'

The study was a 2nd study. The first study lasted 15 years.....

Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS - Google Book Search


There have been several studies on marijuana and lung function, but the data is conflicting, as can be seen by actually researching the topic.

However, studies have yet to show that marijuana actually increases overall lung cancer mortality. This is probably because many marijuana users also smoke cigarettes, and many marijuana users smoked for a period in their youths then quit. Similarly, marijuana smokers are considered at increased for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, although no documented cases specifically linking marijuana with COPD have been found. Heavy marijuana smokers, who consume three to four marijuana cigarettes daily, experience the same cough, wheezing and sputum production of a pack-a-day smoker.

Finally, marijuana is known to increase the heart rate (e.g., tachycardia). This may worsen underlying heart disease or aggravate existing high blood pressure. One study has shown that the risk of suffering a heart attack increases almost five times in the hour after smoking marijuana. People with existing heart disease are strongly encouraged to avoid marijuana.

Illegal Drugs & the Heart

Cannabis and Cannabinoids ... - Google Book Search

The Institute of Medicine concluded in its Mar. 1999 report titled "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base":

"A number of animal studies have revealed respiratory tract changes and diseases assoicated with marijuana smoking, but others have not. Extensive damage to the smaller airways, which are the major site of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and acute and chronic pneumonia have been observed in various species exposed to different doses of marijuana smoke. In contrast, rats exposed to increasing doses of marijuana smoke for one year did not show any signs of COPD, whereas rats exposed to tobacco did."

Can marijuana help people with asthma or other breathing disorders?

The evidence concerning a possible link between cannabis smoking and COPD has not yet been conclusively established. A number of studies indicate a causal relationship between the two, whereas others contradict these findings[xii]

British Lung Foundation | Lung stats and facts | Cannabis

While one day it may be proven that marijuana smoking can cause COPD, that day is not today.

I don't think we can conclude that, unless we assume up front that public policy is always made in a way that makes sense. It's entirely possible that the goal IS to improve public health, but also that politicians in Holland are as stupid as the ones we have here. Also, remember that when crafting legislation, competing interests are always weighed against each other and compromised; Holland has been a haven of sensible libertarian drug policy for many years now and to retreat from that even in a way that actually makes sense would be difficult and provoke opposition.

Norrin: if marijuana is less harmful to marijuana smokers than tobacco is to tobacco smokers, the reason is not that the smoke itself is less harmful but simply that far less of it is smoked. No pot smoker inhales 40 joints a day. Not even my ex-wife ever came near that. Use a little common sense; you cannot inhale particulates without risking lung damage. It doesn't matter whether it's tobacco smoke, pot smoke, smog, or wood smoke.

When we are talking about second-hand smoke rather than primary, how much of the stuff people smoke becomes irrelevant. If it's in the air and you're not smoking it yourself, you're going to be affected equally whether that's the only joint the smoker will smoke in that day, or one of 40 cigarettes. It will make a difference to the smoker himself, but not to you.

While I agree that no pot smokers smoke 40 joints a day, I do know some very heavy users and have known many heavy users throughout my life.

If marijauna is as dangerous to the lungs as some people want us to believe, it should be rather easy to prove through medical studies.

So, why the conflicting data?

I do not claim that marijuana has no effect on the lungs.

It is common sense that inhaling smoke into the lungs on a daily basis probably isn't good for a person, but most of what we were told about marijuana in the past was all lies, so it is important to be careful when looking at the REAL health effects from marijuana.

Here is a recent study which seems to be pretty decent........

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (HealthDay) -- A single joint of marijuana obstructs the flow of air as much as smoking up to five tobacco cigarettes, but long-term pot use does not increase the risk of developing emphysema, new research suggests.

The study by New Zealand's Medical Research Institute found that longtime pot smokers can develop symptoms of asthma and bronchitis, along with obstruction of the large airways and excessive lung inflation. The paper was released Tuesday ahead of its publication in the journal Thorax.

"The study shows that one cannabis joint causes a similar degree of lung damage as between 2.5 and five tobacco cigarettes," said lead author Sarah Aldington.

However, the researchers found that the progressive chronic lung disease emphysema, often associated with cigarette smoking, was uncommon among marijuana smokers. Only 1.3 percent of the long-term pot smokers were found to have signs of the disease compared to 16.3 percent of those who combined marijuana and tobacco, and 18.9 percent of those who only smoked tobacco.

Marijuana smokers had symptoms that included wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and phlegm — all of which were associated with tobacco smokers, except chest tightness.

The study, which used lung function tests, high-resolution X-rays and questionnaires, also revealed that among marijuana smokers damage occurred to the small, fine airways which are important for taking in oxygen and removing waste gases. The extent of damage rose in proportion to the number of joints smoked.

So, according to this study long time pot smokers can acquire the same symptoms as bronchitis and asthma.

Well, this makes sense and I would say it is likely true.

So, how does the danger from marijuana compare to the dangers of legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol?

Obviously, there is no comparison and marijuana is far safer on health than tobacco and is safer than heavy use of alcohol.

For years we were told marijuana increases the risk of lung cancer, but now it is coming out that there is NO INCREASED RISK OF LUNG CANCER FROM SMOKING POT.

In fact, researchers are now learning that marijuana can help shrink certain types of tumors.

So, why did the government bury their study from 1974?

Why did the government make it very difficult to do marijuana research?

Why does the government only send poor grade marijuana to researchers for their research?

US CA: Medical Marijuana Researchers Bummed About Poor

Lone Patient Quits Marijuana Study

Health Canada may charge more for poor medical cannabis | NORML's Daily Audio Stash

Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the government's marijuana is of such poor quality - too many seeds and stems - and partly because the federal officials are so loath to give it out for research into its medical benefits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/27/op...27tierney.html

So, why does the government refuse to allow quality pot to be used in studies? Why do the insist on giving out poor quality marijuana?

On Wednesday they made their case at a press conference on the sidewalk outside the headquarters of D.E.A., which still hasn’t followed the recommendation of its own administrative law judge in a medical-marijuana case. In February, as I noted, the judge concluded “that there is currently an inadequate supply of marijuana available for research purposes”

Marc Kaufman of the Post quotes a researcher who joined Dr. Craker on the sidewalk:

“The D.E.A. has an opportunity here to live up to its rhetoric, which has been that marijuana advocates should work on conducting research rather than filing lawsuits,” said Richard Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which has fought for years for access to government-controlled supplies to test possible medical uses of marijuana.

“It’s become more and more obvious that the D.E.A. has been obstructing potentially beneficial medical research, and now is the time for them to change,” he said.

Researchers hope to do more experiments with vaporizers, but they’re stymied by the limited supply of marijuana available from the only legal source, a federal farm in Mississippi. They’re also frustrated by what they say is the poor quality of that product. They say that a new supply of better marijuana from Dr. Craker would be a boon to research.


Marijuana Researchers Make Progress in the Lab, But Not in Washington - TierneyLab - Science - New York Times Blog

SO, WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT AFRAID OF?

OH YEAH, THEY ARE AFRAID THAT PEOPLE WILL LEARN WHAT THE GOVERNMENT LEARNED BACK IN 1974........

In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out -- unsuccessfully -- to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74 | AlterNet

Oh, I agree with this! The drug war is a true fountain of hype and deceit. Still, it's also important not to overreact; one can make an equal and opposite error. Drugs, legal or illegal, are never good for you and can potentially be dangerous, depending on the substance.

For myself, I never use pot any more, not because I think I'm going to keel over dead or become a heroin addict (or grow tits, or any of the other weird shit that's been peddled), but because I'm a writer and marijuana torpedoes my verbal abilities. The high just isn't worth that.

That's pretty much what I would expect. Marijuana isn't addictive while tobacco is. If you smoked as much pot as a 2-pack-a-day nicotine junky smokes cigs, your lungs would look like moth-eaten cloth, but nobody does.

But as I said, if you're talking about second-hand smoke, the "single joint" effect is more important than the long-term. Also, there are effects from the drug itself that are more noticeable from secondhand pot smoke.

I'm a firm believer in declaring victory in the war on drugs and going home; I think trying to ban drugs of any kind is counterproductive and stupid. But just the same, I can see some value in sensible regulations, which would include such things as the current ban on driving while intoxicated, and restraints on public consumption. I think that Holland is being silly not to include pot in its ban on public smoking.

I can't speak to the particulars of Holland's politics, I suppose. And, I won't dispute that bans on cigarette smoking are supported by a lot of people because of public health concerns, whether their information is sound or the result of "ends justify the means" public lobbies aside. My point here is that bans on cigarettes, in many places, seemed to be fueled more by the recent trendiness of assigning a social stigma to smoking. I believe that this takes precedence over substantive discussions of public health versus rights in general.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

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I know 3 people who smoke pot all day long. None of them smoke joints, since the paper used to roll a joint can be more dangerous than the actual pot(my opinion)

Since I know 3 people out of a few thousand people that I know, there must be others who smoke large amounts of pot on a daily basis.

If the health effects of pot are half as bad as we are told, then these 3 people I know and others should have serious lung problems.

If you check this data, it will show that there is a small number of people who are very heavy users.

House of Lords - Section 3 - Consumption patterns of regular cannabis users
The top credible consumption was 400g or approximately 1/2oz per day, by a grower who had produced 208 plants in his most recent crop. At 3%-15% THC, this could represent between 400mg and 2000mg THC per day. He reported "memory loss" as a health problem and did not report any health benefits! There was a small cluster of 19 respondents in the range 200-250g (approx. 2oz per week), representing THC intakes of between 200mg and 1250mg per day. This contrasts with the maximum reported cannabis use in the literature of 10g/day (McBride) in the UK, and 50g per day (Schaeffer et al) in the Caribbean (estimated at 4000mg THC/day based on determined 8% THC content).

Now, what we need is a study of the health effects from heavy marijuana smokers who do not smoke tobacco, as well as comparisons on the method used to smoke the marijuana.

Here is a piece from New Scientist.......

Regular marijuana use can harm memory and the ability to make decisions, according to Jean Cadet at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, Maryland, US. To find out why, he monitored the flow of blood through the brains of 54 marijuana smokers, among whom the heaviest user smoked 50 joints every day.

50 joints a day? Wow. Why anyone would smoke that much is beyond me, but these heavy users need to be studied. IMO.

Marijuana makes blood rush to the head - health - 07 February 2005 - New Scientist

There are other studies which show that very heavy marijuana users do exist. It is time to study the effects of marijuana smoking and the lungs for these heavy users.

As to 2nd hand smoke, I have never looked for studies on 2nd hand smoke for marijuana.

Do you have any good info to share on this? If yes, I would be happy to look at it.

Rats are not a good model for particle inhalation toxicity studies; their nasal passages filter out *much* more than ours do. I'm guessing that this is an older study; not many ACAUC boards would approve it these days for that reason.

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I didn't know that. Thanks for that tidbit.

As I said, I have done zero research on second hand smoke from marijuana, which is why I asked if anyone had some good info on the subject TO SHARE IT HERE.