What Does Synthetic Cannabis Do to Your Lungs
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Most synthetic cannabis is smoked, which means the lungs are the first organs it reaches. Every breath of the smoke carries lab-made chemicals, hot gas and tiny particles deep into the airways, and the lungs have no way to refuse them. The damage that follows is not always sudden. Often it begins as a cough that will not go away, or a tight feeling in the chest, or breathlessness on the stairs that was never there before. Over time, those small changes can grow into something much more serious: lasting damage to the lung tissue, chest infections that keep returning, and a slow fall in how much air the lungs can hold.
The lungs are easy to take for granted. They work without being told, pulling in oxygen and pushing out waste gas, thousands of times a day. When they are healthy, breathing feels like nothing at all. When they are damaged, every breath becomes work, and ordinary things, climbing stairs, walking to the market, laughing, playing with children, become hard. That is the price of lung damage. It does not stay in the chest. It spreads into every part of daily life.
Part of the problem is that the smoke from synthetic cannabis is not like the smoke from a cigarette, and it is not like the smoke from natural cannabis either. It carries chemicals that were never meant to be breathed in, in amounts that nobody measures, from packets that nobody checks. The makers change the recipe whenever they like, so the smoke from one packet can be very different from the smoke from the next. A person who smokes it has no way of knowing what is going into their lungs, or how much harm it will do.
This article explains, in plain words, what synthetic cannabis does to the lungs: how healthy lungs work, how the smoke harms the airways, why the cough will not stop, what wheezing and tight chests mean, why chest infections keep coming back, how lung capacity falls over time, and what the lungs look like after years of use. It is general information, not individual medical advice. If you are worried about your breathing, or about someone else, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to.
What Synthetic Cannabis Actually Is
Synthetic cannabis is not a plant. It is a chemical made in a laboratory, designed to act on the same parts of the brain as the active ingredient in natural cannabis. The chemical is dissolved in liquid and sprayed onto dried plant material, which is then dried, packed and sold under names like Spice and K2. The spraying is uneven, so one pinch can hold very little of the chemical and the next pinch can hold a great deal. Nobody measures the dose. Nobody checks the quality. The person who smokes it is guessing, every single time.
The chemicals are often far stronger than the natural substance they copy. Some of them grip the brain’s receptors much more tightly and stay attached for longer, which is why the effects can be much more intense, and why the side effects can be much more severe. But the strength is not the only problem for the lungs. The chemicals were never designed to be heated and breathed in. When they are burned, they can break down into other substances, and nobody knows exactly what those substances are or what they do to the delicate lining of the airways.
The recipe also keeps changing. When one chemical is banned, the makers switch to a slightly different one that is not yet on the banned list. Each new chemical behaves a little differently in the body, and doctors often do not know exactly what a new version does until people start arriving at hospitals with harm from it. That means the smoke a person breathes today may contain a chemical that did not exist a year ago, and that no doctor has studied. The lungs become the testing ground for a new chemical, and the person breathing it is the test subject.
It is also important to be clear that synthetic cannabis is not the same as natural cannabis, and the risks to the lungs are not the same. Natural cannabis smoke carries its own risks, but the chemicals in synthetic cannabis are different, stronger and less predictable, and the pattern of harm they cause is different too. People who assume that smoking synthetic cannabis is just like smoking the natural plant are making a dangerous mistake. It is a different product, made from different chemicals, and the lungs pay a different and heavier price.
How Healthy Lungs Work
The lungs are two large, soft organs that fill most of the chest. Their job is simple to describe and hard to do: they take oxygen from the air and pass it into the blood, and they take waste gas, called carbon dioxide, out of the blood and push it out of the body. Every breath does this, about twenty thousand times a day, without any thought at all.
Air travels down the windpipe, which splits into two large tubes, one for each lung. Those tubes split again and again, into smaller and smaller branches, like a tree turned upside down. At the end of the smallest branches sit tiny air sacs, called alveoli, hundreds of millions of them. The walls of these sacs are paper-thin, and they are wrapped in tiny blood vessels. Oxygen passes through those thin walls into the blood, and carbon dioxide passes out. The whole system depends on those walls staying thin, clean and flexible.
The airways are lined with a thin layer of mucus and with tiny hairs, called cilia, which beat in waves to sweep dust, germs and mucus up and out of the lungs. This cleaning system is one of the lungs’ most important defences. When it works well, the lungs stay clear. When it is damaged, mucus and germs build up, and infections follow. The lungs also have a remarkable ability to stretch. They expand when you breathe in and spring back when you breathe out, and that springiness is what lets you take a deep breath and blow air out forcefully.
Breathing is so automatic that most people never think about it until it goes wrong. But the lungs are delicate. The air sacs are fragile, the airways are narrow, and the cleaning system is easily damaged by smoke. Once the sacs are scarred, they do not heal back to their original shape. Once the cleaning hairs are destroyed, they do not grow back properly. That is why lung damage from smoke is so serious: much of it is permanent, and it shows up as breathlessness that only gets worse over time.
How the Smoke Harms the Airways
When synthetic cannabis is smoked, the hot smoke travels straight down the windpipe and into the airways, carrying chemicals and tiny particles with it. The first thing it does is irritate the lining of the airways. The lining is soft and wet, and it reacts to irritation by swelling and producing more mucus. The airways narrow, and air has to squeeze through a smaller space. That is why breathing can feel tight and wheezy after smoking, and why a cough often follows.
The smoke also damages the tiny cleaning hairs that line the airways. These hairs normally sweep mucus and germs upward, out of the lungs and into the throat, where they are swallowed or coughed out. Hot smoke and harsh chemicals slow these hairs down and then destroy them. When the cleaning system fails, mucus sits in the airways, germs settle in, and the lungs become a warm, wet place where infections can grow. A person may notice they are coughing up more mucus than usual, or that their chest feels heavy and full.
Deeper in the lungs, the smoke reaches the tiny air sacs, and here the damage is harder to see but more serious. The thin walls of the sacs become inflamed, which means they swell and thicken. Thick walls cannot pass oxygen into the blood as easily, so less oxygen reaches the body. Over time, repeated inflammation can scar the walls, and scarred walls stay thick and stiff. The sacs lose their springiness, and the lungs cannot expand and empty as well as they used to. This is the beginning of long-term lung damage, and it starts quietly, long before a person notices they are breathless.
The smoke also weakens the lungs’ defences against infection. The cells that normally eat germs and clear them away work less well after exposure to smoke, and the extra mucus gives germs a place to hide and grow. That is why people who smoke synthetic cannabis often find that a cold turns into a chest infection, and a chest infection lasts longer than it used to. The lungs are fighting with one hand tied behind their back, and the smoke is the thing tying it.
Coughing That Will Not Stop
A cough is the lungs’ way of clearing themselves. When something irritates the airways, the body coughs to push it out. A short cough after breathing in smoke is normal. A cough that goes on for weeks, or months, is not. It is a sign that the airways are still irritated, still swollen, or still full of mucus that they cannot clear.
Many people who smoke synthetic cannabis develop a persistent cough. It may start as a dry, hacking cough, or it may bring up mucus, especially in the morning. It may be worse at night, or worse in cold air, or worse when the person laughs or exercises. It may ease for a while and then come back. The pattern varies, but the message is the same: the airways are not healing, because they are being irritated again and again.
A lasting cough is more than an annoyance. It disturbs sleep, which leaves a person tired during the day. It makes the chest sore, because the muscles around the ribs are worked hard by constant coughing. It embarrasses people in public, at work, at prayer, or in conversation. Some people find they cannot finish a sentence without coughing. Others find that coughing brings on wheezing or breathlessness. Over months, the cough itself can strain the body, causing headaches, sore ribs and exhaustion.
The hardest part is that a persistent cough is easy to ignore or explain away. People blame it on the weather, on dust, on a cold that will not go away, or on a new job. Each excuse sounds reasonable, and that is how months pass without the real cause being faced. The honest rule is simple: a cough that lasts more than three weeks, especially in someone who smokes synthetic cannabis, should be checked by a health professional. It may turn out to be nothing serious, but it may also be the first clear sign that the lungs are being damaged, and finding out early matters.
Wheezing and Tight Chests
Wheezing is a high, whistling sound that comes from the chest when a person breathes out. It happens when the airways have narrowed, so air has to squeeze through a smaller space and makes a noise as it passes. A tight chest is the feeling that goes with it: a band around the chest, a heaviness, a sense that the breath will not go in or out properly. Together, they are signs that the airways are inflamed and narrowed, and they are common after smoking synthetic cannabis.
The narrowing has several causes. The lining of the airways swells when it is irritated, which makes the passage smaller. The muscles around the airways can tighten, squeezing them further. And extra mucus can block the smaller branches. Each of these makes breathing harder, and when they happen together, the effect is much worse. A person may notice wheezing when they climb stairs, when they walk quickly, when they laugh, or when they breathe in cold air. At first it may only happen after smoking. Later, it may happen on its own, even when the person has not smoked for hours.
Wheezing and a tight chest are frightening, because they feel like the body is not getting enough air, and in a real sense, it is not. The person may feel anxious, which makes the breathing faster and shallower, which makes the tightness worse. It is a cycle that feeds on itself. Sitting down, breathing slowly and staying calm can help in the moment, but the underlying problem, inflamed and narrowed airways, will not go away while the smoke keeps coming.
Over time, repeated narrowing can leave the airways permanently narrower. The muscles around them can become thicker, and the walls can become scarred. When that happens, the wheezing and tightness stop being something that comes and goes, and start being part of everyday life. The person may need to stop and rest after walking a short distance, or avoid stairs altogether. That is a heavy price for a habit that began with a single packet, and it is a price that grows with every month of continued use.
Infections That Keep Returning
Healthy lungs fight off germs every day. The cleaning hairs sweep mucus upward, the cells in the airways eat germs, and the immune system deals with the rest. Smoke from synthetic cannabis weakens all of these defences at once, which is why chest infections become more common, last longer, and keep coming back.
A chest infection usually starts as a cold or a sore throat, and then moves down into the chest. The person develops a cough that brings up yellow or green mucus, a fever, chest pain when breathing deeply, and a feeling of being deeply unwell. In a healthy person, this may clear up in a week or two. In a person whose lungs are damaged by smoke, it can last much longer, and it can come back again a few weeks later. Each infection leaves the lungs a little weaker, and weaker lungs catch the next infection more easily. It is a downward spiral.
The risk is not only about how often infections come, but about how serious they become. An infection that a healthy person would shake off can turn into pneumonia, a serious infection of the air sacs, in a person with damaged lungs. Pneumonia can cause high fever, severe breathlessness, chest pain and confusion, and it can need hospital care. Older people, people with other health problems, and people who smoke heavily are at the highest risk, but it can happen to anyone whose lungs have been weakened.
The pattern to watch for is repetition. One chest infection is common and usually not a cause for alarm. Two or three in a year, or infections that never seem to fully clear, are a different matter. They suggest the lungs’ defences are failing, and that the airways are staying damaged between infections. That is a sign to seek medical advice, and to be honest with the health professional about what has been smoked, so they can understand the cause and give the right help.
Lung Capacity Slowly Falls
Lung capacity is a measure of how much air the lungs can hold, and how quickly they can move it in and out. It is one of the best measures of lung health, and it falls slowly in people who smoke synthetic cannabis regularly. The fall is slow enough to miss at first, but it adds up over months and years, and it changes what a person can do.
The fall happens for two reasons. First, the air sacs become scarred and stiff, so they cannot stretch as far when the person breathes in, and they cannot empty as well when the person breathes out. Less air gets in, and stale air stays trapped inside. Second, the airways become narrower and less flexible, so air moves through them more slowly. The person has to work harder for every breath, and they tire more quickly.
At first, the change shows up only during effort. Climbing stairs leaves the person breathless. Walking uphill is hard. Carrying a heavy bag makes the chest tight. These are easy to blame on being unfit, on the heat, or on getting older. But if the cause is lung damage, the breathlessness does not improve with rest or with fitness. It stays, and it slowly gets worse, because the lungs are losing capacity a little at a time.
Doctors can measure lung capacity with a simple breathing test, where the person blows into a machine as hard and as fast as they can. The test is quick and painless, and it can show damage long before the person feels seriously breathless. That matters, because the earlier the damage is found, the more there is to protect. Stopping smoking is the single most important step, because it is the only way to stop the capacity from falling further. The lungs cannot fully repair scarred air sacs, but they can stop getting worse, and that is worth a great deal.
The Lungs Over Years
After years of smoking synthetic cannabis, the lungs can look very different from healthy lungs. The airways are narrower and stiffer. The air sacs are scarred, and some of them have been destroyed altogether, leaving larger, less useful spaces that cannot pass oxygen properly. The cleaning system is badly damaged, so mucus sits in the airways and infections come often. The lungs have lost their springiness, and breathing has become hard work.
This long-term damage has a name in medicine: chronic lung disease. It is not one single illness, but a group of conditions that share the same pattern, narrowed airways, damaged air sacs, and breathlessness that gets worse over time. People with chronic lung disease often live with a daily cough, wheezing, and breathlessness on even mild effort. They may need inhalers or other medicines to help them breathe. They may find that a cold or a chest infection sends them to hospital. Their world becomes smaller, because every activity has to be measured against how much breath it will cost.
The damage also affects the heart. When the lungs cannot pass enough oxygen into the blood, the heart has to work harder to push blood through the lungs, and the pressure in the blood vessels of the lungs rises. Over time, this strains the right side of the heart, which can become enlarged and weak. Lung disease and heart disease often travel together, and each makes the other worse.
Not everyone who smokes synthetic cannabis will reach this stage, and most will not, especially if they stop early. But the risk is real, and it grows with every year of use. The lungs are not like the skin, which heals a cut in days. They heal slowly, and scarred tissue does not heal at all. The best time to protect them is before the damage is done. The second-best time is now, by stopping, and by giving the lungs the chance to stay as healthy as they still are.
My Take:
I will be honest with you. Breathing is something I never thought about until I read how easily it can be taken away. You do not notice your lungs when they work. You notice them the moment they do not, and by then the damage is often already done. That is what worries me most about synthetic cannabis and the lungs. It does not announce itself with a sudden crisis, the way a broken bone does. It creeps in, a cough here, a wheeze there, a little breathlessness on the stairs, and each small change is easy to explain away. By the time a person admits they cannot breathe properly, they may have lost a large part of their lung capacity, and they will never get it back.
What troubles me is how ordinary the beginning looks. A young person tries synthetic cannabis at a gathering, or with friends, or because they are curious, or because they are stressed and want to escape for a while. Nothing terrible happens that first time. They cough a little, they feel strange for an hour, and then it passes. That first time feels harmless, and that feeling is the trap. Because the harm does not come from one use. It comes from the uses that follow, week after week, month after month, each one adding a little more irritation, a little more scarring, a little more damage to the cleaning system. The first time is never the problem. The hundredth time is.
I think about the cough a lot, because it is the sign that everyone ignores. A cough that lasts for weeks is not normal. It is the lungs saying, in the only language they have, that something is wrong. But people are good at ignoring a cough. They blame the weather. They blame dust. They blame a cold. They carry on smoking, and the cough carries on too, until it becomes part of who they are, the person who always coughs, the person who cannot finish a sentence without clearing their throat. I find that sad, because a cough is a warning, and warnings are only useful if someone listens to them.
I also think about the mornings, because that is when damaged lungs make themselves known. A person with healthy lungs wakes up, breathes in, and gets on with the day. A person with damaged lungs wakes up coughing, clears mucus for ten minutes, and feels tired before the day has even begun. That morning cough becomes a ritual, and the person stops noticing how strange it is, because it has become normal. But it is not normal. It is the lungs trying to clear out what the smoke left behind, and failing, day after day. If your mornings have become like that, it is worth asking why, and worth being honest about the answer.
The unpredictability of synthetic cannabis is what I keep coming back to. With cigarettes, at least the product is the same every time, and the risks are well known. With synthetic cannabis, no two packets are the same. The chemical changes, the strength changes, the contents are unknown. A person can smoke the same brand for months and then one packet can be far stronger than the rest, and the lungs take the full force of it. That is not a risk you can manage. It is a lottery, and the prize is damaged lungs. I do not think any high is worth that lottery. No feeling, however pleasant for an hour, is worth a lifetime of breathlessness.
I also think about the people who sell it, and I do not have much sympathy for them. They know the chemicals keep changing. They know the strength varies from packet to packet. They know the people buying it have no idea what they are breathing in. And still they sell it, because it makes money. The person who buys it pays the price in their chest, and the seller walks away with the cash. That is not a fair trade, and it is not a harmless business. It is a business built on other people’s lungs, and the lungs are organs a person cannot live without.
Young people are the ones I worry about most, because they are the ones most likely to try it. Young people are curious, they are under pressure, they want to fit in, and they often believe they are too young and too strong to be harmed. I understand that feeling, because it is a normal part of being young. But youth does not protect the lungs. The air sacs of a twenty-year-old are just as delicate as the air sacs of a sixty-year-old, and once they are scarred, they stay scarred, for the next fifty years. If you are young and reading this, I want you to hear that clearly: being young does not make you safe. It only means you have more years ahead of you to live with the damage.
The part that makes me saddest is how small a person’s world becomes when their lungs fail. It is not only about breathing. It is about everything breathing makes possible. Walking to the market. Playing with children. Climbing stairs. Laughing without coughing. Sleeping through the night without waking up gasping. These are small, ordinary things, and they are the things that make a life feel normal. When the lungs are damaged, each of them becomes hard, and life narrows, one small loss at a time. I think about that narrowing, because it happens so slowly that the person barely notices it, until one day they realise they cannot do the things they used to do, and they do not know when exactly they lost them.
I am not a doctor, and I do not pretend to be one, but I can see clearly that stopping is the single most important step. Every use adds more irritation, and every month of use adds more scarring. Stopping does not undo the damage that is already done, and I will not pretend otherwise. But it does stop the damage from getting worse, and in many cases, the cough eases, the chest feels clearer, and breathing becomes easier within weeks or months of stopping. The lungs have a remarkable ability to clear themselves once the smoke stops coming. If you smoke synthetic cannabis, the best day to stop is today. The second-best day is tomorrow. Every day you wait is another day of smoke on organs that cannot protect themselves.
I also think families need to know what to look for, because the person smoking may not notice the signs, or may not want to admit them. If someone in your family smokes synthetic cannabis and you notice a cough that will not go away, or wheezing, or breathlessness on the stairs, or chest infections that keep coming back, do not ignore it. Encourage them to see a doctor, and be honest about what they have been smoking. A family that acts early can make a real difference, because the earlier lung damage is found, the more there is to protect. Silence helps no one, and the lungs will not heal themselves while the smoke continues.
Money is a small thing compared with health, but it is worth mentioning, because it shows how bad the trade really is. Synthetic cannabis is cheap, and that is part of its appeal. But the cost of lung disease is enormous: doctor visits, breathing tests, medicines, inhalers, hospital stays, time off work, and the slow narrowing of a person’s whole life. The cheap packet at the start leads to an expensive illness at the end, and the person pays that price for years. When you look at it that way, the drug is not cheap at all. It is one of the most expensive things a person can buy, because they pay for it with their breath.
The word “legal” is another part of the trap, and I want to be clear about it. Synthetic cannabis has often been sold as a “legal high”, as if being legal means being safe. It does not. Laws change slowly, and the makers change their chemicals quickly, staying one step ahead of the law. Something can be legal today and banned tomorrow, and it can be harmful the whole time. The law is not a safety certificate. It is a set of rules that always lags behind the people who are trying to get around it. Never judge a drug by whether the police have caught up with it yet.
If a friend of mine smoked synthetic cannabis, I would not lecture them. I have learned that lectures rarely change anyone’s mind, and they usually make people defensive. I would simply tell them what I have written here, plainly and honestly, and then I would ask them to get their breathing checked. A breathing test is quick, painless and simple, and it tells a great deal. If the results are fine, that is good news, and it is a reason to stop before the luck runs out. If the results show damage, that is a warning in time, and it is far better to hear it now than to hear it in a hospital bed. A friend who tells you the truth is worth more than a friend who tells you what you want to hear.
Getting help to stop is not a sign of weakness, and I wish more people understood that. Stopping is hard because the habit is tied to stress, to friends, to boredom, and to the feeling of wanting to escape for a while. Talking to a doctor, a counsellor or a support service is not admitting defeat. It is making a smart decision, the same way you would ask a mechanic to fix a car you cannot fix yourself. There are people whose job is to help with exactly this, and they have helped many others. You do not have to do it alone, and doing it alone is the hardest way.
There is one more thing I want to say, and it is about the future. Lungs do not grow back. Once the air sacs are scarred, they stay scarred. That sounds harsh, and it is harsh, but it is also a reason for hope, because it means that every day you protect them counts. The lungs you have now are the lungs you will have for the rest of your life, and they are worth looking after. Do not smoke, avoid smoky rooms, walk in fresh air, and keep away from chemicals that can harm them. These are small, ordinary choices, and they add up over a lifetime. The best time to start looking after your lungs was years ago. The second-best time is today, and the choice is yours to make.
Finally, I would say this to anyone who has never tried it: do not start. It is the easiest advice in this whole article, and it is also the most valuable. There is no safe version of synthetic cannabis, no safe amount, and no safe batch. The strength is unknown, the contents are unknown, and the harm to the lungs is real and documented. The first packet feels like a small decision. The consequences can last a lifetime. Walk away from the first one, and you will never have to wonder whether your lungs will recover from the second.
And if you are someone who has already stopped, I want you to know that stopping was the right choice, and it was a brave one. It is not easy to walk away from a habit, especially when the habit is tied to friends, to stress, or to difficult times. But every day without smoke is a day your lungs are clearing themselves, and that matters more than most people realise. Your lungs have worked for you since the day you were born, without asking for thanks, pulling in air twenty thousand times a day. Protecting them now is the least you can do, and the best gift you can give your future self.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does chest infections that return from Synthetic Cannabis go away after stopping?
Some of the harm can improve after stopping, especially the irritation and swelling in the airways, and many people find their cough eases and they catch fewer chest infections within weeks or months of stopping. But infections that keep returning are a sign that the lungs’ defences have been weakened, and that damage takes time to recover, and scarred lung tissue does not heal completely. Stopping is still the most important step, because it prevents further damage and gives the lungs the best chance to clear themselves. If chest infections keep returning after you have stopped, speak to a doctor, who can check your lungs and arrange the right follow-up.
How soon can lungs that clear mucus poorly appear after using Synthetic Cannabis?
It varies from person to person. The smoke can irritate the airways and slow the cleaning hairs within days of use, and some people notice a cough and extra mucus within the first few weeks. In others, the problem builds up slowly over months of regular use, with the cough and mucus becoming worse a little at a time. There is no safe window and no amount of use that guarantees the lungs will keep clearing mucus properly. A cough that brings up mucus for more than three weeks, especially in someone who smokes synthetic cannabis, should be checked by a health professional.
What should I do if Synthetic Cannabis is causing breathlessness on stairs?
The first step is to stop using synthetic cannabis, because continued use keeps irritating and narrowing the airways. Then speak to a doctor or a local health service as soon as you can, and tell them what you used and for how long, and that you become breathless on the stairs. A doctor can arrange a breathing test to measure how well your lungs are working, and can explain what support and follow-up you need. If the breathlessness is severe, sudden, or comes with chest pain, blue lips or confusion, seek urgent medical help. Do not wait and hope it passes on its own.
Can Synthetic Cannabis really cause long-term damage to lung tissue?
Yes. The smoke from synthetic cannabis irritates and inflames the airways and the tiny air sacs, damages the cleaning hairs that clear mucus, and weakens the lungs’ defences against infection. Repeated use over months and years can scar the air sacs and narrow the airways permanently, which is long-term damage to lung tissue. Because the strength and contents of each packet are unknown, the risk cannot be predicted for any one person, and the damage often builds up quietly before breathlessness becomes obvious. That is why doctors take reports of lasting cough, wheezing and breathlessness after synthetic cannabis use very seriously.
Is breathing that feels shallow from Synthetic Cannabis dangerous?
It can be. Breathing that feels shallow can mean the airways are narrowed and the lungs cannot take in enough air, or that the air sacs are damaged and cannot pass oxygen into the blood properly. If it happens often, gets worse, or comes with wheezing, chest pain, blue lips, confusion or a high fever, it should be treated as urgent and medical help should be sought straight away. Even when it is not an emergency, shallow breathing that keeps returning is a sign that the lungs are struggling, and it is worth getting checked by a qualified health professional rather than ignoring it.
Who is most at risk of breathlessness on stairs from Synthetic Cannabis?
People who smoke synthetic cannabis often or in large amounts face the highest risk, because their lungs are exposed to the smoke again and again with no time to recover. People with existing lung conditions, such as asthma, are at higher risk, as are older people, people with heart problems, and people who mix synthetic cannabis with cigarettes or other smoked substances. Teenagers and young adults are also at risk because they are more likely to smoke heavily and to ignore early warning signs like a lasting cough. Anyone in these groups who notices breathlessness on the stairs should seek medical advice promptly.
Sources
- National Institute on Drug Abuse — https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/synthetic-cannabinoids
- U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — https://www.dea.gov/drug-information
- Mayo Clinic, Drug addiction — https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-addiction/symptoms-causes/syc-20365112
- World Health Organization, Substance abuse — https://www.who.int/health-topics/substance-abuse
- NHS, Drug addiction: getting help — https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/drug-addiction-getting-help/
This article is general information only. It is not medical advice. If you are worried about your health or about someone else, speak to a qualified health professional.
