Casual Pot Smoking Doesn't Hurt Your Lungs

... and in fact, might actually be good for your lungs. Seriously.

Smoking a joint a few times a month doesn't appear to have any measurable negative effect on your lungs, according to a massive new study out of the U.S. Researchers from the University of Alabama, University of California, and Northwestern University tracked 5,000 adults between 1986 and 2006 and analyzed what effect smoking marijuana had on their lungs. Study participants who regularly smoked about two to three joints a month – your typical weekend smoker, if you will – had no discernible loss of lung capacity. In fact, some pot smokers had even better lungs than their non-smoking counterparts, due to what the researchers believe could be the time-honoured tradition of holding smoke in your lungs to get as high as possible. However, that wasn't the case for habitual smokers, defined as people who smoked 20 or more joints in a month, as the researchers noted a decline in their pulmonary health. So, as with just about everything in life, smoking pot in moderation could very well be causing more good than harm.