Ann: Quarterly Report and Appendix 4C, page-74

Incredible health benefitof smoking cannabis discovered by Harvard scientists

What is Cannabis and what are itseffects?

Daily Telegraph UK

 

By: Henry Bodkin

Smoking cannabis occasionally mayimprove men's fertility by stimulating sperm production, a study by HarvardUniversity suggests.

Analysis of more than 662 men found thatthose who had never taken the drug were more than twice as likely to have spermconcentrations below a "normal" threshold.

Published in the journal HumanReproduction, the results have taken the scientific community by surprisebecause previous research pointed to a negative effect for cannabis onfertility, the Daily Telegraph UK reports.

However, the scientists pointed outthat most studies have hitherto focused on heavy drug users or animals.

They believe improved fertility inmoderate users may be explained by a boost to the endocannabinoid system, knownto play a role in sperm levels, from smoking cannabis.

Dr Jorge Chavarro, from the HarvardT.H. Chan School of Public Health, said: "These unexpected findingshighlight how little we know about the reproductive health effects ofmarijuana, and in fact of the health effects of marijuana in general.

"Our results need to beinterpreted with caution and they highlight the need to further study thehealth effects of marijuana use."

or the new study, investigatorscollected 1,143 semen samples from 662 men between 2000 and 2017.

On average the men were 36 years old,mostly white and college educated.

All of them belonged to couples seekinghelp with conception from a fertility clinic.

More than half - 55 per cent - of themen reported having smoked cannabis at some point.

Of those, 44 per cent said they hadtaken the drug in the past, and 11 per cent classified themselves as currentusers.

Analysis of the semen samples showedthat men who had smoked marijuana had average sperm concentrations of 62.7million sperm per millilitre (million/mL).

Those who had never smoked a joint hadan average count of 45.4 million/mL.

Only 5 per cent of cannabis users hadsperm counts below 15 million/mL, the World Health Organisation's threshold for"normal" levels, compared with 12 per cent of men who had neversmoked cannabis.

The authors cautioned that their studydoes not prove cannabis improves fertility.

They said it was possible that men withmore testosterone and better fertility are more likely to try drugs.