for the lazy lettuce fans and big time jah praisers out there, some good news that you may already know: there is no link to pot smoking and lung cancer. zero. zip. nada. study shows no increased risk for even the heaviest marijuana smokers. neato! and even though numerous studies state that marijuana smoke contains 50% higher concentrations of chemicals linked to lung cancer than cigarette smoke, researchers feel it’s the THC connection and THC’s anti-tumor properties. there you go!
Unfortunately, the latest evidence shows that pot is far more carcinogenic (cancer-causing) than tobacco. Fairly obvious if you ask me. With 9 out of 10 cases of lung cancer occuring in smokers, did you think you’d be magically immune?
thanks tony! i have read those recent (2008) news stories as well. my guess is you are referring to one or more of the studies mentioned in these news articles:
Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes: Study - 79 people studied
Marijuana withdrawal as bad as withdrawal from cigarettes - 12 people studied
Signs of emphysema may develop early in pot smokers - 10 people studied
while i know that inhaling any smoke is bad, i would not point to those stories as evidence that cannabis is more carcinogenic by any means. these news stories which now state that smoking pot is bad/worse than cigarettes tend to cite these three studies which covered only 100 people altogether (79 people being the highest). that is a very small amount to test from. there was also no comparative group or control group in those studies to measure the results with (which makes the results somewhat biased). the results from the studies do make for good headlines!
conversely, the Web MD article of 2006 linked in the above post (and in this washington post article) references a study finding no link to smoking pot and lung cancer which used over 2,200 people; 1,200 people with lung cancer and 1,041 people without lung cancer. it was the largest case-control study ever done regarding marijuana use. its findings would be much more accurate.
it would be great to compare the data between these two differing studies.
in any case, if you are going to smoke marijuana, avoid smoke as much as possible and buy a vaporizer.
anyway - thanks for the comment tony!