Effects of Marijuana On Oral Health

If you’re a smoker, or you live with or are married to one, you are undoubtedly familiar with the yellowing of teeth, worsening of breath and general degradation of their oral hygiene. Ruined smiles are an unfortunate side effect of inhaling/exhaling smoke, no matter what it is you’re lighting up. We recently came across a heated debate over this very subject and thought it’s high time that we finalize an answer to the question: are weed teeth as bad as cigarette teeth?

What are the effects of marijuana on your oral health? Can edibles cause tooth decay? Does weed cause bad breath? What about using weed for tooth pain, is that safe? Time to open your mouth and say “aaaaahhhhh” because the dope dentist is here to shed some light on the questions about marijuana’s effects on oral health.

What Are “Weed Teeth”?

Have you ever been smoking a joint with friends, family or coworkers and suddenly noticed their smiles for the wrong reasons? Cannabis by default is a “good times” enhancer, suitable for almost any occasion. This might mean smoking weed after a hard day’s work, dropping an edible before bedtime, or vaping a high-potency extract at a party. Some folks consume marijuana on a daily basis, throughout the day, because they need to for their health or wellbeing.

The facts are that many of us consume cannabis very regularly throughout our lives, and our usage often increases as we get older in order to cope with life’s wear & tear. There’s nothing wrong with relying on cannabis for a variety of health reasons – or quality of life reasons, for that matter – but whenever you smoke something you need to be cognizant of the potential for long-term effects.

Similar to smoking cigarettes, lighting up joints or puff-puff-passing around your pipe or bong can lead to a nasty little condition some like to call “weed teeth”. What are weed teeth? Yellowing of your enamel, dark spots on your teeth or gums, bad breath and a general worsening of your oral hygiene are some of the few negative side effects of cannabis.

It’s important to keep in mind that these symptoms of “weed teeth” only apply to those who smoke or vape cannabis – a much lesser degree of seriousness with regards to vaping. This leads us to assume that some of the rumors about edibles and tooth decay might be overblown – unless of course you’re eating handfuls of sweets, treats or desserts every single day, then of course an edible could be detrimental to your dental health.

Smoking can cause an array of oral problems, such as tooth decay, bad breath, sores inside your mouth or on your gums, and much worse. We’ve all seen the disgusting pictures on cigarette packages of people with missing lips, rotting tongues or gums, blackened teeth falling out or puss-filled sores inside their oral cavities. Regular cannabis smoking can cause some of these symptoms, but because weed does not contain the same cocktail of chemicals as cigarettes, the severity of effects of marijuana on your oral health is well below the threshold of tobacco products.

Taking all of this into consideration, what are the actual causes and symptoms of weed teeth? Let’s assume somebody smokes more than a joint per day, every week for an entire year before this list of symptoms was likely to occur:

Dry Mouth
Reduced saliva production, stickiness in the back of your mouth/throat and overall oral dryness are a very common side effect of smoking cannabis. Although it might seem harmless, dry mouth can actually lead to some oral health issues if not taken seriously. Saliva helps to flush your mouth and throat of bacteria, food particles and more. So, when dry mouth occurs it doesn’t just make talking difficult, it can actually be detrimental to your oral health if you’re constantly experiencing oral dryness.

Stained Teeth
Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that we enjoy that can stain those pearly whites and turn them into yellowish, faded or even green-tinged fangs. Wine, coffee, beer, sugary treats, salty snacks and even cannabis buds can stain our teeth. Plant tannins and the effects of repeated exposure to the thick smoke fumes of cannabis are responsible for the signature ‘weed teeth’ discoloration. Vaporizing cannabis doesn’t lead to nearly the same level of teeth staining, but vape products contain a lot of chemicals that can lead to a host of other issues for your oral health.

Irritated Gums
Overly salty foods or spicy dishes can sometimes irritate your gums, but so can smoking weed. Smoking too frequently can cause inflammation, irritation and pain to your gum lines. Cannabis smoke doesn’t directly irritate the gums, it seems, but it can contribute to dry mouth, stained teeth and the horrible breath associated with smoking. Speaking of bad breath…

Bad Breath
This isn’t necessarily a health-related issue, but bad breath can be an indicator for poor dental hygiene. Conditions like halitosis aren’t caused by smoking weed and yet many long-term smokers seem to suffer from similar conditions like sour smelling odors coming from their mouth and nose. Many stoners wonder “does weed cause bad breath?” because a lot of frequent tokers suffer from foul smelling breath. Smoking cannabis isn’t usually enough to cause bad breath – that’s linked closely to your diet – but it definitely doesn’t help your breath to smell any better.

The trick to avoiding these nasty symptoms of weed teeth? Smoke less. The only way to manage your oral health while continuing to smoke cannabis is to limit yourself to certain times, certain days and sticking to it. Alternatively, you can give up smoking altogether since it can have a string of other ill effects on your short- and long-term health. We understand that quitting smoking isn’t an easy thing to do, so start by reducing the frequency of smoking first and slowly decrease from there.

We’re not advocating that you stop consuming weed – that’d be insane! Just trade your joints or bong hits in for a healthy edible, some high-potency cannabis oil or maybe an easy-to-use marijuana topical? There are so many ways to get your Mary J fix, so smoking doesn’t have to be one of them. Sure, lighting up a doob is convenient, familiar and fun but to give your lungs a break and keep your oral health up to standards it’s not a bad idea to switch to edibles, oils, concentrates, extracts or topicals.

Edibles & Tooth Decay

Most dentists and oral hygienists focus on the negative effects of smoking marijuana on oral health. However, we’d like to shift our perspectives to a problem that should be a little more obvious: sugar-filled pot brownies, chocolate chip weed cookies, icing-covered space cake and all those marijuana gummies, lollipops, candies and more. Sugar is in almost every popular cannabis edible, and it may come as no surprise to hear that these sweet edible treats aren’t doing your teeth any favors.

Smoking is undoubtedly bad for your oral health but so are all the cannabis edibles we know & love. Edibles and tooth decay seem to go hand-in-hand, just like smoking high-THC strains and dry mouth. If you enjoy the odd edible from time to time then you’re probably not causing any major issues for your teeth, but when you consider all the other sugary foods & beverages we consume in a day then suddenly a brownie here or a handful of gummies there can tip the scales the wrong way.

Edibles and tooth decay aren’t necessarily a cause-effect relationship, however they can certainly contribute to poor oral health if you don’t maintain a healthy balance. You need to be careful with your intake of junk foods just as much as you manage how frequently you smoke. To avoid some of the symptoms of weed teeth brought on by excessive edibles consumption, consider switching up your weed habits.

If you normally have cannabis gummies or a sugary weed-infused beverage, maybe try an oral spray or add some cannabis oil to some tea? Next time you’re sharing a batch of pot cookies with your stoner friends switch it up and make some cannabis granola bites instead? Shifting your edibles habits to more healthy options isn’t difficult to do, it just takes commitment to eating better while still enjoying the benefits of THC, CBD or other cannabinoids.

With some of these negative symptoms of smoking weed you might be wondering why people bother toking at all. If you’re one of those types who constantly whitens their teeth, brushes three times a day and avoids drinking or eating certain things to avoid staining their teeth, then you’re probably not a smoker because of how it adversely affects your oral health.

There are a ton of other ways to enjoy cannabis and reap all its benefits without inhaling smoke or vapor. Cannabis edibles are the next best thing for many former smokers – just try to strike a healthy balance with your edibles to avoid other dental problems. Cannabis oils are extremely versatile in terms of their cannabinoids, terpenes, potency levels and dosing capabilities. Cannabis extracts are often smoked or inhaled as well, but some more naturally derived concentrates can be ingested raw or applied to foods/beverages without the need for combustion.

The takeaways here are that there are hundreds of kinds of cannabis products you can replace smoking with, so you don’t have to light up to experience the benefits of less pain, less inflammation, better sleep, more relaxation, less stress from cannabis. Does weed help with tooth pain? Absolutely! Tooth pain is typically a sign of something that a dentist or oral hygienist needs to take a look at, but as a coping mechanism with the symptoms of pain or inflamed gums then cannabis is just what the doctor ordered.

Just like our dentists taught us to brush our teeth thoroughly, let’s go over the effects of marijuana use on oral health one more time:

‘Weed Teeth’ are stained, yellowing or brownish and can suffer from inflamed gums, tooth decay, tooth pain and bad breath.

To avoid ‘weed teeth’ symptoms, you need to control your weed smoking habits, try to consume edibles that contain healthy ingredients, and switch up the kinds of cannabis products you rely on for medical or quality of life reasons.

Does weed cause bad breath? Smoking cannabis does not help your breath to smell any better, especially if you’re a frequent smoker. Weed doesn’t cause bad breath but it can make your bad breath worse.

Does weed help with tooth pain? THC and CBD are both very popular for many forms of pain treatment, tooth pain included. What’s more, cannabis can help to reduce inflammation in irritated gums in addition to easing tooth pain.