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Cannabis Lifts Emphysema Risk
Adam Cresswell | The Australian | 03/27/2006

CANNABIS smokers risk developing emphysema 20 years before it tends to strike tobacco smokers, Australian researchers have found.

Experts say the findings suggest the potentially serious lung condition could be more widespread in cannabis smokers than first thought. The higher temperature of cannabis smoke and different inhalation behaviour may explain the greater risk.

Emphysema reduces the normal elasticity of the lungs' airways and air sacs. Air inside the lungs has to be forced out, putting pressure on the sacs and in some cases making them collapse. It tends to strike tobacco smokers at an average age of about 65.

Matthew Naughton, head of general respiratory and sleep medicine at Melbourne's The Alfred hospital, said the research began after a 40-year-old patient came in with a severe chest infection and was found to have large cysts, or holes, throughout the lungs.

The patient was a heavy cannabis user who smoked through a waterpipe.

Mr Naughton said his team then decided to ask other patients whether they smoked cannabis. Over the following year, they found a further 10 similar cases among regular marijuana users, aged from 28 to 50.

In just under half the cases, standard breath tests were normal and 40 per cent also had a normal chest X-ray.

A more sophisticated technique, called a computed tomography or CT scan, picked up the problems in 90 per cent of the cases, but this test would not routinely be ordered to detect emphysema.

"The pattern we were seeing with marijuana smoking was different to that seen in tobacco smoking," Mr Naughton said.

"A tobacco smoker generally has smaller holes in the top of the lungs. What we were seeing (in marijuana smokers) was larger holes in the top and mid-part of the chest.

"It's occurring 20 years earlier and is more advanced."

Factors accelerating the emphysema might include the "incredibly hot" smoke from cannabis, particularly when smoked through waterpipes, compared with the smoke from filtered cigarettes, he said.

Cannabis smokers also tended to inhale more deeply and hold the smoke for longer, and marijuana might also contain other chemicals that worsened the lung damage.

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Buzzby

Wow! 90%! All the people my age who began smoking in the 60s should be dropping like flies. [Note: We're not.]


Whoops! They kinda blew it here. Anyone with half a brain could figure out that water pipes cool and humidify the smoke.

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nornerator

So it is unclear how the obtained their "research" in the first place.

Did 10 people come in complaining of chest problems that turned out to be emphysema?

And they also smoked cannabis?


So 10 people suffering from chest pains and also smoke cannabis heavily come into a clinic because of their condition and 90% of them turn out to have emphysema?

How does 10 people voluntarily seeking treatment of a respiratory disease represent the millions of people that smoke cannabis?

First of all, that is clearly not a representative sample. For true data to show and statistical significance, the sample has to be much larger, and it needs to be a random sampling. Any good researcher knows not to extrapolate their data beyond what it actually represents.

I don't know how anyone has the gall to publish, or post an article that claims that a short 100mm cigarette with a filter will have cooler smoke than a 50cm-500cm pipe filled with water (usually cool or cold water).

That statement alone just shows how little logic those "researchers" are using in their studies.

Even an anti-pot person would be able to recognize that flaw, given that they aren't of subhuman intelligence.

Bombi

Australian ganja certainly does grab you by the chest, but bong ripping is most definately the coolest way to smoke in more ways than one.

Ilove#

Although I totally agree that the way the article is writen is just scare-mongering and that 10 cases is not enough to draw any conclusions about the cannabis culture as a whole, I think you guys are misinterpreting that 90%.

They aren't saying that 90% of cannabis smokers have emphysema. All 10 of those people already had emphysema, and a CT scan caught 90% of those cases. The point appears to be that their emphysema is different from tobacco smokers emphysema, and wouldn't be caught in normal emphysema tests like breath tests or chest xrays.

I definately think it warrants more research...

Note that the "incredibly hot" smoke coming out of water pipes is not a quote, and just the opinion of the article's author.

To make it easy:
biased article = bad,
research trying to investigate emphysema in cannabis smokers = good