“It is certain that cigarette-smoking and heavy drinking result in serious negative effects on immune function,” says Woody McGinnis MD today. He now adds marijuana to the list of dangers. “These behaviors should be discouraged for the benefit of both individual and society, especially in the time of coronavirus.”
The fringe and outlaw status of pot in Western society has allowed medical claims about the drug to bypass public scrutiny. Pot smokers are more like the selfish Spring Break youth who openly flaunt their opposition to curbs on the animal-derived virus. Normal people avoid direct scrutiny of pot’s growing influence, allowing it to grow without checks. It is pariah. But falsehoods flourish in the pot-sympathetic mainstream media.
Marijuana enjoys the same hands-off, don’t-challenge shielding that political correctness has successfully deployed. McGinnis argues, however, that “We also need to address the touchy subject of how smoked and ingested marijuana could influence the course of the pandemic. Obviously, pot is prevalent as never before. Attitudes have relaxed, and many states have approved recreational and medicinal marijuana.”
Social acceptance today is not based on strict FDA-like research into not-so-obvious links of the drug to the diverse nature of human culture. In fact, “A good number of medical personnel consider marijuana benign, at least in adults. Apart from writing prescriptions, they may use it themselves in retirement. Seniors use marijuana, and some nursing homes and assisted care facilities allow it.”
It might be time to take a closer look at the virus’ tragic death toll in Kirkland, Washington. He points out that “The first fifty-one coronavirus deaths in the United States were in the four states that topped legal marijuana sales last year,” adding that “In my opinion, there is sufficient knowledge to recommend that individuals refrain from marijuana in these times.”
Lots of clinical experience and laboratory research give weight to McGinnis’ opinions, and even those without medical backgrounds will welcome his sharing of hard-won medical insights:
“Effects are predictable, because the immune cells that protect humans from viral infection exhibit cannabinoid receptors. Animal studies demonstrate that those effects are negative in at least some types of bacterial and viral infection. For instance, marijuana smoke significantly aggravates staphylococcal infection by blocking immune function, and THC decreases immune function in lungs and increases mortality in experimental Legionnaires. In the case of viral infection, animals given THC after exposure to influenza exhibit decreased immune cell function and substantially increased viral loads — again, specifically in lungs (Hernandez-Cervantes R, 2017. PubMed Identifier 29151103).”
