Drugs Good News for Pot Smokers
posted by on May 5 at 9:19 AM
Remember that report released by researchers in New Zealand who claimed smoking a joint a day was just as cancerous as smoking a daily pack of cigarettes? A scientist at the UCLA, Dr. Donald Tashkin, who conducted a more comprehensive study in the U.S., says the New Zealand study is bogus. From Counterpunch:
Tashkin said the New Zealanders employed “statistical sleight of hand.” He deemed it “completely implausible that smokers of only 365 joints of marijuana have a risk for developing lung cancer similar to that of smokers of 7,000 tobacco cigarettes… Their small sample size led to vastly inflated estimates…”“For tobacco they found what you’d expect: a higher risk for lung cancer and a clear dose-response relationship. A 24-fold increase in the people who smoked the most… What about marijuana? If they smoked a small or moderate amount there was no increased risk, in fact slightly less than one. But if they were in the upper third of the group, then their risk was six-fold… A rather surprising finding, and one has to be cautious about interpreting the results because of the very small number of cases (14) and controls (4).”
Tashkin and colleagues at UCLA conducted a major study [600 lung-cancer patients and 1,040 controls] in which they measured lung function of various cohorts over eight years and found that tobacco-only smokers had an accelerated rate of decline, but marijuana smokers -even if they smoked tobacco as well- experienced the same rate of decline as non-smokers. “The more tobacco smoked, the greater the rate of decline,” said Tashkin. “In contrast, no matter how much marijuana was smoked, the rate of decline was similar to normal.” Tashkin concluded that his and other studies “do not support the concept that regular smoking of marijuana leads to COPD [Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease].”
Of course, smoking anything is bad for your lungs. If you’re going to get high, use a vaporizer, bake brownies, or buy the best pot you can afford and smoke less of it.
cancer be damned...quality weed is it's own reward.
Cancer risk, probably not much. Schizophrenia risk, yes, studies show there is a link. Having lost a sister to this illness (suicide), I would like to hear more warnings on the risk of pot smoking causing psychosis.
I remember something like that from my DARE class back in the day. It said something like smoking a joint had the same harmful chemicals as a bowl full of filtered cigarettes.
Is there any science behind this myth?
I'm a regular marijuana smoker and I also smoke a cigarette very infrequently. I find that when I smoke a cigarette, which I do about once every six months because I'm stupid, my lungs feel fucked up for two days. Marijuana seems to have no adverse effects, at the least when I smoke a small amount of high quality stuff. Of course this doesn't speak to cancer risk, but I think it provides circumstantial evidence that cigarette smoke is much worse than a small amount of marijuana smoke.
Actually, the ability to make THC patches has been around for quite a while now. But, of course, we'll never see it happen, because that would require the government to admit that it's a legitimate drug.
It's a shame we can't return to the high quality government hemp days.
;-)
lame keyboard skillz.
...and the US government has never produced anything close to high-quality marijuana.
So what were you saying?
NOW you tell me? i just quit!
sorry, I'm having trouble with this keyboard and weird things are happening.
Will, what are you talking about? You weren't yet born when the US stopped encouraging hemp manufacture, and no US agency has ever produced anything resembling high-quality pot. So what are you saying exactly? What is it a shame we can't return to?
Somebody should do a study to see if using a bong or vaporizer reduces your chances of getting lung cancer from marijuana. I volunteer to be a test subject.
@9 Dunno, Will In Seattle could have been born then
" buy the best pot you can afford and smoke less of it."
sound advice. same(general concept) goes for food, sex, travel and clothing.
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