Smoking Weed at Thanksgiving? Here’s Why You Shouldn’t
This Thanksgiving is a time for gathering with friends and family, eating turkey and eating a lot of marijuana.
That doesn’t mean smoking.
But if you’re among the many who choose to partake, be careful.
Although the holiday is a time for a celebration of food and family, it’s also a time for smoking or ingesting certain substances. You might be tempted to vape THC-infused cannabis or smoke tobacco products like Pall Mall cigars.
But you should be aware that your consumption of these substances may expose you to the same health risks associated with the use of those substances, especially those which contain nicotine.
The risks of vaping cannabis at Thanksgiving
If you’re a person of color, you may be particularly at risk for substance-related health disparities. We don’t know exactly why, but it’s believed that black Americans have a higher prevalence of substance use than other racial and ethnic groups. And we do know that people of color live in areas with higher rates of substance use and tobacco use than the surrounding population.
The substance-related health disparities disproportionately affect people of color and other marginalized groups when it comes to cannabis and tobacco use. And because marijuana has been shown to be disproportionately more harmful to black Americans than tobacco products, it makes sense that it would also be more harmful to those living in areas where those substances are more commonly used.
The tobacco industry has attempted to portray weed as a benign substance with few harmful side effects. In addition to tobacco companies sponsoring public events related to cannabis legalization, they promote that they don’t care about the health consequences of using recreational cannabis, and that they are happy to see them. However, they’re wrong.
And it’s not just tobacco companies. A report by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) found that more than 2,000 medical facilities in the US are operating on a “zero-tolerance” policy with regard to cannabis, citing the fact that cannabis has been shown to have a negative impact on the medical treatment of people with certain medical conditions. These facilities are then required to refer any patient who uses or possesses medical cannabis to a physician to receive a medical recommendation for or against cannabis.
The report also found that many of the facilities that engage in this practice aren’t providing a range of treatment options for their patients, or that they’re not treating patients within their facilities in a consistent way. For example, many are treating
