Largest Study Of Its Kind Finds Cannabis Helps Prevent Alcohol-Related Liver Damage

 In a study  published earlier this year by researchers at the National Institute of  Scientific Research at the University of Quebec, cannabis can actually  help counteract the harmful effects of alcohol to some degree. 

The study found that cannabis use significantly lowered the odds of  liver diseases like hepatitis, cirrhosis, steatosis, and even  hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of liver cancer.  Researchers formed  these conclusions based on the medical records of roughly 320,000  patients who had a history of alcoholism. According to the study:

“Abusive alcohol use has well‐established health risks including  causing liver disease (ALD) characterized by alcoholic steatosis (AS),  steatohepatitis (AH), fibrosis, cirrhosis (AC) and hepatocellular  carcinoma (HCC). Strikingly, a significant number of individuals who  abuse alcohol also use Cannabis, which has seen increased legalization  globally. While cannabis has demonstrated anti‐inflammatory properties,  its combined use with alcohol and the development of liver disease  remain unclear.” 

Researchers have not determined why alcoholics who used cannabis had  less of a chance of developing liver disease, but many suspect that it  has something to do with the proven anti-inflammatory properties of  cannabis. 

These findings support the results of another study last year which concluded that cannabis helps with non-alcoholic liver disease as well. 

According to last year’s study:

“It can be hypothesized that marijuana use may have potential  beneficial effects on metabolic abnormalities such as nonalcoholic fatty  liver disease (NAFLD). Whether marijuana use plays a role in NAFLD  pathogenesis via modification of shared risk factors, or by an  independent pathway remains uncertain. In this population-based study,  we assessed the association between marijuana use and NAFLD in the US.” 

Despite the proven health benefits of cannabis and the fact that it  becoming legal in new states every year, lawmakers and mainstream media  pundits refuse to give up on the reefer madness hysteria that they built  their careers on. Just after these studies were published, the California Department of  Alcoholic Beverage Control banned the sale of cannabis-infused  alcoholic beverages, totally ignoring the science that this actually  makes the alcohol less harmful.

This attitude can be seen in the hysteria that was created when Elon Musk took a hit of cannabis  on the Joe Rogan Podcast, after spending two hours drinking liquor. Of  course, even though the herb is legal in the state where they recorded,  and it is far less harmful than alcohol, people decided to focus on the  cannabis use because of the stigma against it. 

A 2015 study, published in the journal, ‘Scientific Reports,’  suggests that smoking cannabis is roughly 114 times safer than drinking   alcohol. Ironically, out of all the drugs that were researched in the   study, alcohol was actually the most dangerous, and it was the only   legal drug on the list.