Cannabis Use Disorder Triples Risk of Oral Cancer
A recent study by researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine has found that individuals with cannabis use disorder (CUD) are more than three times more likely to develop oral cancer within five years compared to those without CUD. The study highlights the potential long-term health risks associated with problematic cannabis use.
In 2022, 17.7 million people reported daily or near-daily cannabis use. Though CUD requires a formal diagnosis and not all cannabis users develop the disorder, recent research suggests that as many as 3 in 10 cannabis users will develop CUD.
As cannabis becomes more widely available and socially accepted, it is essential to understand its potential health risks. While many consider cannabis to be safer than other drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol, there are still many unknowns about the health impacts of cannabis, particularly how the drug influences cancer risk. The new study sought to determine the relationship between CUD and oral cancer, for which tobacco smoking is known to be a significant risk factor.
“Cannabis smoke contains many of the same carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco smoke, which have known damaging effects on the epithelial tissue that lines the mouth," said Raphael Cuomo, Ph.D. associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine and member of UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. "These findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that chronic or problematic cannabis use may contribute to cancer risk in tissues exposed to combustion products."
https://today.ucsd.edu/story/cannabis-use-disorder-triples-risk-of-oral-cancer
On edit: I just looked up the stats on oral cancer and you can see them at this link:
https://www.healthline.com/health/oral-cancer/how-common-is-mouth-cancer