Author Topic: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs  (Read 1555 times)

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Offline IronDioPriest

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20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« on: January 10, 2012, 06:12:55 PM »
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Marijuana doesn't harm lung function, study found

Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn't harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn't do the kind of damage tobacco does.

The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users — those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren't enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions....

<snip>

...The analyses showed pot didn't appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. Cigarette smokers' test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores. Very few study participants smoked more often than that.

Having worked closely with chemically addicted patients in a rehabilitation situation, I can say that prior marijuana abuse is so prevalent among those who hit rock bottom on harder drugs, that it is almost like a prerequisite. Those who claim it is not a gateway drug because so many people use it without graduating to other drugs miss the point that among those who DO ruin their lives on harder drugs, habitual prior pot use is nearly universal. Pot breaks down the barrier to doing harmful and illegal drugs, and the relatively benign consequences open the door to believing that other drugs will be just as benign. What I have seen with my own two eyes tells me that pot is a gateway drug in spite of all the protestation to the contrary from legalization advocates.

I do think the so-called "war" on pot use has been lost for years. I think current laws place casual users in prison where they don't belong, and create a black-market and all the crime that goes with it. Something needs to change, and I fear that legalization is starting to make the most sense if we ever want to dismantle the criminal cartels.

But all that said, it is interesting (insofar as this study is accurate) to learn that marijuana use has little negative effect on the lungs. That seems counter-intuitive. Some possible reasons for the differences between tobacco and marijuana's effects on the lungs are suggested at the link, but nothing conclusive.
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Offline Libertas

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2012, 06:35:18 AM »
Sure, we can legalize it and treat it like booze as far as irresponsible use is concerned, but won't MADD open a MAPS chapter and leftnut anti-tobacco nuts target it for taxes and Moochelle go after it because of users winding up with the munchies and fat asses?

 ::hysterical::
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charlesoakwood

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2012, 10:31:29 AM »
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users winding up with the munchies and fat asses?

You're not intimating...?


Offline trapeze

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2012, 10:52:09 AM »
The problem is the long term effect on the brain. Memory function is most definitely affected by chronic users. I have known enough of them to know it's true.
In a doomsday scenario, hippies will be among the first casualties. So not everything about doomsday will be bad.

Offline IronDioPriest

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2012, 11:07:27 AM »
The problem is the long term effect on the brain. Memory function is most definitely affected by chronic users. I have known enough of them to know it's true.

Yup, no question. Chronic pot abusers also do not grow emotionally, and they lose perspective on ambition. They get stuck.

But I guess their lungs are nice and pink.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

- Thomas Jefferson

Offline Libertas

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2012, 11:22:27 AM »
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users winding up with the munchies and fat asses?

You're not intimating...?



...I've ever had the munchies?  Or a fat ass?

 ::hysterical::
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Offline Sectionhand

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2012, 02:16:53 PM »
I've known plenty of users who smoked ten or twelve joints a day ... of course they didn't know me even though we had gone to high school together . I can't speak for their lung condition . Most of them are dead now . That must be in some other statistical column .

Online Pandora

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Re: 20 year study: Daily/weekly marijuana use doesn't harm lungs
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2012, 02:21:44 PM »
The last time I had A toke - that is, as in, ONE -- in an effort to alleviate a "condition", my head went to places I don't care to visit again.  Period.

I'll take a nice glass of wine instead, thankee very much, I'm not driving.
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