Not all weed smokers are hippie burnouts; in fact, a good portion of those who love marijuana are successful professionals who just like to unwind—and have more sex than the rest of the population, apparently.
- Science says it’s true. A new study out of the University of Buffalo studied couples who use marijuana and discovered that smoking together seemed to act as an aphrodisiac, with the participants reporting having a lot more sex than their non-smoking counterparts.
- The effect is intense and pretty immediate. According to Maria Testa, senior research scientist in the UB Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences and the study’s lead author, “We found robust support for these positive effects within two hours of when couples use marijuana together or in the presence of their partner. The findings were the same for both the male and female partners.” Huh, good to know.
- It isn’t all about sex, either. What’s crazy is that not only did weed up the sexual contact between partners, it showed an increase in positive “intimacy events” in general, including but not limited to showing more love, caring, and support.
- The study came about from a desire to disprove the correlation between depressants and aggression. As Testa explained, while alcohol consumption is generally associated with increased aggression, she didn’t believe that marijuana should be tarred with the same brush. After all, pop culture’s understanding of weed is that it makes you relaxed and totally chilled out, so which was true? “I’ve studied alcohol as a predictor of intimate partner aggression for years,” Testa said. “Because alcohol is related to aggression in general, it’s not surprising to find that aggressive effect in the domain of relationships. But survey studies were consistently showing correlations between marijuana use and partner aggression, which didn’t fit with pop culture reports of relaxation and happiness that’s often associated with its use.”
- No, Testa isn’t trying to tell you to get high. As she explained, “We need to know about the effects of marijuana use, instead of merely assuming what those effects may be. There should also be caution before generalizing these results across a broader population. The conclusions are drawn from within this specific research sample of frequent marijuana-using couples who were mostly white and employed. This is science, not advocacy.”
- More research needs to be done, but the results of this study are encouraging. If weed really can have a positive effect on relationships just as other studies have proven it does for mental health (in certain cases) and even particular medical conditions, this may unlock a whole new understanding of marijuana and its place in our lives.
