Is Smoking Marijuana Bad For Your Eyes?

Bloodshot eyes are probably the easiest way to tell if someone’s been smoking marijuana. The THC in cannabis has a role in lowering your blood pressure, which then dilates the blood vessels and increases blood flow throughout your entire body. Your eyes aren’t exempt from this, which is why they get really red.

A lot of people worry about their eyes when they consume marijuana, wondering if this can lead to broken blood vessels or other problems. The truth is not quite like that; marijuana dilates the vessels in your eyes, but it doesn’t increase the risk of them breaking. If you do have a broken vessel in your eye, smoking marijuana will definitely delay the healing process because of the increased amount of blood that’s circulating, so avoid cannabis while you’re healing. Strong coughing fits and sneezing are known causes for broken blood vessels, so when smoking marijuana be sure to inhale only as much smoke as your body can handle.  

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While these symptoms seem innocent enough, we wanted to know if there were any other ways in which cannabis affects or impairs your eyesight:

Peripheral Vision Is Impaired After Smoking

This issue is only temporarily, lasting for a couple of hours, but the presence of cannabis in your system definitely influences the corners your eyesight, making your retinas take a longer time to process their surroundings. Driving and other activities that require you to be aware of the environment are not recommended.

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It Takes More Time For Your Retinas To Process Information

Several medical journals claim that regular cannabis use leads to a 10 millisecond delay for our retinas to pass along information to our brain. These changes are minuscule though, and other things that we encounter in our day to day lives, like lack of vitamins and looking directly into the sun, present a larger threat for our eyesight.