Marijuana may make some people feel more mellow, but it doesn’t seem to put out the fire of sexual passion, researchers reported Friday.
In fact, people who said they used cannabis also claimed to have sex a little more often than people who never used it, a team at Stanford University reported.
“To our knowledge, we are the first to report an increase in sexual frequency linked to marijuana use,” Dr. Andrew Sun and Dr. David Eisenberg wrote in their report published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
It’s an issue because more and more people report using marijuana as states legalize it.
“Indeed, in 2016, it was estimated that 13 percent of U.S. adults were using marijuana compared with 7 percent in 2013,” the two researchers wrote.
“Given the increasing use, the effects of marijuana use on adult health and function are increasingly relevant.”
They looked at surveys of more than 50,000 men and women who were asked a range of questions about health and behavior, including whether they had ever used marijuana and how often they had sex.
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Those who reported having recently used cannabis also remembered having sex more often.
“For example, women who reported no marijuana use during the past 12 months reported having sex six times on average during the past four weeks compared with 7.1 times for women who reported daily use,” Sun and Eisenberg wrote.
“Similarly, male daily marijuana users reported sexual frequency as 6.9 times on average in the previous four weeks compared with 5.6 times in non-users.”
So it’s not a lot more, and the researchers note that this is what people say they remember having done.
“All data are self-reported and at risk for recall bias, exaggeration, or other misrepresentation by certain participants,” they noted.
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“In addition, respondents’ partners were not surveyed. This would have helped control for any distorted perceptions of sex related to marijuana use.”
People who admit to using marijuana might be less inhibited about sex, they noted.
It’s not all positive. Marijuana use can affect children.
Related: Marijuana Users Risk Schizophrenia
“As the prevalence of marijuana use in pregnant women increased 62 percent from 2002 to 2014, concerns
about potential deleterious effects to the child have surfaced,” the researchers wrote.
And at least one report showed men who smoked marijuana more than once a week had significantly lower sperm counts than non-users did.
More than 60 percent of Americans believe marijuana use should be legal, according to Gallup.
Seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of marijuana.
