Teen potheads are out of the weeds.
Frequent marijuana use as a teenager does not appear to be linked to physical or mental health issues later in life, according to a new study.
Researchers tracked 408 men from their teen years into their mid-30s and found no connection between pot and medical conditions such as depression, psychotic symptoms or asthma.
That goes against some previous studies which have suggested youths' marijuana use could cause mental and physical health problems years later.
"What we found was a little surprising," said lead researcher Jordan Bechtold said in a statement. "There were no differences in any of the mental or physical health outcomes that we measured regardless of the amount or frequency of marijuana used during adolescence."
Scientists from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Rutgers University started tracking a group of 14-year-olds in the late 1980s and checked in with them regularly until they were 36.
The participants were divided into four groups based on their self-reported pot use: low and non-users; users who only smoked during their adolescence; early chronic users, who smoked frequently in their teens and early 20s but slowed as they got older; and those who started in their late teens and continued into adulthood.
The researchers controlled for factors that could influence their participants' health - such as cigarette smoking, other drug use and access to health care - and still found nothing that suggested a link between marijuana use and health problems.
Since the study only included men, there are no findings about how marijuana use could affect women's health.
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