anabolic frolic

Pot doesn't cause cancer, study finds
May 26, 2006. 01:00 AM
MARC KAUFMAN
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

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, adding that marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which 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 neighbourhood.

They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lit up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.

The Washington Post

anabolic frolic

It's kind of funny, I can clearly being told in high school health class about how smoking 1 joint was like smoking 100 cigarettes on your body.

they probably still teach the same thing today.

No Typical Raver

i've been told that about cigars but never pot. haha i remember one of the health teachers saying "Look. if you're going to do drugs AT LEAST smoke weed. just stay away from everything, but marijuana really isnt all that bad"

-they never say to each other "let's smoke a marijuana cigarette". they say "let's turn on" or "let's blast a joint"

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Remman4

very interesting...

the arbitrary number I heard in school (not college pharmacology) but good ole highschool "health" class

1 joint = 66 cigarettes, I guess a round number like 100 wouldn't be believable?

farkin misinformation...

kylefabulous

im glad to see objective studies like this coming to light!!!

neverlandgurl

i was told the same thing Chris. thank god for "health"!

__________________
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kylefabulous

im smoking now...
so here here to not getting lung cancer ...


*coughs*

Kamehameha

i heard smoking anything causes cancer.
So just to be on the safeside.. vaporize it!

__________________
If this won't make your booty move, your booty must be dead!

Berzerk

The most 'cancerous' factor of cigarettes is not the tar.... it's actually RADIATION that is the main culprit... read the article below from Erowdid... it is VERY interesting...

http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannab...s_health2.shtml

So, you thought it was the tar that caused cancer...

Think again. Cigarette companies will have you believing
anything just as long as you continue to buy their products. The
fact is, although insoluble tars are a contributing factor to the
lung cancer danger present in today's cigarettes, the real danger
is radioactivity. According to U.S. Surgeon General C. Everette
Koop (on national television, 1990) radioactivity, not tar,
accounts for at least 90% of all smoking related lung cancer.

Tobacco crops grown in the United States are fertilized by law
with phosphates rich in radium 226. In addition, many soils have
a natural radium 226 content. Radium 226 breaks down into two long
lived 'daughter' elements -- lead 210 and polonium 210. These
radioactive particles become airborne, and attach themselves to the
fine hairs on tobacco leaves.

Studies have shown that lead 210 and polonium 210 deposits
accumulate in the bodies of people exposed to cigarette smoke.
Data collected in the late 1970's shows that smokers have three
times as much of these elements in their lower lungs as non
smokers. Smokers also show a greater accumulation of lead 210 and
polonium 210 in their skeletons,though no studies have been
conducted to link these deposits with bone cancer. Polonium 210 is
the only component of cigarette smoke which has produced tumors by
itself in inhalation experiments with animals.

When a smoker inhales tobacco smoke, the lungs react by
forming irritated areas in the bronchi. All smoke produces this
effect. However, although these irritated spots are referred to as
'pre-cancerous' lesions, they are a perfectly natural defense
system and usually go away with no adverse effects. Insoluble tars
in tobacco smoke can slow this healing process by adhering to
lesions and causing additional irritation. In addition, tobacco
smoke causes the bronchi to constrict for long periods of time,
which obstructs the lung's ability to clear itself of these
residues.

Polonium 210 and lead 210 in tobacco smoke show a tendency to
accumulate at lesions in specific spots, called bifurcations, in
the bronchi. When smoking is continued for an extended period of
time, deposits of radioactivity turn into radioactive 'hot spots'
and remain at bifurcations for years. Polonium 210 emits highly
localized alpha radiation which has been shown to cause cancer.
Since the polonium 210 has a half life of 21.5 years (Due to the
presence of lead 210), it can put an ex-smoker at risk for years
after he or she quits. Experiments measuring the level of polonium
210 in victims of lung cancer found that the level of 'hot spot'
activity was virtually the same in smokers and ex-smokers even though
the ex-smokers had quit five years prior to death.

Over half of the radioactive materials emitted by a burning
cigarette are released into the air, where they can be inhaled by
non-smokers. In addition to lead 210 and polonium 210 it has been
proven that tobacco smoke can cause airborne radioactive particles
to collect in the lungs of both smokers and non-smokers exposed to
second hand smoke. Original studies conducted on uranium miners
which showed an increased risk of lung cancer due to exposure to
radon in smokers have been re-run to evaluate the radioactive lung
cancer risk from indoor air radon. It turns out that tobacco smoke
works as a kind of 'magnet' for airborne radioactive particles,
causing them to deposit in your lungs instead of on furniture.
(Smoking indoors increases lung cancer risks greatly.)

It has been estimated that the total accumulated alpha
radiation exposure of a pack-a-day indoor smoker is 38 to 97 rad by
age 60. (Two packs a day yields up to 143 rad, and non-smokers
receive no more than 17 rad.) An exposure of 1 rad per year yields
a 1% risk of lung cancer (at the lowest estimate.)

Don't smoke. Or if you do, smoke lightly, outdoors, and
engage frequently in activities which will clear your lungs.
Imported India tobacco has less than half the radiation content of
that grown in the U.S.

Kicking the nicotine habit is not easy, and nobody has the
right to expect it of you. Often physical addictions are
reinforced by emotional and psychological needs. Filling or coming
to terms with those needs can give you the inspiration and added
freedom to succeed.

Most of all, inform yourself, even if the information is
disturbing. You are a lot less likely to be taken in by tobacco
advertising once you know the facts.

Nicotine, the active ingredient in tobacco smoke, has long
been known to be highly addictive. In fact, doctors and
pharmacologists are not in consensus as to which is more addictive
-- nicotine, or heroin. Physical addiction occurs when a chemical
becomes essential for the body or metabolism to function. In other
words, a substance is said to be physically addictive if extended
use results in a build up of tolerance in the body to the extent
that discontinuing use of the substance results in negative side
effects. Called "withdrawal symptoms," these consequences can
include anxiety, stress, trauma, depression and physical conditions
such as shakes or nausea. It is to avoid these consequences that
an addict will keep using his or her substance.

In addition to being addictive, nicotine is also a toxin (i.e.
lethal if ingested in sufficient quantities.) Nicotine has been
shown to have a negative effect on the heart and circulatory
systems, causing a constriction in veins and arteries which may
lead to a stroke or heart attack. In fact, nicotine is so
poisonous that smokers who ignore their doctor's advice and
continue to smoke while using dermal nicotine patches have managed
to overdose and die of heart seizure.

Many people think smoking marijuana is just as harmful as
smoking tobacco, but this is not true. Those who hold that
marijuana is equivalent to tobacco are misinformed. Due to the
efforts of various federal agencies to discourage use of
marijuana in the 1970's the government, in a fit of "reefer
madness," conducted several biased studies designed to return
results that would equate marijuana smoking with tobacco smoking,
or worse.

For example the Berkeley carcinogenic tar studies of the
late 1970's concluded that "marijuana is one-and-a-half times as
carcinogenic as tobacco." This finding was based solely on the
tar content of cannabis leaves compared to that of tobacco, and
did not take radioactivity into consideration. (Cannabis tars do
not contain radioactive materials.) In addition, it was not
considered that:

1) Most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of
the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco.

2) Marijuana smokers do not smoke anywhere near as much as
tobacco smokers, due to the psychoactive effects of cannabis.

3) Not one case of lung cancer has ever been successfully
linked to marijuana use.

4) Cannabis, unlike tobacco, does not cause any narrowing of
the small air passageways in the lungs.

In fact, marijuana has been shown to be an expectorant and
actually dilates the air channels it comes in contact with. This
is why many asthma sufferers look to marijuana to provide relief.
Doctors have postulated that marijuana may, in this respect, be
more effective than all of the prescription drugs on the market.

Studies even show that due to marijuana's ability to clear
the lungs of smog, pollutants, and cigarette smoke, it may
actually reduce your risk of emphysema, bronchitis, and lung
cancer. Smokers of cannabis have been shown to outlive non-
smokers in some areas by up to two years. Medium to heavy
tobacco smokers will live seven to ten years longer if they also
smoke marijuana.

Cannabis is also radically different from tobacco in that it
does not contain nicotine and is not addictive. The psychoactive
ingredient in marijuana, THC, has been accused of causing brain
and genetic damage, but these studies have all been disproven.
In fact, the DEA's own Administrative Law Judge Francis Young has
declared that "marijuana in its natural form is far safer than
many foods we commonly consume."

The disturbing thing about all of this information is that
the majority of Americans are as yet unaware of the radioactive
risk in cigarettes. In fact, many professionals: doctors,
scientists and health administrators, either have never heard of
polonium 210 or consider it to be just another scare story.

Why is this information so hard to come by? When the
studies were first released in the late 70's, many magazines were
unable to print articles because their main advertisers,
cigarette companies, threatened to pull support if they published
the facts. Although network news did pick up the story,
virtually nothing came out in print. Those who heard were hard
pressed to produce collaborating evidence, and were eventually
convinced it was nothing to worry about.

The power of the cigarette industry to suppress information
goes far beyond magazines, however. A well financed tobacco
lobby has been very active in the United States Congress for
decades procuring subsidies and fighting laws and proposed
research which could hurt the American tobacco industry. Tobacco
interests practically own Senate and House seats, as many
campaign contributions come from cigarette profits. Tobacco pay-
offs also go to fund organizations such as the Partnership For A
Drug Free America, which adopt a harsh anti-drug agenda yet seem
to omit alcohol and tobacco (claiming they are harmless.)

As an example, a 1984 law which was intended to require
tobacco companies to release to the public a list of additives
used in the manufacture of cigarettes was watered down to the
extent that the list is now released only to the Department of
Health and Human Services on the condition that it not be shown
to anyone else. Companies have been known in the past to add
chemicals to cigarettes for flavor, and, many assert, for their
addictive properties. In Britain such chemicals have included
acetone and turpentine, as well as an assortment of known
carcinogens.

Tobacco companies argue that revealing their 'secret
ingredients' would hurt their competitiveness. In fact, when
Canada passed legislation forcing additive lists to be released,
one large company reformulated its recipe for its Canadian
distribution; another took its product out of Canada entirely.

Tobacco companies do not have the right to poison the
public. Don't trust them. Get the information you need to make
your own decisions, and restore government to the people.

Another destructive aspect of the Drug War is the
unreasonable measures taken as a result of "reefer madness."
Because of the long standing anti-pot-smoking paranoia begun in
the 1930's, many law enforcement agencies have taken it upon
themselves to censor and limit the marijuana culture through
whatever channels they can find. This includes the banning of
various forms of drug "paraphernalia" (pipes, clips, rolling
papers, etc.)

Water pipes, or "bongs," are quite often the target of such
efforts. Claiming that water pipes are constructed to allow
marijuana smokers to inhale "dangerous" marijuana smoke deeper
into their lungs, many states and towns have passed laws
controlling the sale, manufacture, and possession of these items
for "health" reasons.

The sad fact is, water pipes have been shown to be extremely
effective in removing harmful materials from smoke before it
reaches the lungs. They also cool the smoke and prevent injury
and irritation to lung passages. In effect, laws against water
pipes hurt all smokers, cannabis and tobacco, by preventing the
development of safer forms of consumption.

__________________
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Cheddarcore Myspace - Http://www.myspace.com/cheddarcore

heatheraloo

You know... I am so effin glad that this study has taken place. With this very information-- plus more FACTS about marijuana, will no doubt kick off the decriminilization efforts already underway by so many great orgainzations. This is absolutely wonderful news and that bong hit I take when I get outta school after being at work all day--- will be so much nicer knowing.. for a FACT that I'm not some loser stoner bum slowly but surely killing myself with every puff I take.

puff puff pass biotches!

__________________
*~*CaFfEiNe KiLlS*~*

PLUR makes my privates tingle

Glyce

^^ Agreed homie. WOOT WOOT!

__________________
Take a look and see, the light still shines in me, In my eyes!

astralkid

Smoking alone is generally harmful.

Berzerk

That's why ya gotta vaporize!

No combustion = win.

heatheraloo

agreed.

=)

Glyce

Yeah, if I had the dough to drop on one

astralkid

^Ya lol

Glyce

Actually, my friend ended up making all his bongs compatible with his vaporizer, and he got his for really cheap. But there are reasons for that.

Kamehameha

i paided like $70 for my vaporizer on ebay

Glyce

god. I always forget ebay. I haven't had the chance to use it yet. But I can get other kyds to use it for teh moi. So it's okay.

Berzerk

When I used to smoke... all I used was a variable heat gun... set it to 395 degrees (the temp in which THC vaporizes)

Hold it over a tightly packed bowl (so it doesnt fly out) and then turn it on.... then your in flavor country!

Or you can find a 'bell bowl' that is designed to house the tip of the heat gun... lots of places make them to fit your bongs stem diameter... even glass-on-glass fittings.

You need a variable gun tho... or find one with a setting that is close to 395 degrees as possible.. or your stuff will combust/catch on fire.

Here is a variable one for $50

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Stei...sspagenameZWDVW

The vapor is SOOOOOOOOOO much tastier than combusted smoke w/ butane from a lighter.

Remman4

I thought the vaporization point was 190 degrees?

AznAstronaut

395 degrees Fahrenheit = 200 degrees Celsius... I assume this is where the discrepancy in temperature arose.

Weaver

so you don't get lung cancer, but if fucks up your memory and kills brain cells.

__________________
The cake is a lie.

heatheraloo

I heard sneezing makes you lose brain cells. Probably not a good idea to hold them in though.

And like alcohol isnt worse for you.. give me a break... give me a break.. break me off a piece of that non-sense bar!