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Mary Jane Smoke

SpanoonapS

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i havent researched this yet so i wanted to see what you guys thought... how does cannabis smoke NOT effect your lungs? smoke = absence of air. So how does it not cause severe damage? is it because it dissipates quickly or what? any ideas?
 
I'm quite sure that marijuana smoke takes longer to dissipate than other forms of smoke (ie meth and heroin smoke) that can cause much more damage to your lungs.

There is still plenty of tar in marijuana, and if you're smoking hydro weed then it is very harsh and filled with nutrients.

Personally I think that it isn't very harmful because of the people that grow it, there isn't any process other than vegging, blooming, curing, and smoking. Compared to cigs that go through all sorts of processes before they're pre rolled, packaged and sold world wide.

To be honest though, I have never taken the time to look into this on a scientific level, although I think I'm gonna take some time to when I get back to California.
 
Any smoke affects the lungs. Lungs + smoke = not healthy. Who ever told you smoking weed doesn't damage your lungs lied.

It's not that it doesn't damage your lungs, it doesn't damage your lungs nearly as much:

Marijuana Is Safer than Tobacco - Medical Post

Dr. Donald Tashkin, UCLA Medical Center

L'ESTEREL, Quebec -- Heavy marijuana smokers show less evidence of lung injury than heavy tobacco smokers, and it may be cannabinoids that are protecting them from developing a condition like emphysema.

That's according to the principal investigator of a study done at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Speaking at the third annual meeting of the International Cannabis Research Society here, Dr. Donald Tashkin, a pulmonologist and UCLA professor of medicine, concluded heavy marijuana use did not cause the same degree of lung injury as tobacco smoke. "My own feeling is that marijuana smokers probably will not develop emphysema as a consequence of smoking marijuana," he said, but cautioned that does not rule
out the development of other conditions like respiratory carcinoma. "It may be that the THC(delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) in marijuana could have
different effects on inflammatory cells, which may mediate injury in the lung."

His study, which aimed to measure the pulmonary effects of habitual marijuana use, followed nine tobacco smokers, 10 marijuana smokers, 10 nonsmokers and four smokers of both marijuana and tobacco. He gave both quantitative and qualitative explanations for his finding. Marijuana users
in the study smoked three or four joints daily for 15 years on average, while tobacco smokers in the study smoked 25 cigarettes daily over a period of 20 years, indicating a marked difference in exposure to smoke. "There is
a seven-fold difference in the amount of smoke to which marijuana and tobacco smokers are exposed," he said. "It's the quantitative difference in smoke exposure that might explain the difference in the degree of lung injury as assessed by these physiologic indices."

Moreover, the phagocytes gathered from the lungs of marijuana smokers do not have the same properties
as those gathered from the lungs of tobacco smokers. "We have previously shown that the macrophages that are harvested from the rinse-out of the lungs of marijuana smokers seem not to be activated," he said. "They do not
release toxic oxygen species, either under basal conditions or under stimulated conditions nearly to the extent that tobacco macrophages do. If anything, basal secretion of superoxide seems to be reduced in the marijuana smokers." Dr. Tashkin measured the clearance of the molecule diethylene
triamine penta-acetate (DTPA) from the lung, believed to be a more sensitive indicator of lung injury than measuring the lung's diffusing capacity. If DTPA clearance is accelerated, then it implies an increase in the leakiness of the alveolar epithelial membrane, which implies injury to the membrane,
he said. Dr. Tashkin noted DTPA clearance is accelerated in tobacco smoke-related lung injury.

Initially, the chronic effects of marijuana smoke were
measured in comparison to those of tobacco smoke: DTPA clearance was measured at about 12 hours after the last marijuana or tobacco cigarette smoked. To determine the acute effects of marijuana and tobacco smoking, Dr. Tashkin restudied these smokers a week or two later, giving them a single joint of marijuana or a single tobacco cigarette or both, and then measuring DTPA clearance 15 minutes subsequently. "What we found was the clearance of DTPA was abnormally rapid from the lung in the tobacco smokers," he said." It was about twice the rate of non-smokers. In the marijuana smokers, there was a tendency toward a much less rapid rate of clearance. There was no acute effect in either tobacco or marijuana, and there was no added effect
of marijuana or tobacco." As with the lungs to tobacco smokers, when the lungs of marijuana smokers are "washed out", a marked increase in the number of alveolar macrophages is witnessed.

But whereas tobacco smoke has a concomitant effect of activating the macrophages, leading to the subsequent
release of certain toxic substances, marijuana smoke fails to activate the macrophages, Dr. Tashkin said. He noted this difference could be attributed to differential regulation of cytokins. "It may be that the macrophages from marijuana smokers release certain suppressive cytokins, like transforming growth factor- beta, which is known to suppress the inflammatory activity of nearly all of the site populations," he said. "That's our hypothesis, which we are currently exploring."

Short Term Effects "In studies of acute effects of smoked marijuana, not only have no detrimental effects on lung function been observed but, in fact, potentially desirable airway dialation has been a constant finding suggesting that
marijuana might have a therapeutic potential in the treatment of bronchial asthma."

"The therapeutic utility of marijuana has been investigated in stable asthmatics. In such individuals, smoking of marijuana containing 10 mg delta-9 THC has a potent bronchodialator effect and even promptly reverses asthmatic attacks that are experimentally provoked in the laboratory."

Long Term Effects
"To evaluate further the possibility that chronic marijuana use may lead to respiratory functional abnormalities, Tashkin et al. (1980) compared the results of a battery of lung function tests administered to 74 young habitual marijuana smokers, and a group of closely matched non-marijuana smoking subjects....[Tashkin goes on to describe the control group in
further detail.] Comparing the marijuana smokers with their controls, no difference in routine tests of lung function, including tests considered

There are carcinogens in marijuana smoke, most likely the same ones in smoked tobacco, related to burning vegetation... but the cancers are absent.

3 main problems with comparing cannabis to tobacco:

1. Tobacco smoke is known to be carcinogenic, aided and abetted by nicotine. Specifically, nicotine appears to encourage the growth of neoplasms.

2. Cannabis has shown repeatedly that it slows and discourages the growth of neoplasms While there are tars and other nasty things in cannabis smoke (stuff ya make fuels and plastics with….) the cannabinoids and THC appear to work to discourage cancer development.[See more @ Web-MD]

3. Tobacco-smokers – generally – smoke 10 to 20 times more tobacco than pot smokers smoke pot. Especially with the “strong pot” we are now supposed to fear.

"Pot is not like tobacco"

http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/pot-is-not-like-tobacco/
 
why havent the mods merged this? also theres numerous new threads that have already been..









anyways- vapes the way to go if you wanna toke smokeless.
better all-round buzz IMO too, as theres no plant material being burned, ie -
just THC vapour
 
any smoke that enters your lungs irritates the lung tissue which can lead to problems. so smoking anything isnt good for you but weed compared to other chemically based drugs like meth are much less harmful.
 
studies are showing that weed won't give you cancer or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease like modern tobacco - however, if you already smoke cigarettes - then smoking pot on top of that can increase chance of COPD..
 
so smoking anything isnt good for you but weed compared to other chemically based drugs like meth are much less harmful.
All drugs are chemically based.

It's a bit of a mystery why weed smoke is less harmful than tobacco, but that's what the empirical data shows:
A total of 611 lung cancer patients living in Los Angeles County, and 601 patients with other cancers of the head and neck were compared with 1,040 people without cancer matched for age, sex, and the neighborhood they lived in.

All the participants were asked about lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, as well as other drugs, their diets, occupation, family history of lung cancer, and socioeconomic status.

The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 and 22,000 joints.

While two-pack-a-day or more cigarette smokers were found to have a 20-fold increase in lung cancer risk, no elevation in risk was seen for even the very heaviest marijuana smokers.

The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater their risk of developing lung cancer and other cancers of the head and neck. But people who smoked more marijuana were not at increased risk compared with people who smoked less and people who didn’t smoke at all.
http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer
 
Interesting! Good to know.

(22,000 joints! it's always funny when long term use is totaled... and also how researchers use the joint as the standard unit of cannabis use, when joints are not that popular nowadays)

I will note that since i've been smoking weed, i get out of breath more easily (both on a long and short term). It certainly is not harmless to the lungs, at least ime.
 
It's a bit of a mystery why weed smoke is less harmful than tobacco, but that's what the empirical data shows

Yeah, I've read quite a few theories over the years - and of course there are still many that disagree that it is less harmful. Some I remember include that it kills lung cells too quickly for them to mutate and become cancerous, or that it contains anticarcinogenic substance/s that actively protects against carcinogens in the smoke (it has been demonstrated that there are many carcinogens in cannabis smoke, but not necessarily a link with cancer). For many regulars there is still the added fact that most smoke less than the average cigarette smoker, though of course that's taken into account in the studies.
 
Cannabis smoke also dilates the bronchioles, while tobacco smoke causes them to constrict. Additionally, if I remember correctly, cannabis smoke has an expectorant property as well that causes the body to expel some of the mucus that traps and contains the carcinogens, unlike tobacco smoke.
 
lighting any plant on fire and inhaling it's smokey biproduct isn't going to be "good" for you. It's a matter of how much bad you are willing to accept for your high. To me, the trade off is simple.
 
Yeah inhaling pot smoke Is is definitely not entirely healthy. Inhaling the smoke of any burning material will cause atleast some stress on the lungs. I am a believer that marijuana smoke is less harmful than that of cigarette smoke, but its not 100% safe.

This is why there are vaporizers and edible goodies. The benefits of the cannabinoids are still there but without the strain on your respitory system.
 
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