Stanford Study: Increased Pot Smoking Linked To Sexual Desire
PALO ALTO (CBS SF) -- Stanford researchers have found a link between an increase in sexual desire and smoking pot.
The study -- published Friday in the Journal of Sexual Medicine -- analyzed the lifestyles of more than 50,000 American men and women between the ages of 25 and 45.
While the study fell short of recommending marijuana use to kick up your sex life, it did find that sex rose steadily with increasing use.
The researchers asked respondents about how many times they've had intercourse with a member of the opposite sex in the past four weeks and how frequently they've smoked marijuana over the past year. About 24.5 percent of men and 14.5 percent of women reported having used marijuana.
Female daily pot users had sex on average 7.1 times a month, compared with six times for nonusers. Among men, marijuana users had sex 6.9 times a month, compared with 5.6 times for nonusers.
"It's too early to recommend it as treatment," Dr. Michael Eisenberg, assistant professor of urology at Stanford University School of Medicine and leader of the study said.
Sex also rose steadily with increasing marijuana use. More frequent users — those who told researchers they smoked weekly or daily — reported more sex than less frequent users.
Eisenberg said until the new findings, his advice to patients dissatisfied with their sex life was not to use marijuana. He assumed that smoking pot would interfere with sexual performance.
He said more research must be done to better understand his group's findings.