Men and women who frequently smoke marijuana appear to have more sex, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The study counters common perceptions that regular cannabis use can put a damper on bedroom activity by impairing sexual desire or performance, and offers good news for the 20 million plus adult Americans who reportedly use the drug.
“Frequent marijuana use doesn’t seem to impair sexual motivation or performance. If anything, it’s associated with increased coital frequency,” said the study’s senior author, urologist, Michael Eisenberg.
In fact pot users are having about 20 percent more sex than pot abstainers, according to Eisenberg’s research.
The findings, based on an analysis of more than 50,000 Americans ages 25-45, are published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The study is the first to examine the relationship between marijuana use and frequency of sexual intercourse at the population level in the United States.
“Marijuana use is very common, but its large-scale use and association with sexual frequency hasn’t been studied much in a scientific way,” Eisenberg noted.
Interestingly, the research found the positive association between smoking weed and having more sex applied across the board.
“The overall trend we saw applied to people of both sexes and all races, ages, education levels, income groups and religions, every health status, whether they were married or single and whether or not they had kids.”
The study examined data from the US government's National Survey of Family Growth which asks respondents 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 12 months.
Women who reported not using marijuana in the past year had sex on average 6.0 times during the previous four weeks - this figure rose to 7.1 for women who used pot on a daily basis. Pot smoking men had sex 6.9 times over a four week period compared to 5.6 times for non users.
The analysis also noted a rise in sexual activity in tandem with increasing marijuana use, suggesting a possible role for marijuana in fostering sexual activity, according to the study’s authors.
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However, Eisenberg noted while the study’s results were unambiguous they should not be interpreted as having a causal connection and admitted further study was warranted.
“It doesn’t say if you smoke more marijuana, you’ll have more sex.”