Cannabis smoke 'has more toxins'

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fruitfly

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Inhaled cannabis smoke has more harmful toxins than tobacco, scientists have discovered.

The Canadian government research found 20 times as much ammonia, a chemical linked to cancer, New Scientist said.

The Health Canada team also found five times as much hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides, which are linked to heart and lung damage respectively.

But tobacco smoke contained more of a toxin linked to infertility. Experts said users must be aware of the risks.

About a quarter of the population in the UK smokes tobacco products, while a sixth of 15 to 34-year-olds have tried cannabis in the past year, making it the most commonly used drug.

Previous research has shown cannabis smoke is more harmful to lungs than tobacco as it is inhaled more deeply and held in the lungs for a longer period.

However, it has also been acknowledged that the average tobacco user smokes more than a cannabis user.

Researchers from Health Canada, the government's health research department, used a smoking machine to analyse the composition of the inhaled smoke for nearly 20 harmful chemicals.

They also looked at the sidestream smoke, given off from the burning tip of the product and responsible for 85% of the smoked inhaled through passive smoking.

Concentrations

In most cases, the comparison on sidestream smoke broadly mirrored that of inhaled smoke.

However, in the case of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the toxin linked to infertility, the researchers found concentrations were actually higher in cigarette smoke.

The study also showed little difference in the concentrations of a range of chemicals, including chromium, nickel, arsenic and selenium.

Lead researcher David Moir said: "The consumption of marijuana through smoking remains a reality and among the young seems to be increasing.

"The confirmation of the presence of known carcinogens and other chemical is important information for public health."

Dr Richard Russell, a specialist at the Windsor Chest Clinic, said: "The health impact of cannabis is often over-looked amid the legal debate.

"Evidence shows it is multiplied when it is cannabis compared to tobacco.

"Tobacco from manufacturers has been enhanced and cleaned whereas cannabis is relatively unprocessed and therefore is a much dirtier product.

"These findings do not surprise me. The toxins from cannabis smoke cause lung inflammation, lung damage and cancer."

Stephen Spiro, of the British Lung Foundation, added the findings were "a great worry".
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Cannabis smoke 'has more toxins'
BBC News
December 19, 2007

Link
 
prepare for a lot of people digging as deep as they can to try and prove this article wrong and some all out blatant denial
 
Im glad to hear this personally having quit pot 5 years ago. Its the shitest drug there is =D
 
The first comment after the reason article lol...

"the troll in edward's brain | December 19, 2007, 12:26pm | #
hydrogen cyanide can be produced by zyklon B.

zyklon B was used by the Nazis to kill Jews

Ron Paul wants to legalize marijuana usage

marijuana smoke has 5X as much hydrogen cyanide as tobacco smoke

therefore, Ron Paul is an anti-semitic, pothead Nazi"
 
gumby11 said:
Im glad to hear this personally having quit pot 5 years ago. Its the shitest drug there is =D
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C'mon now. Most experienced drug users will probably not tell you that pot is the best drug out there in the modern pharmacological stable; but I think most people would be hard-pressed to say it's the shittiest. What about datura and all that kinda shite? Surely there are worse drugs out there than a little mary jane.
 
...so don't smoke it and bake some brownies instead?

Too bad you can't do that with tobacco, because it seems to cause cancer no matter how you use it.
 
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oneconstantnote said:
prepare for a lot of people digging as deep as they can to try and prove this article wrong and some all out blatant denial
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theres not really much denial present when you have a read at the FULL report without the biased titled slapped on there.. the Reason article states pefectly:

The marijuana smoke had 20 times as much ammonia and five times as much hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides, possibly due to higher levels of nitrate fertilizer traces in the marijuana. Then again, only the tobacco smoke contained the potent carcinogens known as tobacco-specific nitrosamines, and it had "moderately higher levels" of potentially hazardous compounds such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Guess which comparison was emphasized in the press coverage.
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now you tell me what is worse off for your lungs.. now granted if you wanna live healthy- abstaining from burning any plant matter is the best choice.. but i for sure as hell would rather inhale 20x as much more ammonia than inhaling a known higher concentrations of potent carcinogens that are only tobacco specific.. not to mention i'm inhaling this amount of ammonia once or twice an experience.. not stick after stick, throughout the day like someone would with a pack of cigarettes

it's just plainly obvious that BBC and others yet again failed to accurately represent quality findings that concluded the burning of either plants will result in health issues.. yet all the titles of these news "findings" directly attack cannabis as the "loser" of this scientific finding 8)
 
^^^^^^^^^^ so true.

what about vaporizing it? I guarantee you vaporized marijuana is significantly less damaging to the body than vaporized tobacco..

But nuke's point still remains to be completely true. Why not eat cannabis instead? Where's the damage associated with oral consumption? I believe there are articles claiming when cannabis is ingested orally it can reduce the chance of alzheimer's disease and branches cannabinoid neurons in the brain, which is a good thing.
 
oh and in my opinion, cannabis was meant to be orally consumed. Maybe thats why its up to 75% more potent to eat cannabis than smoking it?
 
solax said:
oh and in my opinion, cannabis was meant to be orally consumed. Maybe thats why its up to 75% more potent to eat cannabis than smoking it?
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^exactly

i also find it funny that the amount of ammonia present in marijuana smoke has nothing to do with the marijuana itself.. it all comes back to how much nitrate and ammonia was present in the fertilizer from the start.. which can easily be fixed and played around with to present differentiating amounts of ammonia in one cannabis plant to the next..

yet, tobacco smoke with ALWAYS contain known carcinogenic compounds no matter what the condition of its growing soil was

some excerpts from the full report stating this:
The amount of ammonia produced during combustion of tobacco has been related to the amount of nitrate fertilizer applied during growth (30). The simplest explanation for the very high levels of ammonia found in marijuana smoke may be that the marijuana used for this study contained more nitrate than the tobacco sample. The marijuana plants were grown on soil-less growth medium. All fertilizers were commercially available and consisted of water-soluble hydroponic vegetable fertilizers used for horticulture and contained nitrogen in the form of both nitrate and ammoniacal nitrogen. However, it is not known to what extent the differences in the growing conditions between the marijuana and the tobacco, including the types of fertilizers used, influenced the levels of nitrates in the plants.
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brainslookfunny said:
Is that why I have to eat like 2-3x as much weed as I would smoke to get high?
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no, you've got it backwards my friend.. it should be 'that's why you have to eat 2-3x less weed as you would if you were smoking it'.. then again it all comes down to being a good cook or not;)
 
Huh, who woulda thunk it? But then, I couldn't possibly care less. I'll go right on smoking my weed. No matter how you spin it, it is far healthier than tobacco.
 
Tobacco from manufacturers has been enhanced and cleaned whereas cannabis is relatively unprocessed and therefore is a much dirtier product.
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Does the logic seem a bit strange here or is it just me? I hope they aren't advocating here...

I think its possible that weed has more toxins, maybe not for the reasons they think. IAmJack pointed it out, pot smokers even heavy chronic users don't smoke as much as someone who smokes cigs. Try smoking 25 joints in a day. Lol.

But I mean...you're smoking something either way. Its going to be bad for you.
There isn't Vitamin C in there. Who knew?
 
Can someone once and for all confirm if anyone anywhere has proven that someone has died from smoking marijuana... i.e lung cancer directly attributed to MJ smoking, or anything else?

As much as any smoking is bad for you, I am still yet to meet anyone who has ever had a serious PHYSICAL complication from smoking pot, and yet scientists are quoted as saying that smoking pot causes cancer regularly.

The last report I read, was saying that they have proven that THC has anti-cancer qualities, and that even though more tar is produced when smoking pot, the THC prevents cancerous growths in your lungs. Leaving bronchitis and other respiratory problems as the wrost case scenario to some extent.

Anyone with solid info?
 
Okay I can accept that pot is worse then cig's since you hold it in so long. What I REFUSE to accept is that cigarettes are "cleaner" then pot. I mean cmon, they put fucking RAT POISON in cigarettes. There are over 4,000 checmicals in a cigarette and there are how many cannaboids...something like 390 isn't it?
 
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