Weed is pretty renowned for making you want to eat all food in sight, but this new study claims that cannabis can actually tackle the obesity epidemic. Wait, what?
Health experts in the U.S. have analysed 12 years worth of data to find that legalising the drug encouraged a significant number of people to lose weight.
In the states which decriminalised cannabis under the medical marijuana legislation, levels of obesity dropped by between two to six per cent, researchers from Cornell and San Diego University found.
This surprising trend apparently occurred because the law encouraged some young people to smoke up instead of drinking a shit ton of calorific alcohol.
As well as encouraging teens to ditch the far more dangerous booze, cannabis also helped more elderly resident get more active, by cutting back on their chronic pain.
Researchers wrote:
These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that medical marijuana laws may be more likely to induce marijuana use for health-related reasons among older individuals, and cause substitution toward lower-calorie recreational ‘highs’ among younger individuals, researchers wrote. The enforcement of medical marijuana laws is associated with a 2% to 6% decline in the probability of obesity. Our estimates suggest [weed laws] induce a $58 to $115 per-person annual reduction in obesity-related medical costs.
This is the latest of many claims that weed does you a lot more good than harm and with Ireland and Canada set to decriminalise the drug, it makes you wonder why the U.K. hasn’t looked into it yet…
