New Study Further Debunks Marijuana-Cancer Link

[MI Compassion]

http://blog.mpp.org/medical-marijuana/new-study-further-debunks-marijuana-cancer-link/04022010/

 

New Study Further Debunks Marijuana-Cancer Link

by Mitch Earleywine

 

Prohibitionists continue to shout whatever they can to frighten voters. As more and more U.S. citizens realize that current marijuana laws do more harm than good, the misinformation is going to get stranger and stranger. Just watch.

 

One classic cry is that marijuana might cause cancer. Recent work out of Brown University actually reveals quite the opposite. Researchers gathered hundreds of people from Massachusetts who had head or neck cancers and compared them to similar people from the same neighborhoods who had no cancer. Despite the reefer-madness rants, those who had used marijuana for a decade or two were significantly less likely to develop these cancers than those who did not use marijuana. In fact, their rates of cancer were less than half the rate among non-users. Anything else that cut the rates of cancer in half would be hailed as the newest wonder drug for tumor prevention.

 

As Dr. Bob Melamede explained almost five years ago in a delightful article from Harm Reduction Journal, cannabinoids inhibit tumor growth, so marijuana can’t cause cancer. Cannabinoids show promise for battling cancer, not creating it.

 

So the next time you meet another misinformed prohibitionist squealing about marijuana causing cancer, feel free to spread the word.

 

Dr. Mitch Earleywine is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he teaches drugs and human behavior, substance abuse treatment and clinical research methods. He is the author of more than 100 publications on drug use and abuse, including “Understanding Marijuana” and “The Parents’ Guide to Marijuana.” He is the only person to publish with both Oxford University and High Times.

[christinax4]

great post

[Moss]

This isn't actually all that "new" the study was published July '09. For some reason it has started making the rounds again a week or two ago. It's all good though.

[greenleaf]

I still think that Cannabis has to cause some form of lung disease.

 

Think of the last time you cleaned your vaporizer, pipe, whichever, and now picture that being your throat and lungs.

 

 

I agree that when eaten Cannabis is fairly or completely safe. But I can't co-sign when it comes to smoking.

[Moss]

Yes, inhaling smoke of any kind is not good for you lungs but there is no evidence of cancer, in fact there is the opposite. COPD and the like are still pretty up in the air with studies going both ways. I saw a study before, I can't remember what lung condition it related to but nonetheless, in this study the illness was compared between 4 groups, non-smokers, cigarette smokers, cannabis smokers, and cigarette+cannabis smokers. The results were... cigarette only smokers had higher instances of the illness than not only cannabis smokers but cigarette+cannabis smokers, leading the researchers to believe there is something about cannabis smoke that protects from the cigarette smoke.

[MightyMightyMezz]

I still think that Cannabis has to cause some form of lung disease.

 

Think of the last time you cleaned your vaporizer, pipe, whichever, and now picture that being your throat and lungs.

 

 

I agree that when eaten Cannabis is fairly or completely safe. But I can't co-sign when it comes to smoking.

 

What diseases does it cause? I know it helped my lungs when I was having severe asthma symptoms due to living with a number of cats. All of a sudden I could breathe and sleeep instead of wheeze all night. So nice. I mean it's not really scientific to just be like well it has to do something bad to your lungs. Lungs are a lot more complex than a bong. The results speak for their self anyway, don't they? People who smoke Cannabis don't get lung disease any more than people who don't. I bet you they don't get lung disease especially when they smoke really good organic herb.

[greenleaf]

What diseases does it cause? I know it helped my lungs when I was having severe asthma symptoms due to living with a number of cats. All of a sudden I could breathe and sleeep instead of wheeze all night. So nice. I mean it's not really scientific to just be like well it has to do something bad to your lungs. Lungs are a lot more complex than a bong. The results speak for their self anyway, don't they? People who smoke Cannabis don't get lung disease any more than people who don't. I bet you they don't get lung disease especially when they smoke really good organic herb.

 

I grow 100% organic and clean my vape 2x a month. I wish I would have saved the screen to photograph it for you.

 

If that screen was my lungs, they'd be messed.

 

To be frank, I don't trust the pro-marijuana studies any more than the anti-marijuana studies. There is a lot of cash and a lot of politics on both sides. It's hard to be in the middle of that.

 

But as a common sense person, I can't believe that NOTHING is happening to your body as a result of smoking. I'm the one who cleanse all my weed stuff and I know how darn dirty it gets.

[Guest thequietone]

This is my 2 cents on this subject. I was diagnosed with lung cancer in 08, a carcinoid tumor in my right lung. It had no outside influence and I would have got it no matter what I did. When I talked to the surgeon who removed it he told me that the my left lung was a perfectly healthy lung and I should have no problems with just the one lung. I have smoked cannabis since 74 and there was no sign of me being a cannabis smoker or a smoker of anything.

[FloridityNow]

I grow 100% organic and clean my vape 2x a month. I wish I would have saved the screen to photograph it for you.

 

If that screen was my lungs, they'd be messed.

 

To be frank, I don't trust the pro-marijuana studies any more than the anti-marijuana studies. There is a lot of cash and a lot of politics on both sides. It's hard to be in the middle of that.

 

But as a common sense person, I can't believe that NOTHING is happening to your body as a result of smoking. I'm the one who cleanse all my weed stuff and I know how darn dirty it gets.

 

 

Oh, ye of little faith....

 

The residues left in your vaporizer apparatus are from condensation; whereas, the body's metabolic process begins instantly to break down these combined substances once the vapor enters your lungs. By collecting the vape residue in the cleaning process, you can then mix it with a therapeutic transdermal agent, like Emu oil, and not waste a single molecule of your cannabinoid rich cannabis. The vape residue is healthy (provided the plant material you're vaping is organic) but the residue from a combustion (smoke) pipe is far different in that it contains nasty (toxic) by-products from the actual burning.

 

It is amazing though how much crud the human body has to process during the course of a lifetime - or even through the course of a day. We all eat spiders, apparently.

 

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection - Washington Post

"The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer."

 

So, it appears that anyone that can't or won't quit smoking tobacco should at least add cannabis to their blend in order to stave off the development of lung cancer and/or also regularly consume cannabinoids as a natural defense mechanism - the wing & the prayer for the destructive personality.

 

What is common sense? "It's the good sense a horse has not to bet on humans" - W.C. Fields

[GregS]

"It is amazing though how much crud the human body has to process during the course of a lifetime - or even through the course of a day. We all eat spiders, apparently."

 

Yah. My Ma told me that we all eat a pound of dirt before we die. My Pa pulled me aside and told me, Son, she is about half right. You will eat something, and it will be a ton, not a pound, and it will be bunny muffin, and not dirt.

 

Turns out the old boy was pretty smart.