Does smoking marijuana cause lung cancer just like tobacco?
@Auditore: Good point. I support medicinal marijuana because I smoke weed. I mainly asked this question just to see what people think.
Other - Health - 7 Answers
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1 :
It is illegal to research anything to do with marijuana. Many suspect that any type of smoke that you inhale will cause cancer. At the very least it will do great damage to your lungs.
2 :
No, because marijuana (as far as is known) does not contain carcinogens and does not create carcinogens when burned. They wouldn't give marijuana to cancer patients if there was a risk of them getting MORE CANCER.
3 :
If you smoked pot in the same quantity as one would cigarettes, it would, but a joint or two a day is wwaayy less harmful than cigarette smoke, largely because it doesn't have all the additives commercial cigarettes do. However, lighting anything on fire and inhaling the smoke into your lungs makes it a carcinogen. Chris is incorrect-- legal, medical research on marihuana has been going on since the 1960s.
4 :
burning anything and inhaling it soon after will cause lung cancer. green is VERY unlikely to cause it though. its a HEALING plant. not a destroying one, like tobacco. it heals your lungs and everything in you. even your soul. so when you smoke it it cancels each other out. the only way not to get cancer causing chemicals from smoking something is by vaporizing it instead of using fire.
5 :
i bet the die hard smokers will try and tell you it doesn't but lets look at this for what it is - inhaling a hot plant into an organ that has not developed to cope with that sort of thing. that is where cancers come from, persistent exposure to foreign toxins. i love weed as much as the next guy but i'm not going to delude myself that it's perfectly safe. no research that I am aware of has came to a definitive answer, so im inclined to go with what seems like common sense. anyway, cancer is not the only thing that can go wrong with your lungs or respiratory system.
6 :
It probably does. It's still not as bad for you as cigarettes, though.
7 :
Marijuana contains carcinogens BUT it does not cause cancer. And while inhaling burnt plant material isn't the best thing you could do for your lungs it also does not give you cancer. Marijuana doesn't cause cancer, heart disease, brain damage, liver damage, emphysema or death, and its addictive potential is about on par with coffee. "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. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect" - Dr. Donald Tashkin, author of the largest study ever conducted into marijuana and cancer. "In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. It is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. Marijuana does not meet the legal criteria of a Schedule I prohibited drug and should be reclassified" - DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young. "The actual and potential harm of use of marijuana is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, the possession of marijuana for personal use should no longer be an offense, and the casual distribution of small amounts of marijuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration no longer be an offense" - Governor Raymond P. Shafer, Commission chairman of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse ("the Shafer Commission").
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