Reply #8: On the cancer thing.

[evlbstrd]

Probably not true:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; A03



The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking
marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin
of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who
has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between
marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more
positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no
association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used
Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is
dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is
potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less
concern than previously thought.

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing
chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said.
However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may
kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's
National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles
who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people
without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.