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Can you get lung cancer from smoking weed?

December 28th, 2009 | by admin |

A new study suggests no, there have never been any reports indicating that someone has gotten lung cancer from weed.

"May 23, 2006 — People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancerlung cancer, new research suggests.

While a clear increase in cancercancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users.

Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers.

The findings surprised the study’s researchers, who expected to see an increase in cancer among people who smoked marijuana regularly in their youth.

“We know that there are as many or more carcinogens and co-carcinogens in marijuana smoke as in cigarettes,” researcher Donald Tashkin, MD, of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine tells WebMD. “But we did not find any evidence for an increase in cancer risk for even heavy marijuana smoking.” Carcinogens are substances that cause cancer.

Tashkin presented the findings today at The American Thoracic Society’s 102nd International Conference, held in San Diego.Boomers Reaching Cancer Age

The study population was limited to people who were younger than 60 because people older than that would probably not have used marijuana in their teens and early adult years.

“People who may have smoked marijuana in their youth are just now getting to the age when cancers are being seen,” Tashkin says.

A total of 611 lung cancer patients living in Los Angeles County, and 601 patients with other cancers of the head and neck were compared with 1,040 people without cancer matched for age, sex, and the neighborhood they lived in.

All the participants were asked about lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, as well as other drugs, their diets, occupation, family history of lung cancer, and socioeconomic status.

The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 and 22,000 joints.

While two-pack-a-day or more cigarette smokers were found to have a 20-fold increase in lung cancer risk, no elevation in risk was seen for even the very heaviest marijuana smokers.

The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater their risk of developing lung cancer and other cancers of the head and neck. But people who smoked more marijuana were not at increased risk compared with people who smoked less and people who didn’t smoke at all. "

THIS IS FROM WEBMD PEOPLE!!!
http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer

Ben - The data you present do NOT support the conclusion that marijuana is safer than tobacco or that it does not cause lung cancer. The major difference is that probably no one has smoked as much marijuana as the average lung cancer tobacco smoking person. Just do the math which many so-called scientists do not do as they forget to involve a statistician to determine whether the sample sizes are comparable. You cite what falsely seem to be a lot of marijuana but the 22,000 joints smoked over a lifetime amount to just a little over 3 pack-years. (22,000 divided by 20 cigarettes or joints per pack divided by 365 days per year is just a little over 3 pack years whereas cigarettes smokers commonly consume over 20 pack-years of tobacco. Marijuana seems to be safer mainly because people smoke much less marijuana in a lifetime than tobacco. Microscopically, using biopsies of the bronchial lung lining in contact with smoke, the earliest abnormal changes leading to cancer are found to be greater with marijuana than with tobacco. Of course many people smoke both. You pays your money and gets to choose your poison.