A brand new research from researchers in Spain discovered no decline within the well being of standard hashish shoppers when in comparison with the overall inhabitants.
The paper, printed within the journal Hashish and Cannabinoid Analysis, assessed the impression of standard hashish consumption on public well being and in contrast the information to the overall inhabitants in Spain for the primary time.
Spain has the third highest price of hashish consumption in Europe (3.7% of the inhabitants). Whereas people can entry hashish by way of the hashish social membership (CSCs) mannequin, the plant stays federally unlawful all through Spain.
Researchers from the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS) and the Division of Organic & Well being Psychology on the Autonomous College of Madrid, developed a particular questionnaire based mostly on the Catalan Public Well being Survey, that checked out 419 common hashish customers within the Catalonia area of Spain.
Researchers collected data from 2019 to 2022 on survey contributors taking a look at sociodemographic information, normal and psychological well being, way of life, social assist, and using alcohol, tobacco, and different substances.
The research, partially funded by Fundación Canna, discovered that the general well being of standard hashish shoppers is corresponding to or higher than the overall inhabitants.
Higher well being and fewer prescription drugs
Hashish customers demonstrated higher scores on constructive well being notion and physique mass index and reported having fewer points with ldl cholesterol, blood strain, power illnesses, bodily limitations, and melancholy (7.1% of hashish customers had melancholy in comparison with 20.5% of the overall inhabitants).
Hashish customers reported consuming half the quantity of alcohol as the overall inhabitants. Researchers additionally discovered that about 30% of the pattern was in a position to cease taking prescription drugs whereas utilizing hashish.
Hashish customers had decrease scores than the overall inhabitants when it got here to sleep indicators, suggesting that they’ve extra points with sleep. Nonetheless, present proof additionally factors to raised sleep high quality in medical hashish customers. Subsequently the person profile or the methods by which the plant is utilised are variables that will decide the general results of hashish.
Whereas the variations in well being indicators outlined by the research can’t be attributed solely to hashish, these behind the analysis say it means that common customers don’t expertise related dangerous impacts on their general well being.
The authors of the paper recommend together with cannabis-related gadgets in nationwide well being surveys to offer beneficial information to assist public debates relating to its regulation.
José Carlos Bouso, the research’s principal investigator, commented: “Hashish use is stigmatised as a result of the plant is taken into account dangerous to public well being, however there has by no means been an actual research on its impression based mostly on public well being indicators. That is the primary time such a research has been carried out. The outcomes are supposed to assist information hashish coverage selections on regulation.”