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Smoking Pot May Prime Lungs For Cancer
Reuters | 07/14/2006

Smoking marijuana can cause changes in lung tissue that may promote cancer, according to a review of decades of research on marijuana smoking and lung cancer.

Still, it is not possible to directly link pot use to lung cancer based on existing evidence.

Dr Reena Mehra of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and her colleagues publish their review in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Given the widespread use of marijuana, its use for what are believed to be medicinal purposes, and the increasing abuse and dependence on this substance, it is important to examine potential adverse clinical consequences," the researchers write.

To investigate whether marijuana smoking might lead to precancerous changes in the lungs or lung cancer, Mehra and her team reviewed 19 studies.

Analyses of sputum and lung tissue performed in some of these studies found more cancer-promoting changes in pot smokers than in cigarette smokers or non-smokers.

These changes included oxidative stress, dysfunction of tumour-fighting cells, changes in tissue structure and DNA alterations, the researchers report.

But none of the studies they analysed found evidence that marijuana smoking actually caused lung cancer, after factoring in the effects of tobacco use.

"We must conclude that no convincing evidence exists for an association between marijuana smoking and lung cancer based on existing data," Mehra and her team write.

Increased risk
Nevertheless, the researchers add, the precancerous changes seen in studies included in their analysis and other factors do suggest that smoking pot could indeed boost lung cancer risk.

Other factors that could make pot smokers prone to lung cancer, the researchers say, include the fact that they generally inhale more deeply and hold smoke in their lungs longer than cigarette smokers, and that marijuana is smoked without a filter.

It is known, they add, that marijuana smoking deposits more tar in the lungs than cigarette smoking does.

The failure to find a marijuana-lung cancer link may have been due to methodological flaws in existing research, rather than the absence of such a link, the researchers say.

(BuzzNote: And it might be because there is no link. A study of some 64,000 Kaiser patients showed that marijuana users did not develop lung cancer at a higher rate or die earlier than non-users.)

Doctors should advise their patients that marijuana does indeed have potential adverse effects, they conclude, including causing precancerous changes in the lungs.

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Lothar121

They apparently want all of us to believe that all the research that shows there wasn't a correlation is wrong.

daksya in comments over at the Drug WarRant has this to say:

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Hansje

Re the tobacco aspect, i just don't see how someone who smokes a carton of cigarettes a week--what is that like a pound of tobacco--gets less tar in his/her lungs than a marijuana smoker. although research may show that marijuana has more tar, it seems presupposed that people smoke tobacco and marijuana at the same frequency and in the same amounts. At least that is the inference that appears to be made.

I just think that a change in attitude toward truth-based research, a shift in attitude is what's needed overall at higher levels of power on this and other issues. Untruths about oil deposits and prices, war, jobs, health care for all, marijuana, he-said she-said legal issues need to be researched and reported on truthfully, and some big mainstream media outlet with some super big balls has to be the one to get the ball rolling. Talk about reality TV, investigative reporting, as opposed to the lazy crappy print and air journalism we've been dished for the past forty some years of my existence, the big 3 networks might even get into a ratings competition.

Where am I going with this? First thing, other research universities other than the University of Mississippi should be allowed to grow marijuana. Nearly all research on marijuana should be allowed, not just those with a thesis that supposes some kind of negative outcome that is to be proven by the scientific method. Then it can with good conscience be decided whether marijuana should be reclassified to something other than schedule I. That's likely the case, but you never know once truth-based research is allowed rather than faith-based research, and you can read faith-based research as a code term only for that type of research that presumes that there is no medical value to marijuana, thus schedule I justification research, junk science without the balance.

If it is reclassified, sometime sooner than later, then these research centers in different regions can also develop seed banks and breed lower tar strains of marijuana for those who do not wish to use a vaporizer to inhale their cannabis medicine.

Lastly, since there are medicines such as Marinol and others that have been derived from cannabis, you know, synthetic THC and synthetic cannabinoids, it seems there is evidence that cannabis does have medical uses, and that the powers that be are merely engagind in semantics by differentiating the naturally produced forms from the manmade forms. The chemical structure is the same, so the usefulness is there. Who is to say there is no synergistic relationship of medical benefit between delta 9 and other cannabinoids? It's just a matter of lowering the risk via vaporization or lower tar varieties, and of course doing truth-based research.

There's the new buzz word--truth-based. What's your anti-neocon, your anti-Bush?