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Bellatrix

Cannabis smokers risk nicotine addiction

Carol Nader | The Age | August 17, 2004

Regularly smoking cannabis can cause an addiction to nicotine in cigarette smokers who were previously not addicted, a study has found.

Bellatrix; so now marijuana has become the gateway drug for nicotine? Hilarious!!

Teenagers who smoke cannabis daily for at least a month are four times more likely to become addicted to nicotine by the time they reach their 20s.

Weekly cannabis use increases the likelihood three-fold and monthly cannabis use doubles the risk of nicotine addiction, the study of 2500 young people discovered.

Bellatrix; who do you have to know to get into one of these studies? I'll tell you who...

The findings are based on the Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study, conducted by George Patton and Susan Sawyer from the Royal Children's Hospital Centre for Adolescent Health and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

Bellatrix; okay, it could just be a coincidence, but Rupert does put on the "philanthropist" hat every so often.

Professor Sawyer, director of the centre, said that for teenagers who smoked tobacco but showed no signs of nicotine addiction, a "powerful predictor" of subsequent nicotine dependence was cannabis use.

Professor Sawyer said that not only should we be concerned about cannabis use for all its negative effects, but we should also have real concerns that those using high levels of cannabis were much more likely to develop nicotine dependence, leading to a lifetime of illness.

Bellatrix; this is cut and pasted right out of some campy DARE handbook. Notice that it's Professor, not doctor Sawyer.

The study's finding contravenes the traditional "gateway theory" that suggests drug use starts with tobacco then progresses to alcohol, cannabis and, finally, more illicit drugs. The study suggests a "reverse directionality".

Bellatrix; the study suggests an independent think tank that that's whoring itself out for extra funds. Perhaps the "gateway theory" I heard about as a whelp - the one in which weed was the root of ALL evil, must not have reached Australia.

"People are smoking tobacco at the same time (as cannabis) and are inadvertently getting high levels of nicotine, and it is the nicotine that they're co-smoking which is driving the nicotine addiction," Professor Sawyer said.

Bellatrix; uhm....is this utter nonsense to anyone else? Is this person trying to tell us that marijuana contains nicotine?

The study also found that female users of cannabis on a daily basis were eight times more likely to suffer high levels of depression than non-cannabis users.

Bellatrix; compared to what? What are the "normal" levels of depression amoung women in this demographic? As usual, we're just suposed to take their word for it.

The results will be presented today at a mental health conference at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Mental health experts at the conference yesterday said there was also a link between cannabis and psychosis.

David Castle, from the Mental Health Research Institute, said most people who became psychotic after using cannabis had an underlying vulnerability to mental disorders. But most people who used cannabis moderately or infrequently were unlikely to experience psychosis.

Wayne Hall, from Queensland University's Institute for Molecular & Bioscience, said 60 per cent of people in their 20s have used cannabis and 10 per cent of cannabis users developed a dependency on the drug.

Bellatrix; I don't know what's worse - the story itself, or the hyper-rationalization of the results.

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Jose Melendez

"People are smoking tobacco at the same time (as cannabis) and are inadvertently getting high levels of nicotine, and it is the nicotine that they're co-smoking which is driving the nicotine addiction," Professor Sawyer said.

Bellatrix; uhm....is this utter nonsense to anyone else? Is this person trying to tell us that marijuana contains nicotine?

Maybe they mix tobacco with marijuana, as some Europeans do.

xxdr_zombiexx

I see the source is from the Age, which is Australia.

What is it with befouling the Herb with something nasty like tobacco?

Ick.

Perhaps the herb counteracts tobacco's well-established carcinogenic properties.......

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

Jose Melendez

on http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=30105

the following information was posted by "tehuti-ga"

"Obviously, marijuana smoked as joints and mixed with tobacco could carry all the health risks associated with cigarette smoking. The use of marijuana alone might be implicated in cancer. However, one review concluded that: “While there is no doubt that marijuana smoke contains carcinogens, an increase in cancer among users has thus far been anecdotal. Because of the long latent period between cancer induction and initiation of cigarette smoking, the full story is yet to be told.”

(International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, July 1998,vol. 1 pp 71-80, Health aspects of cannabis: revisited. by Hollister LE. of Harris County Psychiatric Center, University of Texas-Houston, Houston, TX http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract)

In support of this statement, I only found one recent paper in Medline describing a case of cancer in one marijuana user. This in itself is not absolute proof."

solutions

More a case of improving the tase of tobacco with a little of the Holy Weed for me. It is a pretty comon practice in Holland, smoking joints with tobacco. Not to curse in Church here but the relative high potency of Dutch weed might be a factor. True you can use a pipe, bong or vaporizer but I never smoke pure weed joints as I have seen some Americans do. I estimate I usually smoke 0.05 to 0.1 gram in a joint, now I don't see me rolling a spliff from that.

Regarding the Carcinogeneity of cannabis I noticed the following in the report of the 2002 International Conference on Cannabis (p. 7/8):

This report also notes the average starting age for tobacco is generally 1.5 years later than for cannabis (US 12.4 resp. 13.7; NL 12.9 resp. 14.4) which makes me question the "independent" and "scientific" conclusion of a "reversed directionality".

Must be a well paid job, whoring statistics like that

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mixi

Bellatrix; uhm....is this utter nonsense to anyone else? Is this person trying to tell us that marijuana contains nicotine?
where i live we always smoke tobacco with marijuana and i can personally say that i only started smoking ciggarettes after becoming addicted to nicotine due to my weed smoking activities.

cassiusclay

Being a long time tobacco user, I'd like to say that weed and its cancer fighting properties have helped me to stay healthy. Cannabis opens up the lungs and helps clear them. Without weed I would probably be addicted to tobacco because I would be trying to achieve the satisfaction I get from weed (or perhaps the combinatoion) through tobacco. I only smoke tobacco now after smoking pot.
I believe weed allows me to have a SMALL amount of tobacco w/o serious health impairment. I feel the weed also makes me more aware of whats is happening inside my body and since I don't want to be sick or die, I listen and go easy on the tobacco.

I'm guessing that people are going to be addicted to whatever they choose but I know personally I'm very grateful to have marijuana to help restore the damage that excess tobacco use can cause. I believe without the weed, my lungs would just clog up and die.

rick

Weed and Nicontine together? Very strange bedfellows. I just dont understand why someone would waste good Marijuana by mixing it with garbage like nicotine; where's the logic?

Mixing Marijuana & Nicotine is like mixing Beer and Gasoline.

MMmmm, I think I am figuring out why so many people think Marijuana is addictive.

::shakes head::

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StonedOne420

Personally I used to smoke tobacco (quit when i was 18 ). From my experience, I found that tobacco, kind of, "smooths" the high... I don't really know how to describe it... although I know may ppl who found the same. Since I quit smoking I have found that I really don't like the taste of tobacco anymore, and therefore don't really like to smoke the MJ + Nico joints, anymore. I think that many of your people are looking at the idea from a non-smoker's point of view, and therefore can't see how the two work together. Guess all I am trying to say is: don't knock it till you've tried it. But if you don't like tobacco at all, I can almost guarantee you won't like it.

Hey Mixi, you said ... But the only reason you got addicted to nicotine was because you where smoking nicotine with your marijuana, not because you where smoking marijuana, with your nicotine

Bellatrix

Thanks rick; I'd like to second that and ask everyone about this, because personally it's something that I've wondered about ever since I discovered this fine stuff. Weed, I mean.

Initially I thought the weed + tabacco thing was a prohibionist thing, as if you wanted to either hide the weed or make a small amount smoke longer. Myself, I'm strictly a weed smoker, and I despise both the smell and taste of tabacco, so for me to smoke weed and tabacco together is unthinkable. Add that to the fact that I DID try it once, and the result was my only bad experience with weed.

In years years I've come into contact with all kinds of people that mix weed and tabacco together completely of their own free will. So, what's the deal here? Is it done in some places as a custom, or is it a taste totally based on choice? Perhaps some people think that the mix is more efficient - you can get your tabacco buzz at the same time as your marijuana high. It is an upper and a downer together - I certainly like a cup of coffee with my weed, for example.