Meeting from January 27 to 29 in Marseille, the 27th Francophone Congress of Pulmonology highlighted the role that cannabis plays in the early onset of lung cancer. A worrying phenomenon, when it comes to the most widespread illicit drug in the population, and that 10.6% of the French used it in 2021, according to a study by the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
The figures presented by the KBP-2020-CPHG study, which is based on 8,999 patients diagnosed with lung cancer in 2020, are definitive.
6% additional risk
“When we use cannabis, the average age of diagnosis of lung cancer is 53 years, 65 years only among smokers and 72 years among non-smokers,” Dr. Didier Debieuvre, a pulmonologist at the Emile Muller Hospital Center, told BFMTV.com. in Mulhouse and coordinator of the study.
“Cannabis users represent 3.6% of the 9,000 patients studied. But this figure rises to 28.3% if we focus only on patients under 50 years of age”, continues the specialist.
In conclusion, the study indicates that a French person under the age of 50 is exposed to a 6% increased risk of developing lung cancer if they consume cannabis.
The risk of smoking without a filter?
These data go against a received idea, often put forward by cannabis users, who would like the drug to be less harmful than tobacco, because it is less industrially processed.
“For cannabis, we have been questioning patients for years. We saw many ‘young people’ and we were sure that they were not just smoking tobacco,” explains Didier Debieuvre.
A finding that motivated his desire to question the use of cannabis in the patients studied for the KBP-2020-CPHG study, which every 10 years produces a photograph of lung cancer in France.
The reasons that may explain this early onset of the disease among cannabis users remain to be determined. “Tobacco smokers smoke their cigarettes with a filter, cannabis smokers inhale their joints without a filter. It is probable that the absence of a filter increases the risk”, advances Didier Debieuvre, who specifies that the majority of patients have a strong consumption of cannabis. Use three to four times a day.
An increasing life expectancy
The data unveiled at the Congress this weekend goes against the current classification, which does not consider cannabis to be carcinogenic. “The data from the scientific literature are contradictory,” acknowledges Didier Debieuvre. In particular, because cannabis users also use tobacco, which makes it difficult to carry out studies focused exclusively on the dangerousness of cannabis.
But as the Canadian Cancer Society explains on its website, “Cannabis use may increase the risk of cancer. Why? Cannabis contains many cancer-causing substances also found in smoked tobacco.” “.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among men in France. And soon it should be for women too, beating breast cancer, predicts Dr. Debieuvre.
Despite this sad observation, a positive point was raised last weekend in the KBP-2020-CPHG study. Patient survival is improving in France. In 2000, the two-year mortality of patients was 79%. It rose to 52% in 2020.
Source: BFM TV
