
After 20 years of collecting data, the researchers concluded that, of all the health measures studied, marijuana use only had a statistically significant negative effect on periodontal health. For the other health factors—lung function, systemic inflammation, BMI and metabolic health—they found no negative impact from long-term marijuana use.
By comparison, they found tobacco use was "associated with worse lung function, systemic inflammation and metabolic health at age 38 years, as well as within individual decline in health from ages 26 to 38 years," per the abstract.
Despite the favorable data, Motley Fool noted it’s unlikely that the federal government will take up marijuana legalization anytime soon, pointing out that Obama has suggested that marijuana is not on his regulatory agenda.
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