'More tar' in cannabis than cigarettes

Herald Sun ^ | 27 March 2006

[Aussie Dasher]

SMOKING three cannabis joints will cause you to inhale the same amount of toxic chemicals as a whole packet of cigarettes, according to research published in France today.

Cannabis smoke contains seven times more tar and carbon monoxide, the French National Consumers' Institute concluded in research published in the April edition of its monthly magazine.

The institute tested regular Marlboro cigarettes alongside 280 specially rolled joints of cannabis leaves and resin in an artificial smoking machine.

The tests examined the content of the smoke for tar and carbon monoxide, as well as for the toxic chemicals nicotine, benzene and toluene.

"Cannabis smoke contains seven times more tar and carbon monoxide than tobacco smoke," the institute's magazine says.

Someone smoking a joint of cannabis resin rolled with tobacco will inhale twice the amount of benzene and three times as much toluene as if they were smoking a regular cigarette, the study says.

Smokers of pure cannabis leaves will also inhale more of these chemicals than from a normal cigarette, though the amount varies depending on the quantities.

"Smoking three joints every day – which is becoming frequent – makes you run the same risks of cancer or cardio-vascular diseases as smoking a packet of cigarettes," the magazine says.

Cannabis is "by far" the most popular illicit drug in France, it says. The number of cigarette smokers and people drinking alcohol fell in 2005, while the number of cannabis users has increased in France in the past five years.

[Aussie Dasher]

Yeah, you should know better than to blame a mind-altering toxic drug for a plane crash just because the pilot was high as a kite BEFORE he took off...:)

[Aussie Dasher]

That last one should have been addressed to you, DD.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

And a shot of vodka.

[Dashing Dasher]

Yep.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

And a bit of kosher salt on the ice.

[Redleg1963]

I do not fly. Well, I sit and have cocktails, but they won't let me touch the controls.

Do you know how many military pilots I have asked to just give me my shot? My dad was wrong. He said during WWII the pilots gave him about 500 pro bono hours in a Catalina.

Alas, none have taken me up on that. Of course, I am still with us, so maybe it's a good thing.

Oh yea, they are real weird about cocktails in military aircraft too.

Something about no smoking 24 hours before a flight, and no drinking 50 feet from a plane.

[Supernatural]

I haven't smoked pot in years.

But when I did, I learned that all the bad things the government put out about pot was all lies.

Who is the heavy pot smoker you are referring to? It can't be me, since I quit years ago.

Is it one of your friends?

[robertpaulsen]

"What part of my replies said that people will not do drugs at home? I have acknowledged that there will always be people that don't act responsibly"

OK. My bad. I just assumed that those who were acting responsibly did drugs at home and those who were acting irresponsibly were those who did not do drugs at home.

Now, your argument is that you want to legalize drugs for those who act responsibly. Cool. I see your point. How do we constitutionally legalize drugs only for this group of people? I'm open to suggestion.

"Then I guess by your own argument - you believe that alcohol should be illegal too - since there are plenty of irresponsible drinkers that ruin it for responsible ones?"

We tried that once. Prohibition lasted 13 short years and was repealed. I see no reason to try it again. I also see no reason to add to the problem by legalizing yet another recreational drug.

Got an answer to my question yet? I've been answering yours. Will you return the courtesy?

[Supernatural]

But, but I thought the effects of marijuana lasted for days, not just two hours.

Gee, if you are right then the pilot of the plane that crashed could have smoked pot a week or more before the crash and still tested positive for pot and the pot would have had no effect on him.

You make a strong argument for my side, RP. Thanks for pitching in and helping.

[MRMEAN]

For another view:

---

Many people think smoking marijuana is just as harmful as smoking tobacco, but this is not true. Those who hold that marijuana is equivalent to tobacco are misinformed. Due to the efforts of various federal agencies to discourage use of marijuana in the 1970's the government, in a fit of "reefer madness," conducted several biased studies designed to return results that would equate marijuana smoking with tobacco smoking, or worse.
For example the Berkeley carcinogenic tar studies of the late 1970's concluded that "marijuana is one-and-a-half times as carcinogenic as tobacco." This finding was based solely on the tar content of cannabis leaves compared to that of tobacco, and did not take radioactivity into consideration. (Cannabis tars do not contain radioactive materials.) In addition, it was not considered that:
1) Most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco.
2) Marijuana smokers do not smoke anywhere near as much as tobacco smokers, due to the psychoactive effects of cannabis.
3) Not one case of lung cancer has ever been successfully linked to marijuana use.
4) Cannabis, unlike tobacco, does not cause any narrowing of the small air passageways in the lungs.
In fact, marijuana has been shown to be an expectorant and actually dilates the air channels it comes in contact with. This is why many asthma sufferers look to marijuana to provide relief. Doctors have postulated that marijuana may, in this respect, be more effective than all of the prescription drugs on the market.

[Aussie Dasher]

Hardly a friend. A once brilliant mind destroyed by an evil drug.

[Dashing Dasher]

Checking the NTSB report for this accident showed that visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of this accident.

How do you know that the fact that this person was a cronic drug abuser didn't have something to do with his accident?

How do you know that a non-abuser would have saved the lives of the passengers?

[Supernatural]

Just a wild guess based on the fact that many airplanes crash in bad weather.

How do you know that marijuana use caused the crash for sure?

[Dashing Dasher]

I don't - but do you KNOW that is was not the cause?

[stands2reason]

These people don't sleep?

[robertpaulsen]

"These people don't sleep?"

Of course they sleep. They just set their alarm for two hours.

Or they can take any number of FDA approved glaucoma medicines and sleep through the night ............. nah!

[Lady Jag]

Cannabis Safety Reports:   Cannabis Studies through the ages

Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894. “The commission has come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all”.

Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925. “There is no evidence... that any deleterious influence on the individual using [cannabis]”.

Siler Commission, Panama Canal Zone Report, 1930. Reported that cannabis use was harmless, and, having subjected to medico-scientific clinical monitoring, heavy cannabis smoking produced no effect upon motivation or performance.

“Cannabis smoking does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration... Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug”.

The Wootton Report, 1969. “The long term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effect”.

Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding: The Shafer Report, 1972. US National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. Recommended that the WHO should do a reassessment of cannabis.

NIMH Jamaican Study, 1972. “No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual performance, concept formation, abstracting ability and cognitive style and tests of memory”.

Jamaican Studies, 1975 (Rubin & Comitas). [Cannabis] is smoked over a longer period in heavier quantities with greater THC potency than in the United States without deleterious social or psychological consequences.

The Legalise Cannabis Campaign (UK) reply to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs ‘Review of the Classification of Drugs and Penalties, 1979’. “It is disgraceful that such a muddled and inaccurate report should be presented to the government and to the public”.

Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church Study, 1980. Some participants had smoked at least two to four large cigarettes (each containing 1/4 to 1/2 ounce of cannabis) over 16 hours a day for periods of up to 50 years. 'the most impressive thing ... is the true paucity of neurological abnormalities'. Heavy cannabis consumers suffered no apparent psychological or physical harm. ('Hemp, Lifeline to the Future', C Conrad, 1994).

Costa Rican Study, 1982. “Users in our matched-pair sample smoked marihuana in addition to as many tobacco cigarettes as did their matched non-using pairs. Yet their small airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. We must tentatively conclude either that marihuana has no harmful effect on such passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against the harmful effects of tobacco smoke”. Found that there was no distinguishable harm that could be attributed to cannabis usage. the THC club Protocols

DEA Administrative Law Judge, FL Young, 1988. “Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity. In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man”.

The Lancet, Volume 346, Number 8985, November 11, 1995 (Editorial). “The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health. Leaving politics aside, where is the harm in decriminalising cannabis? There is none to the health of consumers. Sooner or later politicians will have to stop running scared and address the evidence: cannabis per se is not a hazard to society but driving it further underground may well be”.

'Marihuana Reconsidered', Prof. L Grinspoon, 1996. “...as in the case of psychiatric illness, no level of use has yet been discovered that qualifies as obviously so immoderate that it causes physical disease”.

British Medical Association, Therapeutic Uses of Cannabis, 1997. “Individual cannabinoids have a therapeutic potential in several conditions in which other treatments are not fully adequate. Cannabioids and cannabis should be legalised for wider medical use under medical supervision. The report found that there was "good evidence" that several cannabinoids had analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties.

House of Lords Report, 1998. The Lords Science and Technology Committee urges a “change in the law to allow derivatives of the drug to be used legally”.

[robertpaulsen]

"But, but I thought the effects of marijuana lasted for days, not just two hours."

Wrong yet again. The effects lasts for hours. The inactive carboxy THC metabolite may stay in the bloodstream for five to eight days or longer.

"Gee, if you are right then the pilot of the plane that crashed could have smoked pot a week or more before the crash and still tested positive for pot and the pot would have had no effect on him."

If the test is a simple "postive/not positive", sure. But the test did an actual count which led investigators to believe he might have smoked recently.

"Thanks for pitching in and helping."

You're welcome. That comment almost made it into my profile page.

[Supernatural]

Just a wild guess based on the fact that many airplanes crash in bad weather.

You must have missed this in my post 93 to you.

[Supernatural]

Gee, your post 97 has some very convincing evidence that pot use is harmless.

Think the "anti's" will get it?