Marijuana: The side effect you need to know

While marijuana legalization advocates cheer on the slow but growing support for their cause, a new study in the effects of marijuana could make the road to legalization a little less smooth.

A new study out of the Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center in San Antonio, Texas warns of a growing number of instances in which patients are diagnosed with an allergy to cannabis. The study calls the allergy “unconventional” and emphasizes that as more states move toward full legalization, that this allergy could become more prevalent.

Metro spoke with allergy and immunology specialist, Dr. Purvi Parikh of the Allergy & Asthma Network and NYU Langone Medical Center to get a better understanding of the marijuana allergy:

Can you break down the basics of what this allergy is all about ?

You can be allergic to anything, that’s the nature of how allergies are, but now that more states are legalizing marijuana it’s coming to the forefront. It’s not that the allergy is new but it’s now being more recognized. The allergen is the plant itself, called Cannabis Sativa. That plant itself can cause a lot of allergic symptoms in people. From hay fever symptoms, itchy eyes, stuffy nose. It can cause asthma, or even more severe allergic reactions like anaphylactic shock.

It’s a unique type of allergen because it’s something that you know is inhaled and can also be [acquired] through second hand smoke.I’ve seen one patient that suffered from very bad breathing problems, and she herself didn’t smoke marijuana but all of her neighbors around her did. She was getting a lot of exposure through heating vents and air ducts.

It has a public health concern as marijuana does become more legalized because more states may start growing it. The production of it can release allergens into the air. The same way pollen travels through the air, marijuana itself can also produce a pollen.