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Health Update: Dope downer

JUST AS things were looking up for marijuana smokers - with the West Yorkshire police chief Keith Hellawell saying liberalisation was likely - a study has shown that it can weaken the immune system.

Researchers from the University of South Florida, Tampa, carried out tests which showed that giving mice tetrahydrocannabinol (the major component of marijuana) inhibited their resistance to the Legionnaire's disease bug. Marijuana may have a similar effect in humans, they say in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

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