cannabisnews.com: Cannabis More Harmful Than Tobacco





Cannabis More Harmful Than Tobacco
Posted by FoM on March 20, 2000 at 20:33:44 PT
Cannabis linked to Emphysema
Source: BBC
Smoking three cannabis cigarettes a day is as dangerous as having a whole packet of standard cigarettes, say researchers. Regular smokers of cannabis are at increased risk of developing the potentially fatal lung disease emphysema, claim doctors at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. 
There is a public perception that marijuana smoking has little adverse effect on physical health - Dr Martin Johnson.  They investigated the smoking habits of four cannabis, or marijuana, users who had advanced emphysema. Three of the men smoked far less than would usually be associated with the disease, which destroys the surface of the lungs, in standard tobacco smokers. They said their results questioned the common perception that cannabis was less dangerous than tobacco. Deeper Inhalation: The increased risk could be due to extra volume taken in a draw of a cannabis cigarettes, deeper inhalation of the smoke and extra time the breath is held in for. The contents of the smoke, other than the mind-altering compound delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in cannabis and nicotine in tobacco, are very similar. But hand-made marijuana cigarettes, made with rolling tobacco, deliver four times more nicotine because of the lack of a filter. The researchers conducted in-depth case studies of four men aged 27, 35, 44 and 46. One smoked just two cigarettes a day, the second half an ounce of tobacco and the third only smoked cigars. But the researchers found they were all heavy users of marijuana. The 27-year-old had smoked several pipes a day for some years, the two aged 44 and 46 had two to three marijuana cigarettes a day and the 35-year-old had smoked two a week for 20 years. Dr Martin Johnson said in the journal Thorax: "Smoking three to four marijuana cigarettes per day produces a comparable histological effect on the airways to smoking 20 tobacco cigarettes daily. "There is a public perception that marijuana smoking has little adverse effect on physical health, and, given the growing political lobby to legalise marijuana and associated substances in the UK, we hope that our case reports will stimulate further study into their potential lung toxicity." Tuesday, 21 March, 2000, 01:09 GMT Copyright: BBC01 Mar 00 | HealthCannabis Chemicals Tackle Tumourshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_661000/661458.stm01 Mar 00 | HealthCannabis 'Helps MS Sufferers'http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_662000/662254.stm03 Mar 00 | HealthCannabis 'Increases Heart Attack Risk'http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_664000/664296.stm16 Nov 99 | HealthCannabis Trials 'Encouraging'http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_523000/523106.stm17 Mar 00 | HealthMS sufferer Cleared of Cannabis Chargehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_681000/681389.stmUK Cannabis Internet Activists:UKCIAhttp://www.ukcia.org/Internet Links:British Medical Associationhttp://web.bma.org.uk/homepage.nsfThorax Journalhttp://thorax.bmjjournals.com/House of Lords Report on Cannabishttp://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199798/ldselect/ldsctech/151/15101.htm
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Comment #5 posted by Tim Stone on March 21, 2000 at 14:19:11 PT
Four-person study???
As "observer" comments, a "study" involving such a tiny group is meaningless. Ask any researcher about a "study" involving only four subjects and they will laugh their heads off. But if I may suggest, the important question to ask when "studies" like this are floated is:Where are the bodies? Show me the bodies. The basis of much of the anti-cannabis "research" is the idea that cannabis magically appeared on the planet in the 1960s, therefore . only now are we able to start seeing the long-term effects. This This idea is taurine scat. Cannabis has been used by hundreds of millions of people for thousands of years, that we know of. If there were severe long-term effects, it would have been noted a thousand years ago in folk lore and medicine, especially among cultures who smoked cannabis chronically. Indeed, the India-Indians from ancient times had a variety of preparations for ingesting cannabis. One of those preparations I think was called "bhang," although I may be wrong on that point. The idea was to avoid smoking by mixing cannabis in some fatty solution such as milk or butter and consuming that. In any case, studies in the 70s - back when you were permitted to do good science on cannabis - of long-time cannabis-smoking cultures in Costa Rica, Greece and one other place - Jamaica perhaps? - showed no adverse long-term effects in long-term studies Around 1997, the huge HMO, Kaiser-Permanente published a a 12-year-long longitudinal study involving approx. 64,000 patients to examine cannabis mortality, for whatever reason. With the exception of male AIDS patients, the study found no significant increased mortality in the cannabis smokers over the control group in any demographic sub-group. In short, Kaiser-Permanente didn't find any bodies. Until _good science_ using well-designed studies with large subject populations can find some bodies that can be clearly tied to long-term cannabis use, stuff like this BBC article is a steaming, smelly pile of you-know-what. It's designed to reassure the drug war True Believers and reassert the propaganda, not to be legit science. The recent "pot-causes-heart-attacks" study suffers from the same problems. Limited sample, confusion of possible statistical correlation with causality. And no bodies in the millennia-old history of cannabis use to back-up the study.
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Comment #4 posted by Spiderman on March 21, 2000 at 12:42:33 PT:
Response to Freedom
As all of you have formerly stated this is nothing but Naziesque propaganda. In respose though to the question of the intertwining nicotine and THC, most Europeans mix their tobacco and cannabis together and smoke it. This in turn negates the idea of studying only the affects of cannabis on the body as a whole. These "scientists" should learn the meaning of a control subject in an experiment. This all makes me want to move Holland!peace and love
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on March 21, 2000 at 00:27:00 PT
in depth?
This four man "in depth"study,made me think Elliot Fleener was abusing another 'nom de plume. The sad part about this type of ridiculous propaganda,is that it is released in the national/international media,and is swallowed,hook line and sinker,by the blindly trusting masses of readers;...most of whom do not question the veracity of such trash,,instead they feel as if they have learned some new "facts".Most people have a hard time imagining that their hometown newspaper would allow any stories,or articles,that were not "truth".......dddd
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Comment #2 posted by observer on March 20, 2000 at 21:48:40 PT
Due to Tobacco?
BBC: "The researchers conducted in-depth case studies of four men aged 27, 35, 44 and 46. One smoked just two cigarettes a day, the second half an ounce of tobacco and the third only smoked cigars."Freedom: "How do they know the effect they are witnessing is not due to tobacco, which does not have the annealing effects cannabinoids are known to have on the lungs?"Exactly! Only four men in the "in-depth" study. And ALL were tobacco users also. What are they observing? The effects of tobacco? Of cannabis? Of cannabis and tobacco? Of heroin+aluminium smoke from `chasing the dragon' (popularised in the late 80's in the UK's Channel 4 dramatised series "Traffik")? How many cannabis smokers did the good doc overlook before discovering these fellows? 
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Comment #1 posted by Freedom on March 20, 2000 at 21:14:39 PT
I cannot believe this junk.
>They investigated the smoking habits of four cannabis, or marijuana, users who had advanced emphysema.Then, why is tobacco so confusingly intertwined into this story?> But hand-made marijuana cigarettes, made with rolling tobacco, deliver four times more nicotine because of the lack of a filter. Am I the only one who finds this bullshit confusing? Marijuana does not contain nicotene, that I know of.Are they saying the four subjects rolled tobacco plus marijuana into "blunts"? This would serve their purposes, to mix in tobacco use with marijuana, and blame marijuana.> The researchers conducted in-depth case studies of four men aged 27, 35, 44 and 46. One smoked just two cigarettes a day, the second half an ounce of tobacco and the third only smoked cigars. Help. :)How do they know the effect they are witnessing is not due to tobacco, which does not have the annealing effects cannabinoids are known to have on the lungs? This makes little sense to me, and I am shocked to think that this mortality effect has not been noted before MMJ picked up steam in Britain. Funny how the quack mentions the push for MMJ. Odd.>But the researchers found they were all heavy users of marijuana. The 27-year-old had smoked several pipes a day for some years, the two aged 44 and 46 had two to three marijuana cigarettes a day and the 35-year-old had smoked two a week for 20 years. And, it appears three out of four were heavy users of tobacco. Why not gather up a random population of non-smokers, tobacco users, and marijuana-ONLY users, and compare rates of lung disease in a longitudinal fashion. Not cherry pick a sample size so pitifully small, with 75% tobacco users.What a joke. And, these people wonder why they have zero credibility on drug policy.This perversion of truth and science is truly sickening.How many of our institutions will be sacrificed at the Altar of the Drug War?
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