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A new study is warning about the potential dangers of secondhand marijuana smoke. While the health risks of secondhand cigarette smoke are well documented, many people believe that secondhand smoke from marijuana is safer because it does not contain all of the chemicals found in cigarettes.
A team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, has now proven that secondhand smoke from a bong is more dangerous than cigarette smoke.
To reach their conclusion, the team measured the concentration of fine particulate matter in the air while people were smoking a bong in a living room. They found that the background levels rose 100-fold and remained in the air long after people stopped smoking.
After 15 minutes, the concentration of the fine particulate matter was more than twice the threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency for hazardous air quality.
"If one assumes the exposure concentrations were at the mean levels observed, a single home smoking session with no other exposures would generate an estimated mean daily concentration that greatly exceeds the average in cigarette-smoking homes, nonsmoking homes, and the U.S. EPA daily standard," the researchers wrote in their paper, which was published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
"Nonsmokers are exposed to even higher concentrations of SHCS materials during 'hot-boxing,' the popular practice in which cannabis smokers produce high volumes of smoke in an enclosed environment. This study's findings suggest SHCS in the home is not safe and that public perceptions of SHCS safety must be addressed," they continued.