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Is It the THC That Makes It Mellower?
A staple of anti-pot propaganda in recent years has been the implication that marijuana poses more of a cancer risk than tobacco because a joint contains more carcinogens than a cigarette. One problem with this scare tactic is that it ignores patterns of use: The typical pot smoker lights up far less often than the typical cigarette smoker. Another problem is that epidemiological research has not verified an elevated cancer risk among people who smoke only marijuana. A research review in the October 18 issue of Harm Reduction Journal suggests one possible reason for this (aside from dosage): THC, marijuana's main psychoactive ingredient, seems to reduce the effect of carcinogens in pot smoke, whereas nicotine seems to enhance the effect of carcinogens in tobacco smoke.
|10.28.05 @ 2:59PM|#
I am not sure how the public in general would react to accurate
information wrt Marijuana, but that the government is blocking
effective studies of marijuana, and no politicians seem to be
against is, even in this current climate, shocking. Can no one at
least argue that we should get good scientific evidence for
marijuana?
I hope Bush's anti-science agenda will produce a backlash, but I
have been waiting for a long time.
|10.28.05 @ 3:04PM|#
Hm. I wonder if the tobacco companies will start lobbying for the right to add small, non-psychoactive amounts of THC to cigarettes, in order to decrease their carcinogenic effect...
|10.28.05 @ 3:13PM|#
This isn't Bush's drug war. It propaganda has been going on
since Hearst owned all the media and Nancy Reagan's got nothing on
Reefer Madness.
The drug war didn't stop during the Clinton administration. I don't
know if it's pharmecuetical lobbing funds, or the desire of
government to control everything including and not limited to your
mind, but no one in the major parties seems remotely interested in
ending this BS.
To blame Bush for the state of things in this case is an incredible
oversimplification for the sake of all things bad=Bush.
|10.28.05 @ 3:17PM|#
I think, for one, that this needs to be tested more
thoroughly.
You know, like right now, in the comfort of my home. I'll take one
for the team.
|10.28.05 @ 3:50PM|#
Actually, of all the carcinogens in tobacco smoke, there are
really only two classes of them that play a major role in tobacco
carcinogenesis -- the polycycic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and
the tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs). Cannabis smoke does have
PAH's, but they do not have TSNA's. A variety of evidence shows
that the TSNAs are major contributers to the smoking related cancer
risk. And since cannabis smoke lacks TSNAs, it is automatically
expected that cannabis should not pose the same cancer risks.
BTW, it wasn't too widely reported in the media, but the largest
epidemiological study to date, as reported by Donald Tashkin et al
at the last annual conference of the International Cannabinoid
Research Society, indicates ZERO increased pulmonary cancer risk.
In fact, all of the odds ratios were UNDER 1, and in one cases, the
less than 1 OR was statistically significant. Even I find this
surprising, but Tasnkin is easily one of the world's leading
experts on the effects of drug use on the pulmonary system.
|10.28.05 @ 3:55PM|#
theCoach - I talked an unbelieveable amount of smack about John
Kerry around this time last year, so let me take his side for once,
and say that he has in fact spoken out against the DEA's
interference and obstructionism with regards to marijuana
research.
That said, he hasn't exactly been banging the drum for
Congressional hearings.
The Wine Commonsewer|10.28.05 @ 4:45PM|#
Jacob, I gotta part company with you on this one. People who
smoke dope suck that smoke way, way down into the furthest reaches
of their lungs and hold it there for a really long time. Usually
until they cough it out because they can't hold it no more.
Your talking harsh frikkin' tobbaky smoked without a filter that
leaves you with a sore throat the next day. There is no way that
pot smoke is less dangerous than cigarette smoke.
A couple of possible exceptions:
If it's two-hit weed. That ain't so bad and I could see an argument
that the better the quality of weed the less the health risk.
The casual user like a casual cigar smoker is likely to get by with
little ill effects.
|10.28.05 @ 4:48PM|#
indicates ZERO increased pulmonary cancer
risk
I know man, it wasn't the pot, it was the cigarettes that got
me.
|10.28.05 @ 4:51PM|#
Maybe Wacky Tabacky won't give you cancer right away.
But after you get thrown in jail for smoking it; you'll get some
nasty diseases after you're raped.
-If the Albertson's assistant manager sees you going into a Safeway
to buy Coors, he'll give you a nasty look.
-If your Acapulco Gold dealer sees you buy ganja from a different
dealer, he'll shoot you and the other dealer.
Rich Ard|10.28.05 @ 4:53PM|#
People who smoke dope suck that smoke way, way down into the
furthest reaches of their lungs and hold it there for a really long
time. Usually until they cough it out because they can't hold it no
more.
Oh, bullshit.
|10.28.05 @ 4:58PM|#
Jacob, I gotta part company with you on this one. People who
smoke dope suck that smoke way, way down into the furthest reaches
of their lungs and hold it there for a really long time. Usually
until they cough it out because they can't hold it no
more.
Only if you're wishing for a bronchial mutiny. There's no need to
do that, and those that do for more than a couple seconds are
merely following an old wives' tale that's been debunked for at
least a few years now. Those same people also think a bong also
nets you a better high.
|10.28.05 @ 5:00PM|#
John, we hear about the violent pot dealers shooting people all
the time, right? Please pull your head out.
After you pull your head out, please notice that all of the ill
effects you ascribe to pot are, in fact, the ill effects of
enforcing stupid laws.
The Wine Commonsewer|10.28.05 @ 5:05PM|#
Rich Ard, Bullshit? So you and Clinton don't
inhale?
It is silly to pretend that there are no health risks in smoking
dope or to minimize or dismiss those risks. Reality is what it is.
There are health risks.
We can sit around an argue about how serious they are but you're
not going to get much of an answer since there isn't much research.
But in the same way you can pretty much figure that five packs of
smokes a day did Steve McQueen in, you can figure that if you smoke
enough pot you're going to have some lung problems.
The wise course to follow is to acknowledge that there is some risk
(fer christs sake you're sucking smoke into your lungs what exactly
do you think is going to happen?). Then to push for PRIVATE studies
of the risks as a part of a legalization effort.
|10.28.05 @ 5:09PM|#
Sure, there's risk -- if you're sedentary and don't exercise at
all, sure. But most daily smokers I've known have been quite
alright for the decade plus I've been around them.
Of course, they also take responsibility in keeping their
bodies in shape and don't smoke it 24/7, either. Daily, sure, but
not ALL day.
The Wine Commonsewer|10.28.05 @ 5:13PM|#
Z, I can't speak for John but I think he was using a fable to
illustrate the same point you just made.
What? Bongs are out? Sheesh, I'm always the last to know these
things.
|10.28.05 @ 5:15PM|#
also think a bong also nets you a better high
It doesn't? Does it yield a lesser one?
|10.28.05 @ 5:19PM|#
Bongs are better because the water smoothes out the smoke. Filling it with crushed ice is cool, too. I've been told.
|10.28.05 @ 5:23PM|#
(And when I say "bong" I'm talking about a modest little hookah, not those ridiculously enormous Graffix things that require multiple people to operate. As a woman, I am thankfully free of the need to use oversized bongs to compensate for any perceived Freudian inadequacies on my part.)
|10.28.05 @ 5:39PM|#
Hey, Z, don't shoot the messenger!
What? There's no more Acapulco Gold?
What's the point of NAFTA if it's not going to make Acapulco Gold
cheaper?
|10.28.05 @ 5:43PM|#
Heh. Bongs may be mellower, sure, but there's no net gain or loss in actual high. That's the point I was attempting to make with that throwaway statement.
|10.28.05 @ 7:08PM|#
Doesn't matter. The minute 'health' concerns over products of
any kind became political footballs, it's all fair game. We may not
like it, but sometimes a slippery slope IS a slippery slope.
For instance, you teach open ended tolerance of alternate points of
view? You have people in the school system pushing Intelligent
Design as 'an alternate point of view'.
What surprises me, is that this surprises people.
Paul
daksya|10.28.05 @ 7:21PM|#
Patrick S, you have a cite for that study? (other than Fred Gardner). I've read that, but I want to see it in a peer-reviewed journal.
|10.28.05 @ 7:36PM|#
I recall a cartoon of a decrepit, feeble old man, hunched over,
sitting in his underwear on a medical examination table. The doctor
there says to him:
You know those years you added to your life by not smoking,
drinking, or doing drugs? Well, these are those years.
|10.28.05 @ 7:40PM|#
If your Acapulco Gold dealer sees you buy ganja from a
different dealer, he'll shoot you and the other dealer.
Pucking Christ. No dealer is going to shoot you because you buy pot
from someone else. Matter of fact, unless you're buying meth from
some tweeky white-trash, nobody is going to shoot you for buying
anything from anyone else. Not only is there the chilling effect
that this would have on future business, there's the fact that cops
tend to take an unsolved murder a lot more seriously than they do
some guy selling pot small time. The fact that you don't approve of
their actions doesn't make you suddenly smarter than them,
especially when it comes to the techniques they use when plying
their trade.
Rich Ard|10.28.05 @ 9:37PM|#
So you and Clinton don't inhale?
Not in the same room - but let me spin this one around on
you:
Most wine drinkers stay up late in the night debating Sartre and
Dostoevsky.
Nice mental image - but it's bullshit, just like all those stoners
hacking their lungs out in mom's basement.
Rich Ard|10.28.05 @ 9:39PM|#
And just to clarify, those winos aren't debating Sartre v. Dostoevsky. Although if anyone's up for it, I'll gladly sit on the sidelines and laugh.
The Wine Commonsewer|10.29.05 @ 12:26AM|#
Rich Ard! OUCH!
Actually those winos are debating the fine points of objectivist
philosophy as it relates to the modern libertarian movement (or
some such bullshit) or, more to the point, the fine points of the
female anatomy (unless of course, the company is mixed, then the
male winos adjourn to the foyer where they discuss said female
anatomy and somebody pulls some cigars or a joint out of a jacket
pocket and offers it/them around).
Wine, makes you see things how they really are.
|10.29.05 @ 2:14PM|#
daksya asked:
"Patrick S, you have a cite for that study? (other than Fred
Gardner). I've read that, but I want to see it in a peer-reviewed
journal."
daksya, these results were recently presented at the ICRS
conference and have not yet to my knowledge been published. I would
expect these results to appear in a journal like Cancer Causes and
Control sometime early 2006. The conference presentation should be
cited as:
Morgenstern H, et al. Marijuana use and cancers of the lung and
upper aerodigestive tract: results of a case-control study.
Presentation at the ICRS Conference on Cannabinoids, 24-27 June,
Clearwater, USA.
There is a brief abstract available at:
http://www.cannabis-med.org/english/bulletin/ww_en_db_cannabis_artikel.php?id=196
There is already a good bit of peer-reviewed epidemiological study
of the effects of cannabis smoking on cancer risk of
"aerodigestive" tract, though few that include a decent sample of
lung cancer cases, for instance:
Llewellyn et al, 2004. An analysis of risk factors for oral cancer
in young people: a case-control study. Oral Oncology 40,
304-313.
Rosenblatt et al, 2004. Marijuana Use and Risk of Oral Squamous
Cell Carcinoma. Cancer Research 64, 4049-4054.
Sidney et al, 1997b. Marijuana use and cancer incidence
(California, United States). Cancer Causes and Control 8(5),
722-728.
Also, a good literature review by Tashkin, Morgenstern, Zhang and
others (the leading experts in this area)of the issue was published
in the journal Alcohol several months before the ICRS conference,
and the result of that review was essentially that "sufficient
studies are not available to adequately evaluate marijuana impact
on cancer risk."
Hashibe et al, 2005. Epidemiologic review of marijuana use and
cancer risk. Alcohol 35(3):265-75.
|10.29.05 @ 2:44PM|#
Wine, makes you see things how they really are.
Uh-huh. That's why there's such a strong correlation: the more
alcohol a man has consumed, the more attractive a woman has to be
before he'll consider sleeping with her. Right. Of course.
|10.29.05 @ 2:45PM|#
I forgot to change my joke name in that last post. Irony sucks sometimes, doesn't it?
The Wine Commonsewer|10.29.05 @ 6:16PM|#
Jennifer,
Wine, makes you see things how they really are
okay, well, maybe it was beer. Or just being under the alfluence of
incohol.
proof here
Actually my use of that claim is a REALLY obsucre attempt to be
amusing based upon claims that many of my pothead, ahem, friends
made way back in the olden days. IE, Marijuana makes your see
things as they really are. Didn't realize exactly how obscure the
joke really is nor did I realize at the time that I'm the only one
LOL.
The Wine Commonsewer|10.29.05 @ 6:31PM|#
Can't spell obscure and I'm sure that almost everyone has seen this.
|10.29.05 @ 9:12PM|#
"That said, he hasn't exactly been banging the drum for
Congressional hearings."
Probably a good thing, actually. It'd no doubt be a Dem-only
affair, and their need to appease all the factions would turn it
into a chaotic freakshow, with some dredlocked trustafarian stoner
freak or Woody Harrelson getting all the press coverage for some
idiotic soundbite, while the substantive testimony gets
ignored.
|10.30.05 @ 6:45AM|#
"...five packs of smokes a day did Steve McQueen in..."
Not true.
He died from mesothelioma, which results from exposure to asbestos.
The PC Popmedia typically changes mesothelioma to "lung cancer,"
apparently as part of their WOD propaganda.
|10.30.05 @ 8:12AM|#
Bongs are better because the water smoothes out the smoke.
Filling it with crushed ice is cool, too. I've been
told.
I remember someone telling me that hot water in a bong filters out
the carcinogenic nastiness better, but I'm not sure I want to be
holding that particular glass bong without oven mitts.
The Wine Commonsewer|10.30.05 @ 11:19AM|#
F Lee: He died from mesothelioma, which results from
exposure to asbestos. The PC Popmedia typically changes
mesothelioma to "lung cancer," apparently as part of their WOD
propaganda.
Okay, it was an illustration anyway. So how about the five packs a
day that Yul Brenner smoked? His epitaph is reputed to be Don't
Smoke.
And I'll buy your assertion that the media and the PC do-gooders
report every death of every smoker as having been from smoking
related causes. One of which is Humphrey Bogart's, who, as I recall
from Benchley's early bio, did not die from lung cancer.
None-the-less, asbestos exposure or not I think it is safe to
assume that heavy smoking contributed to McQueen's death.
I'm absolutely certain that smoking a few Marlboros a day isn't
going to do you in. But a couple of packs a day over 40 or 50 years
is going to have some measurable effect in some way. Worse for some
not so bad for others.
|10.30.05 @ 1:40PM|#
Yul Brenner also had the really creepy commerical, where he was like "I'm dead by the time you're watching this. Don't smoke."
|10.30.05 @ 6:13PM|#
If you've been exposed to inhale-able asbestos then your doctor will tell you to quit smoking, because asbestos exposure + cigarette smoking increases your risk of lung cancer over asbestos exposure alone. (I remember this from an article I had to write when I worked for a hospital.)
|10.31.05 @ 8:45AM|#
Solitudinarian wrote:
"I remember someone telling me that hot water in a bong filters out
the carcinogenic nastiness better, but I'm not sure I want to be
holding that particular glass bong without oven mitts."
Suprisingly enough, water pipes do not increase the
carcinogen/cannabinoid ratio of cannabis smoke. In one analysis
comparing the carcinogen/cannabinoid ratio produced by various
smoking devices, the waterpipes yielded 30% higher
carcinogen/cannabinoid ratio than the unfiltered joint, showing
that waterpipes are actually counterproductive in terms of removing
carcinogens (Gieringer, 1996). The water does remove carcinogens,
but it removes even more cannabinoids, so though you get less
carcinogens per puff, you need more puffs to get the same quantity
of cannabinoids, and the net result is you inhale more carcinogens
rather than less.
By far the safest way for the typical user to get cannabinoids is
to vaporize cannabis. Vaporization can produce a vapor that is 90%
cannabinoids with effectively no carcinogen content (Gieringer,
2001).
Gieringer, 1996. Marijuana Water Pipe and Vaporizer Study.
Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies 6(3).
Gieringer, 2001. Cannabis Vaporization: A Promising Strategy for
Smoke Harm Reduction. Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics 1(3-4),
153-70.
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