The healing powers of marijuana go beyond treatments for headaches and other chronic pain, according to a new study that suggests the drug is correlated to happier marriages.
Researchers from Yale University, University of Buffalo and Rutgers first enlisted 634 couples during the mid-to late-1990s as they applied for marriage licenses in New York, the Washington Post reports.
They then studied the presence of abuse in their relationships over the course of nine years.
Just one year into the marriages, 37.1 percent of the husbands had become physically aggressive.
But, this was not the case for the couples that said they used marijuana regularly.
The researchers wrote,
More frequent marijuana use generally predicted less frequent IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) for both men and women over the first 9 years of marriage.
The couples at the lowest risk for domestic violence were those in which both spouses smoked weed.
These findings refuted the researchers’ hypothesis that marijuana use would have a similar effect on marriage as alcohol because the two are often abused simultaneously.
But smoking marijuana didn’t seem to trigger the same impaired aggression as alcohol.
One researcher said,
Chronic [marijuana] users exhibit blunted emotional reaction to threat stimuli, which may also decrease the likelihood of aggressive behavior.
Because researchers began collecting data almost two decades ago, the Post reports, the authors want to run more tests with current newlyweds.
Although more research needs to be conducted on all effects of pot use, this seems to be positive news for supporters of marijuana decriminalization.
