quote:

---

May 26, 2006. 01:00 AM
MARC KAUFMAN
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

---

quote:

---

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said, adding that marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Melsky:
My theory is that there's something in pot smoke that makes you cough up the particles from the pot and possibly the SUV exhaust as well.

---

Certainly when I first started smoking pot... er, that is to say, when I first heard people talking about their pot-smoking experiences (yeah, that's the ticket), you knew you were getting ripped off if it didn't give you a coughing fit. Ottawa Valley home-grown, ca. 1980... oooh, whee.

quote:

---

Originally posted by clersal:
Yes I asked someone about hash too. I guess it has gone out of style.

---

With all the emphasis on smoking the herb, you play into the hands of the anti-pot crowd.

The last 100 times or so that I smoked it, about 20 minutes later I'd catch myself thinking "I wish I wasn't high now." Then I clued in (takes about 100 times when you smoke a lot of pot, which I did).

quote:

---

Originally posted by arborman:
Pot bores me. It's silly for it to be illegal, but I personally find it boring, and usually find those who are stoned boring.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Papal Bull:
Boom Boom double dislikes my company

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boom Boom:

Same here. Generally, I can't stand being in the company of stoned potheads or drunks (especially drunks).

---

Don't get me wrong, I find stoners quite harmless. I smoked my weight in the stuff a couple of times over not long ago. I just lose interest in stoner conversation pretty quickly these days.

Were it a choice between stoners or drunks, I'll take stoners any time. At least they are passive, and unlikely to get aggressive.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boom Boom:

Not true. I said generally. And that applies to the stoners I'm acquainted with personally, not anonymous people online. Relax.

---

quote:

---

Where unions and union jobs are concerned, no matter whether it's making bombs, taking the public to the cleaners with mega Games projects, or running interference on behalf of drug dealers by assisting in the battle against a benign herb, one just not refer to make-work projects.

---

Study finds smoking marijuana......

Ironically, those who live in smog ridden urban centers are probably taking in as much toxic material from combustions vehicles as a 2 pack a day smoker.

Tobacco has an addictive component called nicotine that compells the user to light up one after the other during every waking moment. This indicates that the nicotine hit is momentary and demands constant replenishment in order to achieve its 'buzz'.

Soking pot would be just as dangerous as tobacco if the user were to smoke it as often and with as much frequency as the tobacco user simply because of the toxic fumes that all combustion causes.

Pot on the other hand is not addictive and the THC 'buzz' lasts far far longer than nicotine does thereby requiring far far less ingestion of the toxic chemicals.

The THC buzz can last from 1--4 hours depending on the potency and the users sensitivity to THC. While the nicotine buzz only lasts a few minutes and even seconds in some folks.

However, the easiest way to avoid the whole smoking issue with pot is to eat it. the buzz from eating THC infused cookies, brownies and even butter will last even longer than smoking it will as well as avoiding all those nasty combustion byproducts. Plus, smoking gives a 'head' or mental buzz while eating it gives both a head AND a body stone that can make sex and other pleasant experiences way more pleasureable and satisfying.

As for whether stoners are 'boring', this only applies to the ones that have recently absorbed some THC while the stoners who have not partaken recently are usually very lucid conversationalists with all kinds of cool insights to share.

quote:

---

However, the easiest way to avoid the whole smoking issue with pot is to eat it.

---

Not entirely true... Have you ever seen a vaporizer before? (edit to add... I was going to throw a link on here, but the sites it brings up probably aren't the best to be linking here. heh... Do a search for medicinal vaporizer THC)

I also get a feeling that part of that cancer causing agents within a cigarette stems from the fiber glass filter. Breathing in even microscopic peices of that cannot be good for the lungs.

[ 31 May 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]

An hour later I'd be wondering why I couldn't think of anything to say, or find the wherewithal to get up off the couch, or what was I just thinking?

quote:

---

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said, adding that marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

---

Actually THC is well-known to destroy cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

Here's an article I wrote in 2002, and links to the references and some original studies can be found here:

http://www.cannabisculture.com/news/cancer

A study published in the July 2002 edition of the medical journal Blood found that THC and some other cannabinoids produced "programmed cell death" in different varieties of human leukemia and lymphoma cell lines, thereby destroying the cancerous cells but leaving other cells unharmed.

This reaffirms results by researchers at Madrid's Complutense University, who destroyed otherwise uncurable brain cancer tumors in rats by injecting them with THC.

Their study was published in the March 2000 issue of Nature Medicine. This ground-breaking research received almost no media attention, and has not been pursued as the researchers couldn't get further funding.

The lack of funding is typical of how such research is usually not followed up. For example, a 1974 study by researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, funded by the US National Institute of Health, found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancer, breast cancer and virus-induced leukemia in rats.

The 1974 study, titled "Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids," appeared in a 1975 edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Yet despite their promising results, no further research was made, and the study has essentially disappeared from the scientific literature.

Similarly, a 1994 study, which documented that THC may protect against malignant cancers, was also buried by the US government. The $2 million study, funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services' national toxicology program, sought to show that large doses of THC produced cancer. Instead, researchers found that massive doses of THC retarded certain types of stomach cancer in rats. The rats given THC lived longer than their non-exposed counterparts.

The study was unpublished and the results hidden for almost three years, until it was leaked to AIDS Treatment News in 1997, and the Boston Globe broke the story days later.

A study by Italian scientists, published in the July 1998 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that anandamide inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells. Anandamide is the naturally occurring body chemical which is mimicked by cannabinoids.

Other studies have shown that cannabinoids can also help prevent the death of brain cells during a stroke, head trauma and nerve gas exposure.

[ 31 May 2006: Message edited by: Dana Larsen ]

quote:

---

I also get a feeling that part of that cancer causing agents within a cigarette stems from the fiber glass filter. Breathing in even microscopic peices of that cannot be good for the lungs.

---

Most of the harms caused by tobacco use are due not to tar, but to the use of radioactive fertilizers. Surprisingly, radiation seems to be the most dangerous and important factor behind tobacco lung damage.

http://www.cannabisculture.com/news/tobacco

[ 31 May 2006: Message edited by: Dana Larsen ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dana Larsen:

Most of the harms caused by tobacco use are due not to tar, but to the use of radioactive fertilizers. Surprisingly, radiation seems to be the most dangerous and important factor behind tobacco lung damage.

http://www.cannabisculture.com/news/tobacco

[ 31 May 2006: Message edited by: Dana Larsen ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by arborman:

Radiation is not contagious, it is a form of energy.

---

I didn't write that radiation was contagious, I wrote that the radioactive fertilizers used in tobacco production are a major cause of cancer.

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/health_effects.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3003925&dopt=Abstract

http://www.webspawner.com/users/radioactivefood/

http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/10/24/24.html

[ 02 June 2006: Message edited by: Dana Larsen ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dana Larsen:
I didn't write that radiation was contagious, I wrote that the radioactive fertilizers used in tobacco production are a major cause of cancer.

---

Fair enough. Interesting links, they make me regret my 10 years of smoking all the more.

What fertilizers do large-scale grow-ops use? I know most of them aren't organic, and I know most of them are hydroponic.

quote:

---

What fertilizers do large-scale grow-ops use? I know most of them aren't organic, and I know most of them are hydroponic.

My question is - do they use the same kinds of fertilizers?

---

They might use similar fertilizers. But there would be differences.

Tobacco has high-phosphate fertilizers sprayed directly onto the leaves, even late into their growth cycle.

Even the most fertilizer-crazy marijuana grower doesn't spray fertilizers directly onto the buds. That would ruin the product.

Any decently grown bud goes through a no-fertilizer "flush" for at least the last few days if not the last week or two of their grow cycle. This is true in both Hydro and soil growing.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dana Larsen:
Any decently grown bud goes through a no-fertilizer "flush" for at least the last few days if not the last week or two of their grow cycle. This is true in both Hydro and soil growing.

---

I'm skeptical as to how often that 'flush' actually happens, given the high cash flow and rapid turnover of product that happens in the industrial grow industry. Every day the plants are unharvested is a day the door could get kicked in and all the profits could be lost - I suspect they get pulled the minute they are ready, flush or no flush. That also makes room for the next crop.

quote:

---

I'm skeptical as to how often that 'flush' actually happens, given the high cash flow and rapid turnover of product that happens in the industrial grow industry. Every day the plants are unharvested is a day the door could get kicked in and all the profits could be lost - I suspect they get pulled the minute they are ready, flush or no flush. That also makes room for the next crop.

---

Well the reason people flush is that plants that are overfertilized and not flushed will taste "chemmy" and not burn properly. So the bud will be less profitable and have less value. Flushing is required for the bud to taste clean and nice.

quote:

---

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

---

If this study had been about a patented pharmaceutical instead of a herb, the headline would have been that the substance "protects against lung cancer."

With the article I posted above, there is plenty of evidence that cannabis and cannabinoids have some pretty amazing anti-cancer properties. It seems likely that these substances are protecctive enough to more than counteract whatever negative things there might also be in raw marijuana smoke.

quote:

---

Originally posted by mayakovsky:
Good question arborman and not one I have heard in the pot discussion. Even in relation to the medical variety.

---

Cannabis Culture ran some articles about radioactivity in fertilizers during 2002 & 2004:

Radioactive buds?
http://cannabisculture.com/articles/2673.html

The radioactivity debate
http://cannabisculture.com/articles/3161.html

Maybe off topic, maybe not, but I am a little sick of hearing the anti-weed crowd talk about pot lashed with this and that (meth, you name it). I have smoked pot for quite some time. I take a 6 month break every year, just so I can get things semi-clean again. Pot provides for me the following beneficial side effects:

1. Great for use against pain - period pain, lower back pain etc. proven results
2. Great for creativity
3. Instead of drinking alcohol when seeing a show and feeling like crap the next day, I prefer to smoke a joint. I wake up the next day and I feel fine. No hangover.
4. It's relatively cheap and lasts a long time (depending on how much you smoke).

Honestly, the anti-weed crowd seems a bit strange to me. Most appear to attack weed, but don't level the same venom at alcohol (far worse) or cigarettes (even worse). To top that off, most of the anti-weed crows smokes cigarettes or drinks alcohol.

quote:

---

I want to live in a society where my pot smoking is seen realistically i.e., as a much better alternative to alcohol and cigarettes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stargazer:
Maybe off topic, maybe not, but I am a little sick of hearing the anti-weed crowd talk about pot lashed with this and that (meth, you name it).

---

This is the stupidest argument that I hear again and again.

First off, weed is the cheapest of drugs. Lacing it with meth, crack, whatever, would only add to its cost. Why, then, would an unsuspecting buyer pay more for weed that they didn't know to be laced?

Plus it would be terrible weed as most pot smokers aren't looking to get sketched out.

quote:

---

Exactly Rookie!! I simply do not get the logic behind the 'pot is laced with dangerous stuff" argument.

---

It's a lie aimed to make marijuana more scary by associating it with other, more dangerous substances.

If marijuana was being laced with meth it would taste terrible, the weed would obviously look laced, and it would not be a fun smoke.

quote:

---

Originally posted by slimpikins:
Marijuana is NOT a bad thing, could even be a good thing. I don't partake, but know many who do, and I would rather hang with them while they smoke up than with most other people while they pound back the rye, or any sort of alcohol for that matter.

As for emphysema or other 'smoke' related health concerns, marijuana can be eaten too, y'know. And the occasional, even daily spliff probably does less lung damage than living in a metropolitan area and breathing all the SUV fumes.

---

Oddly enough, I'm partial to hanging out with people on ecstasy even though I would never touch the shit myself. I love blabbing with and listening to people, and people on E are so stimulated that they have to burn off the energy somehow, and there's nothing like blabbing your head off when the dance floor's dead. Furthermore, they always seem to want to smoke, whether they join my sesh (which tends to involve 2 joints, a core group of 3 to 5 people, and a revolving door of other people who just want a toke or two) or offer to smoke me up.

As for legalisation killing the doobie or the pipe, that ain't going to happen: They're convenient, they're heavily engrained in stoner cultuer, and there's just a nice bit of romanticism in the social experience of rollin' and smokin' as a gang.

[ 15 July 2006: Message edited by: Heavy Sharper ]

Personally i prefer to light up my own and will pass it if anyone sparks an interest. But i never take it back, nor do i take anyone else's.

The tastes vary greatly from one to another. Heh, apparently Canada imports from other nations... We can grow enough here to keep us happy, but theres a big enough 'connoisseur' group out there that they want to have outside tastes (very much like wines). If growers are obviously cutting corners and handing out subpar products, as with any business, they won't remain in business too long.

quote:

---

Originally posted by otter:
It is the Western culture's ritualist 'passing of the joint' whenever a person lits up that presents the greatest health risk. TB, herpes, cankers, flu and a host of other illnesses are easily passed this way. In Europe you smoke your own. Much more sensible and sanitary.

Personally i prefer to light up my own and will pass it if anyone sparks an interest. But i never take it back, nor do i take anyone else's.

---

True, although generally speaking this is a fairly low risk, especially if you know the people you're smoking with. You have about as much chance of infection, from what I know, from just shaking the hand of someone with a contagious disease, or even from riding public transit. Our neo-Victorian ideals of cleanliness can get a little exaggerated at times.