'Extreme' exposure to secondhand cannabis smoke causes mild intoxication
Secondhand exposure to cannabis smoke under "extreme conditions," such as an unventilated room or enclosed vehicle, can cause nonsmokers to feel the effects of the drug, have minor problems with memory and coordination, and in some cases test positive for the drug in a urinalysis. Those are the findings of a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine study, reported online this month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the world. "Many people are exposed to secondhand cannabis smoke," says lead author Evan S. Herrmann, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins. "The scenario we looked at was almost a worst-case scenario. It could happen in the real world, but it couldn't happen to someone without him or her being aware of it."
"We found positive drug effects in the first few hours, a mild sense of intoxication and mild impairment on measures of cognitive performance," says senior author Ryan Vandrey, Ph.D. , an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins. "These were relatively slight effects, but even so, some participants did not pass the equivalent of a workplace drug test."
The new research is the most comprehensive study of secondhand cannabis smoke and its effects since the 1980s, when researchers found the drug's active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and other cannabis byproducts could turn up in nonsmokers' bodies after an hour or more spent in extreme conditions with heavy smokers in an enclosed space. That finding needed updating, since the average potency of street cannabis has tripled since the 1980s, the Johns Hopkins researchers wrote. Additionally, many earlier studies did not look at whether the nonsmokers reported feeling the drug's effects, or whether their behavior and thinking were affected by secondhand smoke, as the new study did.
= new reply since forum marked as read