Smoking Pot May Damage Lungs
Smoking marijuana regularly may, over time, damage the lungs, a New Zealand study shows.
The researchers included Richard Beasley, MBChB, of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in Wellington.
They studied 339 New Zealand adults, including 75 people who only smoked pot, 91 who smoked pot and tobacco, 92 who only smoked tobacco, and 81 who didn't smoke pot or tobacco.
Participants took lung function tests, urine tests, got high-tech lung scans using CTB scanning,and completed surveys about their smoking habits.
All of the pot smokers had regularly smoked marijuana for at least five years. All of the tobacco smokers had smoked cigarettes for at least one year. Their urine tests confirmed their use of tobacco or marijuana.
Pot is illegal in New Zealand, so participants were promised total anonymity. Those who used other illegal drugs were excluded from the study.
Beasley's team wanted to find out whether long-term marijuana use was, like
tobacco, associated with increased risk of emphysema. It wasn't.
However, long-term marijuana use was linked to lung problems including coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and airflow obstruction.
Beasley's team calculates that, in terms of airflow obstruction, one marijuana joint equaled the effect of smoking 2.5 to five cigarettes at once.
The finding is "of major public health significance," write the researchers.
The results are likely due to differences between tobacco cigarettes and marijuana joints, note the researchers.
"Cannabis is usually smoked without a filter and to a shorter butt length, and the smoke [has] a higher temperature," write Beasley and colleagues, adding that people inhale deeper and hold their breath longer when smoking marijuana.
The study appears in the advance online edition of the journal Thorax.
By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
B)2005-2006 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved
© 2007 WebMD, LLC.. All Rights Reserved. The researchers included Richard Beasley, MBChB, of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in Wellington.
They studied 339 New Zealand adults, including 75 people who only smoked pot, 91 who smoked pot and tobacco, 92 who only smoked tobacco, and 81 who didn't smoke pot or tobacco.
Participants took lung function tests, urine tests, got high-tech lung scans using CTB scanning,and completed surveys about their smoking habits.
All of the pot smokers had regularly smoked marijuana for at least five years. All of the tobacco smokers had smoked cigarettes for at least one year. Their urine tests confirmed their use of tobacco or marijuana.
Pot is illegal in New Zealand, so participants were promised total anonymity. Those who used other illegal drugs were excluded from the study.
Beasley's team wanted to find out whether long-term marijuana use was, like
tobacco, associated with increased risk of emphysema. It wasn't.
However, long-term marijuana use was linked to lung problems including coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and airflow obstruction.
Beasley's team calculates that, in terms of airflow obstruction, one marijuana joint equaled the effect of smoking 2.5 to five cigarettes at once.
The finding is "of major public health significance," write the researchers.
The results are likely due to differences between tobacco cigarettes and marijuana joints, note the researchers.
"Cannabis is usually smoked without a filter and to a shorter butt length, and the smoke [has] a higher temperature," write Beasley and colleagues, adding that people inhale deeper and hold their breath longer when smoking marijuana.
The study appears in the advance online edition of the journal Thorax.
By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
B)2005-2006 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved
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Like a good soldier who never asks questions, they will continue to persecute people because the lawmakers give them the right to do so. The US Constitution says, "There shall only be one law of the land", yet the punishment varies from state to state with no penalties to years of imprisonment.
Sounds like repression.
I sure hope for your kids sake,that your wife has a brain.
Posted by erasmus6 at 05:08 PM : Aug 02, 2007
Obviously more than you...now go away troll.
Posted by HonestAbe8 at 02:30 PM : Aug 02, 2007
I found one of the "reefer madness" movies on dvd at a local software store, what a hoot...remember seeing once once where a young girl took one hit on a J and started crawling around on floor, meowing like a car. D@mn, I wanna find some sheeeeeeeiiiiiitttt like that.
I sure hope for your kids sake,that your wife has a brain.