Hashishi

One cannabis joint as bad as five cigarettes: study
7-31-'07 | Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Smoking one cannabis joint is as harmful to a person's lungs as having up to five cigarettes, according to research published on Tuesday.

Those who smoked cannabis damaged both the lungs' small fine airways, used for transporting oxygen, and the large airways, which blocked air flow, the researchers said.

It meant cannabis smokers complained of wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness, the study by experts at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand found.

The researchers tested 339 people -- those who smoked only cannabis, those who smoked tobacco, those who smoked both and non-smokers.

The study found only those who smoked tobacco suffered from the crippling lung disease emphysema, but cannabis use stopped the lungs working properly.

"The extent of this damage was directly related to the number of joints smoked, with higher consumption linked to greater incapacity," said the authors of the report published in the medical journal Thorax.

"The effect on the lungs of each joint was equivalent to smoking between 2.5 and five cigarettes in one go."

The British government is considering whether cannabis should be reclassified as a more serious drug because of the dangers associated with stronger strains.

"The danger cannabis poses to respiratory health is consistently being overlooked," said Helena Shovelton, Chief Executive of the British Lung Foundation.

"Smoking a joint is more harmful to the lungs than smoking a cigarette and we have just banned people from doing that in public places because of the health risks."

Last week British researchers said using marijuana increased the risk of developing a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia.

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Buzzby

Even if true, the danger of lung problems is not a reason for marijuana to be illegal. If, as it says in the study, marijuana doesn't cause emphysema, and, as we know, it doesn't cause lung cancer, what's left? A smoker's cough. Big fuckin' deal! Perhaps tobacco, which causes the same "damage" and much worse, should be illegal...

If the lung damage thing is true, then higher potency weed would lead to less lung damage because people would smoke less to get the same high.

Could that be because it's not significant? I'm not too worried. First of all, I rarely smoke. Mostly I vaporize. Second, it takes me two months to go through an amount of weed equal to the amount of tobacco in one pack of cigarettes.

Also, don't the British and most Europeans roll their joints with tobacco?

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Mr. Dollar

It's really comparing apples to oranges.

Cigarettes are regulated in terms of cultivation, strength of the tobacco, and mass. A joint on the other hand can be fat or skinny, potent kind or shwag, and are most often unfiltered.

I would like to see their control. Is their control joint 2.5-5x bigger than a cigarette? And a person with a pack a day habit is ingesting more smoke than someone who smokes a couple joints in a day.
To say smoking a joint is worse for you than a cigarette is misleading since those who smoke cigs are more likely to have a habit of a pack a day as opposed to someone who may smoke a joint or two a day/week.

All this study really proves is that inhaling smoke, of any kind, is not healthy for your lungs. Wow, it took a whole research grant to figure that one out.

Tokamak

Equivalent in what way? In amount of tar? Carcinogens? Carbon monoxide? The fact is, cigarettes are loaded with chemical additives to "smooth" the harshness of the smoke and aid in nicotine uptake. Furthermore, nicotine itself impedes the suicide of damaged cells, thereby causing cancer. Marijuana contains neither nicotine, nor additional chemical additives. THC and other cannabinoids are anti-inflammatory and have been shown to actually protect against cancer.

This info in this article is meaningless, serving only to frighten, not inform.

Peace.

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leetyak

What the heck? I cannot explain the anger I felt when I saw this on my homepage, fuck intimidating case studies they just impede the progress on it being rescheduled.

dedbr

Great big "For Sure" for Tokamak on this one. This article is so lame, it wasn't even worth reading........


Some Where In Ded Land........

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xxdr_zombiexx

God these people are desperate and stupid.

They crafted this crap to deal with the fact that tobacco smokers smoke 20 to 40 times more plant material than pot smokers do.

I deal with this in Pot is not like tobacco. Please make a note of it. Thanks.

Quick and dirty -

Let 1 cigarette = 1 gram (I think it's more but I hate fractions)

Pot smokers don't smoke 20 to 40 grams a day. Not the vast majority of them anyway.

@ 2 packs a day, the typical addict level of cigarette use, thats 40 cigs a day X 7 day = 280 grams per week or 10 ounces.

I can smoke maybe 12 ounces a year, maybe more if I had money, probably a lot less if it's good weed.


These people are just stupid.

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Torture Good, Healthcare Bad, Marijuana Evil.

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

Hashishi

Agreed.

Sure, information regarding how damaging to the lungs smoking marijuana is is of value - but why make the cigarette comparison? It's apples and oranges and, as many have stated, borders on scare tactics.

Lit_Match

If one joint is equivalent to 2.5 to 5 cigarettes...

That would be anywhere from 750 to 1,500 cigarettes a month, or 37.5-75 packs a month during the last 24 years. Aside from his potentially fatal condition, he is healthy.

Also, as Buzzby put it, smoking is not the only way to use cannabis and with more potent strains there is inherently less smoking involved.

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xxdr_zombiexx

The shit the guy on the program smokes is that terrible crap that the US government grows in Mississippi, I believe.

If and when some researcher CAN jump through all the hoops to do some sort of test on pot, this is the ONLY crap they are allowed to use.

Some people have simply stopped participating in studies because it's so harsh.

I posted a story on that several years ago when I was doing the news here that reported a study had to be abandoned the smokers were so unhappy with the herb.

So if he's smoking this dirtweed and not showing any damage similar to the damage tobacco is known to cause, it's likely that the herb is les detrimental than pot, ESPECIALLY proper, good herb.

Too bad we don't have media access.