Friday, August 17, 2007

Smoking cannabis damages your lungs

FHX kindly sent me this link to a Guardian article claiming that smoking a joint is much more dangerous to your lungs than smoking cigarettes. Note that this is different from the claim that smoking cannabis causes lung cancer – that is not being asserted here.

The article states:

A single cannabis joint may cause as much damage to the lungs as five chain-smoked cigarettes, research has found. Medical examinations of cannabis and cigarette smokers found the drug increased specific lung problems, including obstructed airways and hyperinflation, a condition where too much air remains in the lungs when a person exhales.

Smoking one cannabis joint caused damage equivalent to smoking 2.5 to five cigarettes in rapid succession, researchers at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand found. Doctors who carried out the study believe the damage is linked to the difference in the way cannabis is usually smoked, with users inhaling hard, holding their breath for longer and failing to use filters.

The report follows a flurry of confessions from ministers who admitted having used the illegal drug and comes days after a review of cannabis research, published in the Lancet medical journal, revealed that cannabis use may be to blame for 800 cases of serious psychosis in Britain.

The scientists set out to investigate whether smoking cannabis put users at greater risk of developing emphysema, a progressive and potentially fatal lung disease.

A group of 339 volunteers aged 18 to 70 were divided into four groups according to whether they smoked only cannabis, only tobacco, both, or were non-smokers. Each volunteer was then subjected to lung function tests and x-ray scans of their chests to assess the level of damage to their lungs and airways.

In the study, published in the journal Thorax, all smokers complained of coughs and wheezing, while only tobacco smokers showed signs of emphysema. Coughing was reduced among people who smoked cannabis and tobacco, possibly because these people smoked pure cannabis joints and so less tobacco leaf.

The extent of lung damage was directly related to the number of joints smoked. "The most important finding was that one joint of cannabis was similar to 2.5 to five tobacco cigarettes in terms of causing airflow obstruction," the authors write. "This pattern is likely to relate to the different characteristics of the cannabis joint and the way in which it is smoked. Cannabis is usually smoked without a filter and to a shorter butt length, and the smoke is a higher temperature," they add.

I made a similar claim o these in an earlier post – indeed the link to that earlier article has vaporised but I believe from memory it was referring to the same NZ study.

In relation to lung cancer issues there are contrary results and even some preliminary findings that cannabis may have a protective effect. The finding is one that I now, given the months I have spent reading about smoking is one I have no doubts about. I can’t imagine anything more damaging to your lungs than holding hot smoke in it for as long a period as possible to maximise the effect of getting stoned.

If you must smoke cannabis (something I do not recommend) eat it in cookies - don’t smoke it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree -- but this shows the problems of not legalizing it. Cookies take more marijuana for a slightly different effect (they are also a nuisance to make). Thus people are unlikely to use cookies. The other possibility, which is also likely to be far less harmful -- vaporized THC -- is almost never used in Australia due to supply problems. This shows that people substitute more harmful behavior for relatively less harmful due to stupid restrictions.

One could make the same argument for smoked versus injected heroin. Almost no-one uses the second of these methods in Australia due to the extra expense, which means every time the price goes down and we get lots of users, we have the joy of seeing used syringes everywhere. We also have to put up with long-term health problems (and their expense on the public system and community) caused due to viruses and so on due to unsafe practices.

If you conservative guys could accept a slightly higher rate of abuse, then all of us that don't care what other people do wouldn't have to put up with this. People could happily vomit on themselves in their own homes, still make it towork, and not steal our stuff to pay for it.

Jacques Chester said...

It should also be pointed out that you can smoke any organic material, you will get lung damage and eventually cancer. You can get cancer smoking tea leaves and grated carrot, if you like.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for at least not referring to me as JWH.

And bob was fantastic Sat night. I hope you were there. Setlist and links to reviews on my blog.

As I’ve said elsewhere I don’t take much convincing that setting any herbal matter on fire and sucking the smoke residue into your lungs isn’t all that healthy. But tobacco has lots of shitty chemicals in it and that’s (perhaps) why it’s the worst.

The cannabis study seems to suggest that it would be a good idea to legalise dope patches (mildly stoned all day) or cookies.

But don’t forget a lot of old hippies were on to this years ago. One word. Bong. Chooffing through an iced water or iced apple juice bong is likely to filter out harmful stuff as well as cool down the smoke. But did these taxeating NZ university tenured types look at what might benefit the average pothead? No.

Why can’t these bloody academic do any useful research. bah

Anonymous said...

runescape money runescape gold runescape money buy runescape gold buy runescape money runescape money runescape gold wow power leveling wow powerleveling Warcraft Power Leveling Warcraft PowerLeveling buy runescape gold buy runescape money runescape itemsrunescape accounts runescape gp dofus kamas buy dofus kamas Guild Wars Gold buy Guild Wars Gold lotro gold buy lotro gold lotro gold buy lotro gold lotro gold buy lotro gold runescape money runescape power leveling runescape money runescape gold dofus kamas cheap runescape money cheap runescape gold Hellgate Palladium Hellgate London Palladium Hellgate money Tabula Rasa gold tabula rasa money Tabula Rasa Credit Tabula Rasa Credits Hellgate gold Hellgate London gold wow power leveling wow powerleveling Warcraft PowerLeveling Warcraft Power Leveling World of Warcraft PowerLeveling World of Warcraft Power Leveling runescape power leveling runescape powerleveling eve isk eve online isk eve isk eve online isk tibia gold Fiesta Silver Fiesta Gold
Age of Conan Gold
buy Age of Conan Gold
aoc gold