Cannabis smokers risk severe damage to lungs

[aerius]

'Some people'? I've never seen a blunt where any of the filler tobacco was kept. It was always all weed, all the time with blunts in my tribe.

Could be a regional thing. Up here most people use a weed & tobacco mix, maybe it's because we have lots of high-potency hydro going around and a 100% weed fill would be a bit too much in a blunt.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

'Some people'? I've never seen a blunt where any of the filler tobacco was kept. It was always all weed, all the time with blunts in my tribe.

Could be a regional thing. Up here most people use a weed & tobacco mix, maybe it's because we have lots of high-potency hydro going around and a 100% weed fill would be a bit too much in a blunt.

Never stopped us. if the blunt's too strong, we merely smoke it by halves or thirds to a session. No reason to burn a whole charge when a fractional will get the job done.

[Eris]

At least a firefighter has a reasonable expectation of being provided masks (and in a great many cases positive-pressure oxygen) to minimize the smoke inhalation risk. Smokers do it on purpose!

I've always wondered why people take up tobacco smoking, do they feel they don't have enough cancer in their lives? At least with pot there's psychotropic effects. While I'm personally not a user and am very unlikely to become one, I at least can see what might motivate such a decision. Legal considerations aside, marijiuana is just a more rational way of corrupting your lung tissue.

Besides, nicotine scares me. My microbiology lab project way back when was testing its effects on culture growth and man is it toxic.

See my arguments for legalization and supply issues above.

You'll get no large disagreement from me. Although I'm nominally training as a researcher primarily, a lot of what I do touches on Environmental and Occupational Health and policy. Drug War Heresies and related titles have left me downright horrified at how stunning fucked up our system is at present.

I've said it before and I will again. The Republican party is supposed to be the free market party, so why then do they ignore the basic economics of the drug trade and just try to stamp it out? They'll just drive prices up. It makes no bloody sense.

Hear hear, just minus the codeine. I stay the fuck away from pills; my mom died from the damn things.

But OTC codeine is a fantastic thing! To be fair, I'd do it in the British way. So the pills are under 13 mg and split with ibuprofen or something similar. They're fantastic for back pain and other similar ailments, and help control inflammation as well. I probably should have flagged that all my primary interest is in the public health sides of things, coming from the background I do. Pill addiction I'll agree is a nasty thing, but I wasn't thinking of it as a recreational drug.

[Tribun]

Einhander, what the HELL is your problem?! You react as if I had just insulted your personal beliefs, and threw profanity against me. And to make it clear: I didn't even SEE your points at 7:21, because I was writing my message at that time. So please stop turning this into some sort of personal vendetta.

I won't deny it, smoking is deadly as well, even more so since it is accepted in society (why, the devil knows) and its easy to get the stuff, and the healthcare costs are eating up a lot (thank all goodness that at least smoking has been reduced much in society in the last 50 years).

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

At least a firefighter has a reasonable expectation of being provided masks (and in a great many cases positive-pressure oxygen) to minimize the smoke inhalation risk. Smokers do it on purpose!

I've always wondered why people take up tobacco smoking, do they feel they don't have enough cancer in their lives? At least with pot there's psychotropic effects. While I'm personally not a user and am very unlikely to become one, I at least can see what might motivate such a decision. Legal considerations aside, marijiuana is just a more rational way of corrupting your lung tissue.

Besides, nicotine scares me. My microbiology lab project way back when was testing its effects on culture growth and man is it toxic.

It scares me too. Tobacco is also radioactive as well, something cannabis smoke isn't.

See my arguments for legalization and supply issues above.

You'll get no large disagreement from me. Although I'm nominally training as a researcher primarily, a lot of what I do touches on Environmental and Occupational Health and policy. Drug War Heresies and related titles have left me downright horrified at how stunning fucked up our system is at present.

I've said it before and I will again. The Republican party is supposed to be the free market party, so why then do they ignore the basic economics of the drug trade and just try to stamp it out? They'll just drive prices up. It makes no bloody sense.

Republicans this day and age aren't about free markets. They're about corporate welfare if you kick back some of the profits back to the Party, while competitors who dont, as well as the People, get screwed with all kinds of bullshit restrictions on their freedoms punishable with prison time or fines, all designed to profit the prison industry while destroying the judicial system under a morass of stupid bullshit that in a fair world would get at most a slap on the wrist even if the State cared to take interest in it. Most of the shit the Repubs prosecute is harmless crap that only authoritarians and fundies care about, and if they can't prosecute you in a court of law, they CONVICT you in the court of public opinion by lying about you in the MSM!

Hear hear, just minus the codeine. I stay the fuck away from pills; my mom died from the damn things.

But OTC codeine is a fantastic thing! To be fair, I'd do it in the British way. So the pills are under 13 mg and split with ibuprofen or something similar. They're fantastic for back pain and other similar ailments, and help control inflammation as well. I probably should have flagged that all my primary interest is in the public health sides of things, coming from the background I do. Pill addiction I'll agree is a nasty thing, but I wasn't thinking of it as a recreational drug.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, then.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Einhander, what the HELL is your problem?! You react as if I had just insulted your personal beliefs, and threw profanity against me. And to make it clear: I didn't even SEE your points at 7:21, because I was writing my message at that time. So please stop turning this into some sort of personal vendetta.

You kneejerked, threw strawmen (which I cut down even without recognizing as such they were that easy to refute), and didn't pay attention at ALL to the other posts in the thread. In short you shot from the hip due to blind emotion (again!:roll:), missed wildly, and therefore insulted all of the participants of this thread with your pointless appeal-to-emotion bullshittery.

BTW, Concession Accepted for not even attempting anything so much as a point-by-point rebuttal, much less bring any actual evidence to the table beyond your blithering 'Woe is Me' defense.

I won't deny it, smoking is deadly as well, even more so since it is accepted in society (why, the devil knows) and its easy to get the stuff, and the healthcare costs are eating up a lot (thank all goodness that at least smoking has been reduced much in society in the last 50 years).

No shit sherlock it's deadly. This is an attempt at pointing out the barn door was left open after we've all seen the horses stampeding out. FAIL!

[Eris]

I won't deny it, smoking is deadly as well, even more so since it is accepted in society (why, the devil knows) and its easy to get the stuff, and the healthcare costs are eating up a lot (thank all goodness that at least smoking has been reduced much in society in the last 50 years).

While you are right that smoking is deadly, you are mistaken about your follow up. It's correct that in the developed world we've seen a fairly sharp reduction in tobacco consumption, particularly in wealthy areas like the US and parts of Europe. However, according the WHO smoking in general is on the rise, and as of '02 roughly one third of the male population of the world smokes, along with a fifth of teens from 13-15. Further the smoking rate's increasing at 3.4%, so the problem's actually getting worse, just not for us. China's headed for disaster along with many other developing nations, though. It's going to be really ugly in future.

Republicans this day and age aren't about free markets. They're about corporate welfare if you kick back some of the profits back to the Party, while competitors who dont, as well as the People, get screwed with all kinds of bullshit restrictions on their freedoms punishable with prison time or fines

Well, yes, that's what it's really about, but I still find the contrast between that and their rhetoric to be ironic and galling in equal measure. Part of this is just that the US political parties are too monolithic to really cover any sane coherent ground. The Republicans have economic conservatives, social conservatives, religious conservatives, libertarians, and more all in one big stew that makes no sense; and the Democrats are just as bad.

What we need, dammit, is a parliament with a true multi-party system. They tend to better represent their countries interests better and have less corruption anyhow.

(A)ll designed to profit the prison industry while destroying the judicial system under a morass of stupid bullshit that in a fair world would get at most a slap on the wrist even if the State cared to take interest in it.

That, actually, has to be one of the scariest aspects of our current legal system, bar none, all the more so since no one seems to realise it. Our prisons are (mostly) private, for-profit organisations. What. The. Fuck. Can't people realise that if we make having people in jail profitable, we'll have a larger and more expensive prison system? Christ but it's retarded. That not even touching what we put people there for, and what the conditions are.

Most of the shit the Repubs prosecute is harmless crap that only authoritarians and fundies care about, and if they can't prosecute you in a court of law, they CONVICT you in the court of public opinion by lying about you in the MSM!

There was a French media figure, a newspaperman or something similar, back in the '90s that was asked to comment on the Monica Lewinsky affair and subsequent uproar. he observed that the French would be surprised if their politicians didn't have affairs and basically blew off the whole thing as pretty stupid.

Sadly America is still very much has its centre of gravity around the old Puritan values: people so uptight and fucked up the British kicked them out.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, then.

As much my fault as yours. I was switching between recreational and medical drugs without warning under the notion that since I could follow my train of thought, everyone else could too. (Yeah, right.) I'll try to be more clear in future.

[Eris]

Ghetto edit: Where I said the smoking rate's increasing by 3.4% that should be per annum, obviously. And I probably should get more up to date figures, but I can't imagine there would be a dramatic shift in only a few years.

And while I'm pointing out my mistakes, I should add that I really should have said that smoking frequently causes fatal maladies rather than is fatal. I fail at typing fast.

[wolveraptor]

In other breaking news, being a professional fire fighter also increases risk of lung disease.

I mean really, you're breathing in burning shit; why are we supposed to be surprised when you destroy your lungs?

Why the fuck are so many people so stupid? The point is not that it destroys your longs, moron. The point is the comparison to tobacco users. Christ.

[Tribun]

I won't deny it, smoking is deadly as well, even more so since it is accepted in society (why, the devil knows) and its easy to get the stuff, and the healthcare costs are eating up a lot (thank all goodness that at least smoking has been reduced much in society in the last 50 years).

While you are right that smoking is deadly, you are mistaken about your follow up. It's correct that in the developed world we've seen a fairly sharp reduction in tobacco consumption, particularly in wealthy areas like the US and parts of Europe. However, according the WHO smoking in general is on the rise, and as of '02 roughly one third of the male population of the world smokes, along with a fifth of teens from 13-15. Further the smoking rate's increasing at 3.4%, so the problem's actually getting worse, just not for us. China's headed for disaster along with many other developing nations, though. It's going to be really ugly in future.

Ah, I forgot to specify it. I wrote that because I thought of the percentage of the male population smoking in Germany, which had been at 90% in the 1950's, which and had been reduced to roughly 26% by today. I guessed the numbers are roughly in the same trend in other western nations as well, through I could be wrong in some cases.

But yeah, I have read about that problem. That the problem is especially bad in China, as you wrote, where the percentage of people smoking is really high under the male population (again almost 90%), with the female popultion smoker rate raising every year (don't know exact numbers, but it's somewhere in the 30's already), makes it really fucked up. That this will cause massive health and health care problems shouldn't be a surprise.

[Eris]

In other breaking news, being a professional fire fighter also increases risk of lung disease.

I mean really, you're breathing in burning shit; why are we supposed to be surprised when you destroy your lungs?

Why the fuck are so many people so stupid? The point is not that it destroys your longs, moron. The point is the comparison to tobacco users. Christ.

Ahh, so you're arguing that it is not in fact a statement of the obvious, but instead simply a bad analogy? Since if we take it your way we can easily then pick apart the example. To begin with, cannabis is generally not filtered, while tobacco smoke is. Right off the bat and we can see that the two sorts of smoke can't be compared evenly.

To say that a heavy pot smoker is more likely to get a lung disease than a heavy tobacco smoker is not in itself a very interesting fact. The purpose of these studies are generally to find out either what sociological and technical influences there are on usage and consequently on health, or to find out how damaging the agent is (pot smoke in this case) in absolute terms. This study did neither, and instead simply threw out examples of extreme cases and then implied that it was somehow a good case study. In this it failed to be good science.

Of course, perhaps it's just the article being skewed. That is known to happen, and I don't have access to the actual study report, so I can't fully say. But my intuition is that this is mostly media scaremongering. It's giving us the extreme heavy smoker cases, ignoring all the sociological data about rates of use and methods of consumption. It's like saying that smoking ten unfiltered cigars a day will cause more damage than a pack of filtered cigarettes a day. Well no shit. What did you expect?

[General Zod]

I've always wondered why people take up tobacco smoking, do they feel they don't have enough cancer in their lives? At least with pot there's psychotropic effects. While I'm personally not a user and am very unlikely to become one, I at least can see what might motivate such a decision. Legal considerations aside, marijiuana is just a more rational way of corrupting your lung tissue.

Marijuana also works as a mild painkiller as well, given the THC has some analgesic properties. Which makes it a rather nice alternative to traditional painkillers.

[Starglider]

and the healthcare costs are eating up a lot (thank all goodness that at least smoking has been reduced much in society in the last 50 years).

My country puts extortionate taxes on cigarettes that more than cover the health care costs. If your country does not, that's your own (collective) stupid fault - though Leena tells me that cigarette taxes in Germany are quite substantial. Since Germany doesn't have a national health service, insurers can and do put up health insurance premiums for smoking, so the smokers should be paying for their own stupidity there. I see no reason to take away an adult's right to kill themselves in whatever way they find pleasurable, as long as they are not tricked into it and do it on the their own time and money.

[wolveraptor]

Ahh, so you're arguing that it is not in fact a statement of the obvious, but instead simply a bad analogy? Since if we take it your way we can easily then pick apart the example. To begin with, cannabis is generally not filtered, while tobacco smoke is. Right off the bat and we can see that the two sorts of smoke can't be compared evenly.

That doesn't force us to throw out any comparison of both drugs, since we're not comparing the smoke in and of itself, but the drug's effect on users. Throwing out this comparison for that reason would be akin to refusing to compare two different cars because one has 4-wheel drive and the other doesn't.

To say that a heavy pot smoker is more likely to get a lung disease than a heavy tobacco smoker is not in itself a very interesting fact.

Many people I've argued with continually assert the opposite. It's useful information for me, if no one else. And I highly doubt no one who has read this thread has ever come across someone who asserts that marijuana is less harmful than tobacco.

The purpose of these studies are generally to find out either what sociological and technical influences there are on usage and consequently on health, or to find out how damaging the agent is (pot smoke in this case) in absolute terms. This study did neither, and instead simply threw out examples of extreme cases and then implied that it was somehow a good case study. In this it failed to be good science.

Uh, this wasn't actually a study. It's an isolated case of a single patient suffering from lung diseases that are normally connoted with older tobacco users. This does mean that a correlation between MJ use and higher rates of disease isn't proven, but it is suggested.

Of course, perhaps it's just the article being skewed. That is known to happen, and I don't have access to the actual study report, so I can't fully say. But my intuition is that this is mostly media scaremongering. It's giving us the extreme heavy smoker cases, ignoring all the sociological data about rates of use and methods of consumption.

Again, this isn't a study, and it never claimed to be. It's unfair to attribute this to media scare-mongering when the article admits that it's about an abnormal case.

It's like saying that smoking ten unfiltered cigars a day will cause more damage than a pack of filtered cigarettes a day. Well no shit. What did you expect?

Backpedal much? That's not at all what you put in your original post. All you said then was "wow breathing smoke is bad that's not surprising lol". If you had addressed the obviousness of the comparison rather than a mundane, tangential fact, you wouldn't have sounded like an idiot.

[Tribun]

and the healthcare costs are eating up a lot (thank all goodness that at least smoking has been reduced much in society in the last 50 years).

My country puts extortionate taxes on cigarettes that more than cover the health care costs. If your country does not, that's your own (collective) stupid fault - though Leena tells me that cigarette taxes in Germany are quite substantial. Since Germany doesn't have a national health service, insurers can and do put up health insurance premiums for smoking, so the smokers should be paying for their own stupidity there. I see no reason to take away an adult's right to kill themselves in whatever way they find pleasurable, as long as they are not tricked into it and do it on the their own time and money.

They actually have raised the tabacco taxes many times in the last years. A box of cigaretts (18 in a box) went up from under 3€ to 5€. And as far as I know, they plan the next raise in the near future. Gueass they want to use taxes to stop people from smoking by hitting them where it hurts the most: their wallets.

[Aaron]

Marijuana also works as a mild painkiller as well, given the THC has some analgesic properties. Which makes it a rather nice alternative to traditional painkillers.

You can get it in pill form as a synthetic in Canada for pain, I believe it's called Marinol. You can also get a medicinal pot prescription but from the stand point of a consistant dosage I think your better off with the pill.

[Illuminatus Primus]

A blunt is generally rolled with the entire contents of a nickel bag, aka an Eighth, which is 3.5g. A joint is usually a quarter to a tenth the size. Blunts also use tobacco-based wraps instead of rolling papers.

There is no objectivity here. No one I know uses a full eighth oz in a blunt. More like half that at best. People typically use smaller cigars or cigarrillos to roll them with higher quality weed in lower quantity, which are much smaller than a full-sized cigar.

[Mrs Kendall]

Marijuana also works as a mild painkiller as well, given the THC has some analgesic properties. Which makes it a rather nice alternative to traditional painkillers.

You can get it in pill form as a synthetic in Canada for pain, I believe it's called Marinol. You can also get a medicinal pot prescription but from the stand point of a consistant dosage I think your better off with the pill.

Judging by what our friend who takes it medicinally told me it doesn't do anything for the pain, synthetic or smokeable, it just makes you not care about the pain anymore.

[General Zod]

Marijuana also works as a mild painkiller as well, given the THC has some analgesic properties. Which makes it a rather nice alternative to traditional painkillers.

You can get it in pill form as a synthetic in Canada for pain, I believe it's called Marinol. You can also get a medicinal pot prescription but from the stand point of a consistant dosage I think your better off with the pill.

Judging by what our friend who takes it medicinally told me it doesn't do anything for the pain, synthetic or smokeable, it just makes you not care about the pain anymore.

That seems a bit subjective though, given some people are bound to handle it differently depending on their body chemistry.

[Mrs Kendall]

Sure, I'm just saying that's what hes told me as I was thinking about it for my own pain.

But as for myself, I have done pot in my past and no it did nothing for pain for me either, in fact it made the pain worse. (I've always had back pain as far back as I can remember) That was more than 8 years ago though and I haven't tried it recently for pain.

[Broomstick]

So smoking Canabis will destroy your lungs?
Big surprise.

No really, why is it that things that are known for decades already are considered news nowadays? Reminder for people with a great short-term memory?

The part that's supposed to be surprise is that she has a disease commonly associated with much older tobacco users. Perhaps indicating that cannabis is more likely than tobacco to result in this disease.

Cigarettes have filters. Home rolled joints don't. That alone could make a difference in how fast disease develops.

[Dark Hellion]

She was also smoking 4 to 5 times what a normal marijuana user smokes. Think of someone who smokes 3-5 packs of cigarettes a day for a comparison.

[Broomstick]

Don't have to imagine it. My mom has smoked 2-3 packs a day for... oh, about 60 years now. Blllleeeeeeccchhhhhh!

[Darth Wong]

Marijuana apologists are annoying as hell. They continuously act as though marijuana is about as dangerous as water. Sure, maybe it's obvious to an intelligent person that regular inhalation of unfiltered combustion byproducts is fucking stupid and bad for your health, but the average person is an idiot. He reads a marijuana apologist website that basically says it's hypocrisy to ban marijuana but not tobacco and interprets this as "marijuana is a perfectly healthy product that the evil government is banning or regulating for no reason".

I'm against the War on Drugs because it is not working, not because I actually think it's OK for people to use drugs.

[Broomstick]

I'm against the War on Drugs because it is not working, not because I actually think it's OK for people to use drugs.

As the young'uns say these days - "Word"