One cannabis joint as bad as five cigarettes: study

[Cruzan]

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.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070731/ts_nm/britain_canna...

Edit: Ha, ha, my 420th post.

[asthmaticeog]

1. Blah blah blah, what'd they say about bong hits?

On edit: Cruzan, I find it amusing that this OP was your 420th post.

[Wetzelbill]

3. fate

[MuseRider]

6. Oh crap, lol,

you made me spit! I would also like to know that .

It has to be a divine coincidence on the post number. Just too good.

[jobycom]

19. I'm not functioning this morning. What's the number's significance?

[MuseRider]

25. There are tons of explanations

so I looked it up to see if I was totally correct. Turns out there are a few explanations. Here is the Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_ (cannabis_culture)

I was always told that 4:20 was getting blazed time. It is funny how you can say that to someone and a lot of people around you will not get it.

[jobycom]

29. Thanks. Now I remember an episode of CSI: Miami that referenced that

though I didn't understand the pot connection, since it was also used as Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of Columbine. The episode was about a thwarted school shooting.

How new is this term? I hung out with serious stoners in the early eighties (though I didn't partake), and never heard them use it.

[MuseRider]

30. Old

I think it was from the 70's. It seems that lots of people do not know about it. I have said it out loud before in a group of people and had only one or two smile at me.

I could be wrong. You know what they say about remembering the 60's? Well there is a good part of the 70's that I also do not remember.

[Tsiyu]

33. 420 is also the name of my favorite beer

so I will shamelessly plug it while saying hi to MuseRider and while saying that the "study" in the OP should be "studied."




Walking outside is the equivalent of smoking 2.5 cigs in many cities in the US. Should we ban breathing?

just kidding......not

[MuseRider]

44. Never heard of 420 beer.

It looks like an interesting company. I love the title "beer pimp". I am not much of a connoisseur of beer but I have developed more of a taste for it lately. (The need to escape? Tequila too expensive? Lack of "other" things from time to time?) If ever in the SE I will look for it, I certainly will never forget the name, lol.

I say ban all breathing and ban all criticism. Let's all get together and be like one another, oops wrong thread!

back at ya!

[lazer47]

2. We didn't have all these problems when you could get good

Panama Red, Cambodia Gold

[babylonsister]

4. Yawn. Cannabis BAD, pharmaceuticals GOOD! I have a hard time

believing these 'studies'.

[LeftishBrit]

5. It's been known for some time...

that cigarette for cigarette, smoking marijuana is even worse for the lungs than smoking tobacco.

However, most tobacco smokers smoke far more than five times as many cigarettes as marijuana smokers; so they are still more likely to get lung cancer.

I think that cannabis smoking should be completely decriminalized, but should be banned in enclosed public places, the same as tobacco smoking.

[mainer]

7. If cannabis were a pill, it wouldn't be nearly as harmful

Any sort of smoke in one's lungs isn't good. Whether tobacco, oregano, or wood.

[LeftishBrit]

23. Agree

[Warpy]

8. They've been trying to prove this for years

and studies have never reflected how most pot smokers use the drug. Other studies have disputed the results over and over again, although it's probably not a good idea to suck any concentrated smoke into your lungs.

Personally, I don't know any stoners out there who sit down and smoke a whole joint several times a day. Most joints are partaken of in pleasant company, with a single joint stoning several people. Solitary smokers use a bowl or bong, and one or two hits does the trick for hours.

Tobacco smokers, on the other hand, must replenish nicotine every half hour or so because it's so rapidly metabolized. That's why smokers get themselves up to two packs a day or so as soon as they get addicted to the drug.

The problem with these studies is that they're done by buttoned down types who design them according to the tobacco model.

Likely pot smoking, the way it is done in the real world, is far less dangerous than tobacco. Certainly it doesn't have the serious cardiovascular consequences.

[jobycom]

21. Good response.

Uses evidence and logic. I love when that happens.

[uncle ray]

9. what a bunch of crap

where are the hospitals full of schizophrenic pot smokers who have respiratory problems?

[jobycom]

22. I got one of them at home.

My brother is schizophrenic, and was a regular pot smoker. We watched him decline from an artistic, athletically gifted, good student to a casual pot user whose grades slipped and athletic performance declined, to a heavy pot user who dropped out of high school, moved into a trailer with a group of other people, to finally a nervous breakdown and full-blown paranoid delusional schizophrenia that has made him a medicated invalid for the last thirty years or so. He lives with my parents, and will live with me when they can no longer handle him. He's tried to kill me twice. This was once my hero. Most times he's still a great, thoughtful, funny man, but he can't handle any degree of pressure, including prolonged conversations. The respiratory problems, though, probably have nothing to do with pot--he hasn't smoked pot in thirty years, but he smokes cigarettes constantly.

The nature of the link between pot and scizophrenia is debated, but it statistically exists. Schizophrenia has hereditary elements (glad I was adopted), and the basic theory is that it can remain latent in many people and never be triggered, or it can be triggered by any number of outside forces--stress and drug use, for instance. A high percentage of schizophrenics were regular pot users when the disease triggered. The question is whether marijuana triggered it, or whether people with latent schizophrenia are drawn to marijuana as the disease begins to become active, possibly because of its relaxing affects. Either way, pot seems to make the disease worse, from what I've read about it.

Which means that pot doesn't cause schizophrenia, but in people with latent schizophrenia, it can be a trigger, and in some of these people it's possible that the disease would never have materialized if they had not smoked pot. So that makes it like peanuts to people with sever peanut allergies, I suppose. At least that's the basic working theory, as I understand it. I'm not a medical expert, I've just got a high level of mental illness in my family (again, glad I was adopted).

I've also seen pot set off violent psychotic episodes in people, but that's another story. And it's also far from the normal reaction.

I'm in favor of decriminalization, by the way. Just saying, it has its dangers. I'll never use it, and I've told my kids they better not, at least until they move out. I'm sure my youngest won't listen, but you got to try. But I don't see why others who understand the danger shouldn't be allowed. Or, rather, I don't see why the government has the legal right to tell them they can't, is more like it.

[Tsiyu]

34. Very sad about your brother

Was he involved with other drugs as well?

My cousin became schizophrenic after the death of her father, basically on meth, crank. That stuff messed up her mind in a big way, but she was also someone who drank very heavily along with pot use, cocaine use, anything-anyone-offered-up-to=get-high-with use.

Most of the people I know who prefer pot only - no drink or any other drugs - have turned out okay mentally.

The ones who chugged and chewed and smoked and shot up anything that came their way are the ones who have had real troubles.

And like you say, it's wrong to punish responsible users. We don't take away everyone's car becasue some people are lousy drivers...

Good luck to you and your family.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

10. It's hard to believe that smoking a small amt of an organic substance is worse than smoking chemical

soaked cigarettes.

MKJ

[spoony]

47. I suspect the issue is habitually inhaling lung-fulls of smoke

regardless of what is burning.

[lynnertic]

11. Isn't the effect only temporary though?

And alleviated as soon as the user breathes fresh air? I wheeze because of car exhaust, so it should be outlawed.

Even if someone tried to smoke 40 joints in a day, the other thing the story leaves out is how cannabis just isn't deadly. The effective-to-lethal dose 1:10,000 or 1:40,000 depending upon where you dig for statistics, which means you'd like, die from asphyxiation before you'd die of pot smoke.

[Botany]

12. 30 year old story

smoke is bad for living tissue ... old news.

[porphyrian]

13. And the ignorant will buy it. - n/t

[FormerDittoHead]

14. Wow. Talk about propaganda... Critique of this article...

The problem with the whole debate is the disingenuous of the anti-pot advocates. There ARE dangers with pot, but when you use misleading rethoric to make your point, when you insist upon using exaggeration and argue without relative comparison, your whole argument is subject to question.

That's one reason why people experiment with drugs. When they TRY them, through sheer human curiosity, and find out that the "horrors" aren't true, they reject ALL of the warnings.

OK, now let's talk about this article...

First of all, to get this out of the way, "The dangers of cigarettes", to most people, means CANCER.

Yet this is NOT talking about CANCER. The word "cancer" isn't in the report...

Funny, not once have I ever heard of "the dangers of cigarettes" meaning REDUCED LUNG CAPACITY.

Yes, cannabis has more TAR than cigarettes. It clogs up the lungs / reduces the flow of air.

The effects are temporary - it does not ACCUMULATE in your body like heavy metals, etc.

So, if you're used to running the 20k, yes, your performance will be diminished. It's true. If you have a lung disease, I agree, you shouldn't smoke pot. How about eating brownies? Nothing in this report about that.

OK, let's take the other part of this "objective" report...

"Smoking one cannabis joint is as harmful to a person's lungs as having up to five cigarettes"...

Hmmm... So if I smoke a pack a day (my mom used to smoke FOUR) it would be like smoking FOUR JOINTS EVERY SINGLE DAY. (and that's using their worse case scenario). Do most pot smokers smoke this much? What about cigarette smokers? What percentage smoke a pack a day or more? Is it higher than the percentage of pot smokers who regularly smoke four joints a day?

All of this, also, assumes you're not using a water pipe or other tar reducing device (vaporization) or eating it.

...and....

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

...but if they were stronger strains, you could smoke less (tar) to get the same result? Seems like a good argument for stronger stains!

...and...

Hmm.. How about comparing the effects to booze and cigarettes? Where's THAT comparison?

Does cannabis cause *CANCER*. Nope. Cigarettes do.

Does cannabis lead to VIOLENT behavior. Nope. Alcohol does.

Does the equivalent of getting smashed out drunk every day lead to much greater health complications than smoking 4 joints a day? YES. WITHOUT A DOUBT.

Without HONEST information, we will NEVER meaningfully move forward with maturely dealing with pot.

This article is yet another entry in the "Reefer Madness" book of propaganda...

[jobycom]

27. I agree with your major point, that this article is more PR than science. However

I think some of your points are off by a little. I've lost a dear cousin, and may wind up losing a brother, from emphysema, so to me it is one of the dangers of cigarettes, and one that pops quickly into my mind.

Pot has been linked to cancer, but not very strongly. At least one study has shown that pot use with cigarette use may increase the odds of lung cancer over just cigarette use. The study was done by monitoring people who actually smoke pot, so it aligns with actual habits. By itself, as I understand the research, pot has never been shown to cause any type of cancer. (As I said, minor disagreement).

Also, pot can lead to violent behavior in some people. It is a psychotic trigger, and in some people the effects are unpredictable. I've seen this personally, and I've seen studies to prove it. But this is a rare reaction, and certainly not the normal result of pot use. Unlike alcohol, which frequently brings on violent episodes, as you say.

The rest I agree with, and I thought the same thing you did--this article was more propaganda than reporting of scientific findings. What is left out is more important than what is included, which proves the article's intent was biased. Someone in Britain is launching an anti-pot campaign, it seems, probably in preparation for tougher laws, or maybe just to head off the decriminalization movement.

And I completely agree with your comment that this is dangerous. Once people try pot, or even watch others doing it, and see none of the horrible effects they've been told about, they distrust everything negative they've heard. Further, they distrust the government who told them. All of which undermines the government and its ability to accurately inform us on anything. And it does cause people to underestimate a couple of legitimate concerns with pot use.

Is it really so hard to imagine a mature government which treats us citizens as adults who can make up our own minds?

Good post.

[shadowknows69]

15. Funny thing...These same "facts" were told to me 25 years ago

in middle school. Maybe they just misplaced that study and then found it and decided no one would notice if they called it new. I guess pot hasn't affected my memory that badly eh?

[B Calm]

16. Then we need to make more brownies....

[jobycom]

17. The article doesn't say whether this is permanent or temporary damage.

It says that pot doesn't cause emphysema, but it doesn't describe whether the damage pot does cause is permanent, or whether the effects are short-term, or accumulative, or whatever.

Also, I don't think anyone seriously talking about legalizing marijuana use is advocating that it be allowed in public places, so the comparison to cigarettess being banned in public places doesn't make much sense. I'm seeing a pattern that looks an awfully lot like a PR campaign, using partial findings in scientific studies to create a suspicion against it. Seems like they are trying counter decades of movies and music romancing pot.

I think both sides are dumb. The idiots who scream "Pot is the solution to all the world's problems and it's perfectly harmless" and those who claim it's an absolute evil are equally deluded. It's a narcotic and a pollutant. It alters your mind and infuses alien chemicals into your respiratory system. Obviously it has dangers. It also shows promising medicinal qualities, seems to have safe levels for usage, and is probably no more dangerous than alcohol, or in terms of health, cigarettes. Or even fast food french fires.

Seems like both sides should work from a more sober viewpoint, and maybe we could eliminate an entire class of criminal in the world, freeing up vast law enforcement and penal system resources to fight crimes that are actually harming other people.

And I've never used pot, and wouldn't if it were legal, so this wouldn't personally benefit me. In fact, my brother is an invalid, possibly partially due to pot use. It can bring on psychotic episodes--I've seen it, and once had the bruises to prove it. But I haven't seen evidence that the danger is great enough to justify the continued criminalization against it. I've seen worse from alcohol, and it's legal.

I spoke to someone once who was involved in international dug enforcement, and he said he didn't really think it should be illegal, either. The real reason, he said, that our government would never decriminalize it is because we spent so much effort making other nations believe it was horrible, and forcing them to fight its use. We built treaties and trade agreements around other nations keeping pot out of America, and fighting its use in their own countries. We've sent troops to other countries (Panama and Colombia) over drug trafficing, including marijuana. If we changed our mind, he said, lawmakers fear it would be a tremendous blow to our prestige, and further proof of our ridiculous, fatal fickleness. So instead of dealing with that backlash, we spend billions keeping up a fight we know we have lost, and violating our own citizens' human rights, and ruining the lives of countless people who have been incarcerated, or who are denied the medicinal benefits of pot. All to keep up appearances, since our government doesn't know the full consequences of revesing ourselves. Kind of like the reason we won't leave Iraq, and wouldn't leave Viet Nam.

I just felt like rambling this morning. There will be no test. Feel free to not bother reading this.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

18. only because one is "sucked" into the lungs forcefully, while the other is inhaled softly

If we went around "sucking" cigarettes forcefully into the lungs, it'd be the same story - or WORSE!

[dkofos]

20. More anti pot propaganda

[Warren Stupidity]

24. only those who smoked tobacco suffered from the crippling lung disease emphysema

Odd bit of unexplained reality seeping into the article. No emphysema, no cancer associated with smoking pot. I'm sure that inhaling marijuana smoke is not the best thing that one can do for one's lungs but claiming that one joint is 5x worse than a cigarette when there is no correlation with emphysema or lung cancer, both of which highly correlate with tobacco smoking is

Total Bullshit

[The Vinyl Ripper]

26. LOL....

I've been smoking reefer more or less continuously for very nearly forty years now.

I'm also not in good shape, I spend way too much time in front of the computer.

One of my relatives has a large home swimming pool.

I can swim from one end to the other and back underwater without coming up for air.

My sixteen year old nephew can hardly make one length underwater.

My daughter was a lifeguard about ten years ago and she can't make much more than one length either.

The most dangerous bullshit is transparent and odorless.

[BearSquirrel2]

28. Did they study the affect vs. unfilitered cigarettes ????

It occurs to me that cigarettes are filtered. Joints are not. If cannibis were legal, we would probably have filtered joints coming out of the same machines making cigarettes.

[yella_dawg]

31. What is a cannabis joint?

Is that a tiny pinner or a full-blown Tommy Chong banger? Who the hell takes more than a half-dozen hits? I thought this was a "scientific study". Where's the important data like exposure rates?

Bullshit.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

32. "You could pick your teeth with a New York joint"

-Jim Morrison

I recall there were epidemiological studies done in Jamaica on Rastas and non Rastas from the same area and socioeconomic class.

No significant differences in health were found.

Strange that a Google search turns up *zero* hits..

Out of ten _billion_ web pages..

[Bennyboy]

35. Whaddabout VAPORIZERS?

The only way to puff! Does not burn the herb, it only turns it to vapor.

[maveric]

42. Vaporizers will make you convert to Islam, abort babies and choose homosexuality.

Yeah!! Thats it!

[Madrone]

36. ...reclassified as a more serious drug because of the dangers associated with stronger strains.

WTF? This article was tailor-written for anyone lacking one ounce of common sense.

Stronger strains = less consumption for the same effect = one joint = (let's say) THREE packs of cigarettes.


Lack of ability to see through this crap is exactly how we ended up with a monkey in the White House.

[SOS]

43. "stronger strains"

And whiskey is stronger than beer.
Adjust intake accordingly.

[The Straight Story]

37. Now now, we all know scientists would never lie, just like preachers never do

Have faith in science

Everything is bad for you....

[High Plains]

39. It's usually the reporters who tend to sensationalize this stuff.

The scientists are typically much more careful.

[debbierlus]

38. Cannabis is a health food

And, a miracle drug

And, a solution to the energy crisis

[JVS]

40. oh boy

[gollygee]

41. They'd have to compare a joint to a home-rolled unfiltered cigarette to have a

good comparison.

[lies and propaganda]

45. you have 420 posts!!!!

I find that beyond hysterical!


Maybe cause Im high

[madinmaryland]

46. Using that logic, does anyone smoke 2 packs of joints a day?

A report of dubious value.

[Flabbergasted]

48. How about Vaporizers?