Marijuana Smokers Are Skinnier Than Everyone Else

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Americans who don't use marijuana are more likely than cannabis users to be obese, according to a study conducted by two French scientists, recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Using data collected by previous investigations, the authors of "Obesity and Cannabis Use" found that folks who smoked cannabis three times a week were about 50 percent less likely to be dangerously overweight (22 percent of nonsmokers were obese, compared to 14 percent of smokers).
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article @ http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/marijuana_users_thinner_than_n.php

abstract @ http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/08/24/aje.kwr200.abstract
 
I must be the outlier, then. Weed makes me want to eat large quantities of terribly unhealthy food for extended periods of time.

Last week I was high as fuck, watching a movie and eating a brand-new container of ice cream (a half-gallon size, too), and then all of a sudden I feel my spoon strike the bottom of the container and realized "Holy shit! It's gone!"

I didn't feel too good about myself that night.
 
The degree of the munchies I get does vary considerably depending on the strain and the way I smoke it. Indica gives me more munchies than sativa, and vaping gives me more munchies than smoking. The situation I described was after vaping a particularly potent indica, so I never stood a chance.
 
lol i don't eat cause it kills my buzz. Ever since i started getting high i can't keep weight on no matter how much i eat, and i don't exercise much either. When i had a bunch of cp-55940 i'd get incredible munchies that could not be suppressed however. I know people who avoid eating in order to preserve their high and also just as many people who eat everything in sight. It seems to me that the everyday smokers don't get the munchies nearly as bad as those who smoke occasionally.
 
^ Not to contradict you or anything, but I'm an everyday smoker. I think it just depends on the person. Marijuana can have really variable effects from person to person, which is why I'm always skeptical about studies like this.
 
i dont seem to get the munchies either, and i just tend to melt into whatever chair or bed im on and just want to fall asleep lol . Or just chillout to music like trance or something.
 
When I smoked weed everyday I ate anything and everything I wanted and never gained a pound(this is when I was an adult too, not to a teenager)...but now that I only smoke intermittently I have to watch my intake and make sure I hit the gym or the pounds add up quick.
 
Wild speculation: Maybe cannabinoids have a part in burning excess energy as well as just appetite. Kind of like how I used to be as thin as a rake in my 20s but now not ending up looking like Homer Simpson is a real concern for me.
 
I used to like getting high and eating a whole pizza.

Now I like to get high and eat a slice and go for a bike ride or lift weights.

Marijuana can enhance an unhealthy lifestyle, or it can enhance a healthy one.
 
It definitely enhanced my unhealthy lifestyle but due to legal reasons, I had to stop. I feel a whole lot better because I wasn't using it properly. My health effects were mostly mental besides just laziness. Not true for all smokers-but true for me.
 
I get mad munchies on some strains of weed or hash. I try and keep my junk food intake to a minimum these days but when I'm smoking alot of good cannabis i tend to eat alot of take out. Thankfully i have a fast metabolism and don't put on weight easy. I'm 5'9 and about 170lbs so that's not exactly overweight.

Thankfully i don't get lazy on cannabis unless I'm smoking loads of hash all day or whatever :\
 
Usually, I can't eat when i am high.
I can be really hungry, and get high, and my hunger goes away instantly.
3 hours later, it will return with a vengeance, though.

Cannabis has helped me with work, and with exercise as well, not to mention art, creativity, psychological exploration, music.... I love it <3
I cannot possibly sleep while high, and it gives me lots of energy.

The main way I feel impaired when high is socially.
Having to deal with sober people who should not know I am high is not fun for me.
(That is why I tend to smoke at night, after my responsibilities are finished.)

But (back to the topic) because I can't really eat or sleep while high, and I can work and exercise, it probably will never make me fat (or rested).
 
Bah! Correlation does not imply causation. I can't believe I'm the first to see this.

The most parsimonious explanation I see is that the socioeconomic sets that have the lowest levels of obesity also have the highest percentage of people able to afford regular marijuana use, financially, time-wise, and in terms of its effect on their job performance and social standing. Take US college students. They're likelier to be skinny than the general US population, because they're statistically younger, healthier, more active, and have access to more resources. They're also more likely to smoke marijuana, because they have, on the average, more time and money at their disposal, fewer big life responsibilities, and a social setting that is more open to drug use and to some extent shields them from harsh legal and social repercussions.

Control for a whole bunch of confounding factors, among them income, age, urbanicity, and level of education, and then run the study again. I bet the effect disappears.

A common epidemiological misperception is that drug use (especially marijuana) is more common among the poor, which people connect in their minds with poor people working less and having more time to sit around and get fat. It's true that in wealthy countries obesity correlates positively with poverty. But that's because carbohydrates and mediocre fats are so cheap that anyone can afford them, while foods high in good fats and protein are not cheap. Also, most poor people in in the industrialized world are anything but lazy -- most spend the lion's share of their time and energy toiling away at menial jobs, where they're very replaceable and therefore can afford no slip-ups in their performance. Then there's the fact that the poor are more likely to belong to social groups with more traditional and more black-and-white social mores, coupled with [nay, driven by?] a compensatory desire to look and act as respectable as possible. I see a bottom rung of society full of people too broke, too tired, and with too much at stake to take up toking. There are of course exceptions. But this fits the major trend I've seen taking care of both the urban and rural poor of the US.

FWIW, The working class in the US is the only population where I've commonly seen people who smoke cigarettes heavily, but never touch alcohol or other drugs.

The patients I've had who've been most likely to admit to marijuana use have been young adults, male, childless, and well employed -- for some reason a lot of them I've encountered have worked in IT.

All this being said, I must admit two things:
1. The only times I've been able to put on weight were the months-long periods I wasn't smoking marijuana.
2. Cannabinoid receptors are on a lot of tissues besides the brain. An as-yet unknown (but probably subtle) endocrine or metabolic effect of this drug class is hardly outside the realm of possibility.
 
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^if the articles suggested that cannabis smoking made people overweight then i think the correlation does not equal causation card would have been played right away lol. Everyone here would have also probably critiqued the shit out of it. I also have the habit of only scrutinizing things that i don't agree with but there are many confounds not controlled for as you mention, a good reminder to be objective about things even if we agree with them :D.
 
I have noticed that, in spite of "the munchies", cannabis users do tend to be thinner. I've even heard a cop tell someone they could tell they smoke a lot of bud because they were so skinny (to be fair, that guy did smoke a lot of bud). It seemed odd at the time, but once I started watching for it I started seeing it more (this of course doesn't make it true). I tend to agree that this is likely a socio-economic correlation, not causation. I've often wondered if it could be an effect of cannabis on the metabolism, though. Or perhaps because food is so much more satisfying while high it has less appeal while sober, so users eat less overall. It would be interesting to look into, but is probably just a statistical oddity.
 
When I use to smoke, I use to toke on Sativa alot & it wouldnt get me too hungry like mids or the dreaded Indica which I hate.
 
^ Why do you hate Indica? :/ I do understand personal preference though, I just am the opposite of you buddy. I can't smoke anymore but Indica was my favorite. No anxiety for me with it whereas sativa always gave me racing thoughts.
 
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