A U.S based poll had asked the citizens of the country about 6 different types of products out of which 5 were nicotine-based and 1 was purely cannabis-based. They have classified their feedback into 4 different categories: very harmful, somewhat harmful, not too harmful, and not at all harmful. Though the cannabis product wasn’t seen as a “not at all” harmful one, the public opinion about the product is much higher than that of cigarettes.

Over 82% of the respondents voted for cigarettes as the most harmful and 14% of the respondents have voted it as not so harmful. 82% is a very huge number, which the Gallup folks didn’t expect. In the 1950s, smoking was more the norm, but now people consider this to be too harmful to health. Nowadays, the socially accepted ingesting nicotine form is either vaping or e-cigarettes. So, there is an argument being made that vaping weed is healthier than smoking it right away.

Folks at Gallup thought that cannabis would be rated as most harmful in the survey. Surprisingly, most of the U.S residents don’t see cannabis as a harmful one. Rather 42% of the respondents have voted it as non-harmful, 29% voted it as slightly harmful and a very small percentage of them have voted for cannabis as harmful. Earlier Gallup researchers thought of breaking down cannabis into different categories, but asking opinions about edibles, salves, tinctures, smoking and vaping respectively was seen to be not useful at this point of time without having any anecdotal evidence.

One thing that everyone can take away from this survey is that the perspective for cannabis has been completely changed in the public. Cannabis has shifted from number one public enemy to a plant that illuminates ‘not so harmful’ qualities.

Also, one of the reasons why smoking is considered too harmful when compared to cannabis is that cigarette contains nicotine content, whereas cannabis does not contain nicotine. Also, cannabis contains THC, which acts as a cough drop or an element that clears the lungs from dirt and smoke. This is termed as ‘bronchial dilation’. Earlier, scientists came to know that there is a substance named ‘lead 210’ in cigarettes, which causes lung cancer. This element is absent in Cannabis.

These are some of the reasons why the U.S respondents have voted that cannabis is not at all a harmful substance when compared to cigarettes.