Smoking Weed, What’s the Truth?

Almost nobody talks about the dangers of smoking a joint. Yet, perhaps you’ve seen the effects of marijuana addiction on someone you love, and when you try to address the issue, you’re ridiculed. “It’s harmless,” “It helps me relax.” “At least, it’s not addictive, like alcohol.”

But you wonder is that true? How can you find out? In the Bible, James 1:5–6 says that ^“if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” Even after asking God to lead you into the truth, self-doubt might make you wonder who to believe—a family member who touts pot’s benefits? Or perhaps Sir Elton John?

Named Time magazine’s icon of the year, their December 11, 2024 issue quotes the flamboyant entertainer about his perspective of marijuana:

I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs. And when you’re stoned—and I’ve been stoned—you don’t think normally,” he says. “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.

Can Pot Destroy Health?

Legalization is a mistake that can be life-threatening according to CNN’s June 18, 2025 article, “Marijuana use dramatically increases risk of dying from heart attacks and stroke, large study finds.”

Compared to nonusers, those who used cannabis also had a 29% higher risk for heart attacks and a 20% higher risk for stroke.

Another study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association analyzed data from over 434,000 patients and found similar implications.

An August 8, 2024 article “Heavy Marijuana Use More Than Triples Odds for Head & Neck Cancers” by Ernie Mundell in HealthDay News describes these health challenges.

Head and neck cancers include tumors of the mouth, throat, windpipe and salivary glands. According to the American Cancer Society, these cancers affect more than 58,000 Americans each year, with a death toll of more than 12,000.

Although the FDA mandates warnings about the health risks of cigarettes and prohibits its use in many public places, similar information is lacking regarding MJ. A 2023 Gallup poll shows that 70 percent of Americans believe marijuana should be legal. Public perception denies the health implications of cannabis chemicals being held in the lungs longer than cigarette smoke to achieve maximum effect. Yet Psalm 51:6 makes clear that we can’t afford to have any denial within us. “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in secret You will make wisdom known to me.” Embracing truth and being willing to speak it can unleash God’s power as v. 13 declares, “Then I will teach wrongdoers Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You.”

A recent CNN Health article, “Marijuana is extremely dangerous to the fetus in the womb,” states that

The new research, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, analyzed 51 studies with over 21 million participants.

Use of marijuana during pregnancy was linked to a 52% higher risk of preterm delivery before 37 weeks — full term is 40 weeks of gestation — and a 75% higher risk of low birth weight, which is less than 2,500 grams, or roughly 5.5 pounds at delivery, the study found.

Only six studies looked at the impact of cannabis on mortality. Those studies found a 29% higher risk of infant death associated with the use of marijuana during pregnancy.

The article also addresses other health risks.

Research over the last decade has linked marijuana use to cognitive decline and dementia, complications during elective surgery, and an increased risk of some cancers. Weed users are nearly 25% more likely to need emergency care and hospitalization, according to a 2022 study.

Any level of marijuana use may raise the risk of stroke by 42% and heart attack by 25%, even if there is no prior history of heart disease and the person has never smoked or vaped tobacco. Weed has also been linked to cardiac arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation; myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart muscle — spasms of the heart’s arteries and a higher risk of heart failure.

Is Cannabis Different Now?

Understanding the progression of potency makes the truth more impactful. International substance abuse expert Paul Brethen, co-founder of Sober Buddy and a former Director/Trainer for Matrix Institute on Addiction, explains how in the 1980s he never admitted a patient for treatment whose “primary issues were marijuana use.” But by the mid-1990s that changed.

Over the years, the cultivation of cannabis has been increasingly focused on maximizing THC content. This has led to a form of marijuana that is far more potent than in previous decades, contributing to a noticeable increase in dependence and a broader range of serious side effects. Patients began reporting an inability to stop using, not just due to psychological cravings, but also to avoid intense anxiety, insomnia, nausea, sweating. More alarmingly, some began experiencing psychosis and paranoia—effects that were once rarely, if ever, seen in cannabis users.

The narrative of marijuana as a harmless or non-addictive substance is outdated. With its increased potency and widespread availability, cannabis must be taken seriously as a substance with real potential for harm and dependency.

Brethen’s warning about psychosis and paranoia validates Elton John’s comment on not thinking normally.

Does MJ Produce Violence?

Alex Berenson’s book Tell Your Children: The Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence doesn’t mince words. This former New York Times reporter and award-winning novelist, provides solid data that explodes marijuana myths about this drug being harmless.

Marijuana causes paranoia and psychosis. That fact is now beyond dispute. Even scientists who aren’t sure if marijuana can cause permanent psychosis agree that it can cause temporary paranoia and psychotic episodes. The risk is so obvious that marijuana dispensaries advertise certain strains as less likely to cause paranoia.

Paranoia and psychosis cause violence.

Overwhelming evidence links psychotic disorders and violence, especially murder. Studies have confirmed the connection, across cultures, nations, races, and eras (p. 171).

While doing research on criminal accounts, Berenson discovered “that defendants themselves revealed either their love of marijuana or their psychosis or both (p. 182)” on their social media accounts.

After a while, I grew to recognize murders that involved psychosis even when it wasn’t explicitly mentioned. They were chilling both in their lack of obvious motive and in the degree of violence. Often, they involved bats or knives rather than firearms. They were the cases where parents suffocated infant children or children clubbed their adult parents, or men stabbed to death women they’d never met before in libraries (p. 182).

Berenson cites several specific examples including how months before murdering his former boss with a hatchet in June 2018, Domenic Micheli posted a rambling account of his cannabis use. And, before allegedly beating his mother to death with a baseball bat, Kyle Tucker, “a 34-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School,” tweets became “increasingly bizarre and had a strong cannabis tint” (p. 183).

At the time of his book’s publication, Berenson only had data from four states that had legalized recreational cannabis. Comparing crime statistics from 2013 to 2017 revealed frightening trends that “far outpaced the national rise in crime. Washington alone went from “160 murders and about 11,700 aggravated assaults” to “230 murders and 13,700 aggravated assaults—an increase of about 44 percent for murders and 17 percent for aggravated assaults” (p. 214).

When Elton John called marijuana’s legalization “one of the greatest mistakes of all time,” he got it right. And, that’s something you and your loved ones need to know. Your lives may depend on it.