Mark - Why do so many people who smoke weed have huge lung capacities and participate in physically demanding sports. Lets not forget the SCORES of professional atheletes who are pot heads (and coke heads too..). This is not a provable cause and effect, but the anecdotal evidence is there.
BA - I read over some of those articles and am more inclined to think that smoking marijuana can contribute to lung cancer. However, I'm far from convinced. I still haven't seen any cases of lung cancer in marijuana only smokers..only pre-cancerous changes in their lungs. (I have no ideas about sample selection and/or other factors in these studies. These are important things to know when assesing the validity of their outcomes.)
anyways...here are some highlights from the google pages that BA posted
Here is one from
onlinepot.org
POT DOESN'T CAUSE LUNG CANCER, RESEARCHER SAYS
Also Doesn't Seem To Cause Emphysema Or Birth Defects, Senate Hearing Told
OTTAWA ( CP ) - Smoking marijuana does not seem to cause lung cancer, emphysema or cause birth anomalies in fetuses, a prominent U.S. researcher told a Senate committee Monday.
John P. Morgan of City University of New York Medical School said heavy marijuana smokers do show some symptoms of lung damage, such as coughing, frequent colds and bronchitis, but not the life-threatening conditions seen among tobacco smokers.
''We are some 30 to 40 years into this marijuana epidemic and still have not seen evidence of pulmonary cancer in marijuana smokers.''
From
thesite.org
"However one recent health scare associated with cannabis use has very sobering connotations, its alleged link to lung cancer. There is still a wide-scale debate raging in the medical community over whether there is any link between lung cancer and smoking cannabis. No overwhelming proof of this link has been discovered and a general conclusion has yet to be reached.
The main problem lies the fact that most people who smoke cannabis do so in conjunction with tobacco, which is known to be carcinogenic. Cannabis smokers also hold the smoke in their lungs for much longer to obtain the maximum hit from the smoke, which could put them at greater risk to any pollutants in the smoke."
Remember the "one coughs out marijuana tar more quickly than ciggaret tar theory" on this on. However, I would agree that this suggests that marijuana might contribute to lung cancer.
sarnia.com
Benzopyrene - Lung cancer causing carcinogen
more prevalent in marijuana than in tobacco
A breakthrough report published in the journal Science, October 18, 1996, provides the first true molecular evidence conclusively linking components in tobacco smoking to lung cancer. A chemical found in tobacco smoking, benzopyrene, causes genetic damage in lung cells that is identical to the damage observed in the DNA of most malignant tumors of the lungs.
Although scientists have been convinced in the past that smoking causes lung cancer, the strong statistical associations did not provide absolute proof. This paper absolutely pinpoints that mutations in lung cancer cells are caused by benzopyrene.
An average marijuana cigarette contains 30 nanograms of this carcinogen, compared to 21 nanograms in an average tobacco cigarette. (Marijuana and Health, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine report, 1982.)
This potent carcinogen suppresses a gene that controls growth of cells. When this gene is damaged, the body becomes more susceptible to cancer. This gene, P53, is related to half of all human cancers and as many as 70% of lung cancers.
Clearly marijuana smoke contains more of the potent carcinogen benzopyrene than tobacco smoke. Furthermore, the technique of smoking marijuana by inhaling deeply and holding the smoke within the lungs presents a chance of much greater exposure than a conventional
tobacco cigarette.
this one from
umm.edu is definately more alarming, but doesn't show that marijuana is causing the change.
Other Contributors. Toxic particles leading to precancerous changes in the lung are also found in marijuana. In one study, 53.8% of cigarette smokers, 66.7% of marijuana smokers, and all of those subjects who smoked both substances showed evidence of precancerous changes in the lungs.
peace
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
