Is Smoking Carcinogenic? The Difference Between Cigarette's and Cannabis

wow that was very informative and well put together

 

+rep
I still hate that I have to smoke weed as opposed to vaporizing (can't afford one yet/don't have enough money to use only edibles) because I dissected a tobacco smokers cadaver, cause of death COPD and Emphysema in an anatomy class.
I would still think that these smoking diseases could be caused by smoking weed since, lets face it, inhaling particulate matter (tar) is bad for the lungs.
I'd say the main differences between tobacco and weed in this case is that even heavy marijuana users are unlikely to smoke nearly as much as tobacco users in terms of weight (a cigarette has about .8 grams of tobacco). Marijuana also has a bronchiodilating (opening airways) effect allowing a cough to more effectively expel tar whereas tobacco has a bronchiorestricting effect trapping more tar in the lungs.

 

very informative, I already dont have a very good respiratory system (really really bad asthma) but in the 2 months ive been smoking (mostly out of a bowl with occasional vaping at my dealer/friends place) I have not used my inhalers once... I used to use at least 2 out of the 3 i am prescribed at least 3 times a day. Clearly smoking weed must be better for the lungs than cigs, took one drag from a cig when i was drinking and had one of the worst asthma attacks of my life.

 

ewwwww

 

Yes, Think again. Cigarette companies will have you believing anything just as long as you continue to buy their products. The fact is, although insoluble tars are a contributing factor to the lung cancer danger present in today's cigarettes, the real danger is radioactivity
Don't smoke. Or if you do, smoke lightly, outdoors, and engage frequently in activities which will clear your lungs. Imported India tobacco has less than half the radiation content of that grown in the U.S.
Kicking the nicotine habit is not easy, and nobody has the right to expect it of you. Often physical addictions are reinforced by emotional and psychological needs. Filling or coming to terms with those needs can give you the inspiration and added freedom to succeed.
It's very difficult to dispute the medicinal value of marijuana/cannabis. It seems to be the only substance on Earth that can provide relief for the symptoms of lung cancer.

 

I bet most people on here do way worse things to their health than the carcinogenic implications of cannabis.

Things like not exercising enough, eating unhealthily and drinking have huge health implications compared to carcinogens in cannabis. If your really worried about it, i suggest you tackle your other unhealthy habits first, because these will kill you way before the MJ does.

I'b be willing to bet living in the city with all that pollution is way worse than carcinogens from cannabis. It doesn't matter how healthy or not weed is, keep in perspective all the other shit we put our body through daily.

 

Surgeon general: 1 cigarette is 1 too many - Yahoo! News

Surgeon general: 1 cigarette is 1 too many


By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer – Thu Dec 9, 12:23 am ET
WASHINGTON – Think the occasional cigarette won't hurt? Even a bit of social smoking - or inhaling someone else's secondhand smoke - could be enough to block your arteries and trigger a heart attack, says the newest surgeon general's report on the killer the nation just can't kick.
Lung cancer is what people usually fear from smoking, and yes, that can take years to strike. But Thursday's report says there's no doubt that tobacco smoke begins poisoning immediately - as more than 7,000 chemicals in each puff rapidly spread through the body to cause cellular damage in nearly every organ.
"That one puff on that cigarette could be the one that causes your heart attack," said Surgeon General Regina Benjamin.
Or the one that triggers someone else's: "I advise people to try to avoid being around smoking any way that you can," she said.
About 443,000 Americans die from tobacco-caused illnesses every year. While the smoking rate has dropped dramatically since 1964, when the first surgeon general's report declared tobacco deadly, progress has stalled in the past decade. About 46 million adults - one in five - still smoke, and tens of millions more are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. The government had hoped to drop the smoking rate to 12 percent by this year, a goal not only missed but that's now been put off to 2020.
Thursday's report is the 30th issued by the nation's surgeons general to warn the public about tobacco's risks.
"How many reports more does Congress need to have to say that cigarettes as a class of products ought to be banned?" asked well-known nicotine expert Dr. K. Michael Cummings of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, who helped to review the report. "One-third of the patients who are in our hospital are here today because of cigarettes."
Still, this newest report is unusual because it devotes more than 700 pages to detail the biology of how cigarette smoke accomplishes its dirty deeds - including the latest genetic findings to help explain why some people become more addicted than others, and why some smokers develop tobacco-caused disease faster than others.
There is no safe level of exposure to cigarette smoke, whether you deliberately inhale it or are a nonsmoker who breathes in other people's fumes, the report concludes. Nor is there evidence yet to tell if efforts to develop so-called safer cigarettes really will pan out.
But more recently it's become clear that some of the harms - especially those involving the heart - kick in right away, said Dr. Terry Pechacek of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That means social smoking, the occasional cigarette at a party, can be enough to trigger a heart attack in someone whose arteries already are silently clogged, he said.
"Too often people think the occasional social cigarette is not so dangerous, when in fact this report says yes, it is," he said.
So is breathing secondhand smoke. When Pueblo, Colo., banned smoking in all public places in 2003, the number of people hospitalized for heart disease plummeted 41 percent in just three years, the report found.
Why? Cigarette smoke immediately seeps into the bloodstream and changes its chemistry so that it becomes more sticky, allowing clots to form that can squeeze shut already narrowed arteries, the report explains. That's in addition to the more subtle long-term damage to blood vessels themselves, making them more narrow. And no one knows how little it takes to trigger that clotting.
Kicking the habit lets your body start healing, Benjamin stressed: "It's never too late to quit but the sooner you quit the better. Even if you're 70, 80 years old and you're a smoker, there's still benefit from quitting."


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You can read several articles in my "Granny's List" comparing "tobacco vs Cannabis" by just clicking the first link in my sig! Here's the first 3 links of over 2 dozen, just to get you interested-


So, you thought it was the tar that caused cancer... (news - no date)
So, you thought it was the tar that caused cancer...

Radioactive tobacco (letter - 1982)
Lycaeum > Leda > Radioactive Tobacco

Marijuana v.s. Tobacco smoke compositions (list - 1988)
Marijuana v.s. Tobacco smoke compositions



(And any time someone tries to tell you cannabis is worse than tobacco- Challenge them to a cigarette-eating contest. You eat a joint, they eat a tobacco cigarette- see who gets sick first! )


Granny