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IS SMOKING CANNABIS HARMFUL TO HEALTH?

Large Study Finds No Link between Marijuana and Lung Cancer: Scientific America, September 2010

see also Pot Smokers Just As Healthy - Study: National Post (Canada), 11 June 2001

"Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving everything they've heard from government and police about drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true." - Ann Shulgin, PhD, Therapist and Author, Lafayette, CA, at the DPF Conference, November 1996.

Cannabis smoke dilates the capillaries in the lungs whereas tobacco contracts them. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO LINK CANNABIS WITH CAUSING CANCER OR ANY OTHER DISEASE . Tests and experiments with THC alone are invalid in consideration of cannabis.

BUT SEE Radioactivity in Tobacco

The Jamaican Study 1970 said:
"... as a multipurpose plant, ganga is used medicinally, even by non-smokers. ....There were no indications of organic brain damage or chromosome damage among smokers and no significant clinical psychiatric, psychological or medical) differences between smokers and controls"

The Costa Rican Study, 1971, carried out by the University of Florida National Institute of healthy, said:
"No significant health consequences to chronic cannabis smokers."

In the Greek Study of 1975:
C.N.Stefanic and M.R.Issodorides presented microphotographs of damaged human sperm; LATER it was revealed that the photographs had been doctored and they were obliged to issue a correction of mis-information, in Science magazine" The Greek Study had been sponsored by the US Governments National Institute on Drug Abuse. (NIDA)

The UK Wootton Report of 1968 agreed with the Indian Hemp commission and said:
"Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee (1944 - LaGuardia) that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects. "

Taken from the Sydney Morning Herald (an Australian newspaper), Tuesday 18 February. Written by Leonie Lamont
"One of the first studies of long-term marijuana use in Australia has found the health of such users is on par with the general population. The study - conducted in the subculture of North Coast of NSW. in which cannabis use is an integral part of everyday life and social relationships - involved interviews with 268 marijuana smokers and 31 non-using partners and family members. It was funded through the Commonwealth Department of Health's National Drug Strategy.

Mr David Reilly, chief investigator for the study, said the average profile for the interviewees was of regular marijuana use from the age of 17, lasting for 19 years. Some 94 per cent smoked it at least twice a week, and 60 per cent smoked it daily, with a typical quantity being two joints a day of the potent flowering heads of female plants.

We have nothing startling. We don't see any evidence of high psychological disturbance among the people, we see very little evidence of health problems except for respiratory problems, said Mr Reilly, who is manager of the drug and alcohol program with the Northern Rivers Health Service.

Schizophrenia has been linked with cannabis use but Mr Reilly said there had been no evidence of the illness in the sample.

Cannabis doesn't cause schizophrenia, in a nutshell. Most of those [generally younger people predisposed to schizophrenia] that would have had those feelings wouldn't have continued to use cannabis for 20 years.

However, the rate of respiratory problems among the marijuana users was higher than the general population. "

IS CANNABIS DANGEROUS?

DEA Judge Young (USA), after careful consideration of many testimonials and reports, concluded that cannabis is less dangerous than most of the vegetables that we eat today. Everything can be dangerous - in water one can drown, in air fires can spread rapidly, excessive sunshine burns, excessive food bloats, sporting and leisure activities are often dangerous. THE GREATEST DANGERS OF CANNABIS ARE THE DANGERS OF ARREST, OF LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL, AND OF THE SUPPLY BEING MIXED WITH THAT OF DRUGS.

"Marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia"....Professor Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School, USA

The Report of the Australian Government 1996 says : "The ... major possible adverse effects of chronic, heavy cannabis use ... remain to be confirmed
"The major health and psychological effects of chronic cannabis use, especially daily use over many years, remain uncertain
"As has been stressed ... there is uncertainty. ......To varying degrees ....inferences from animal research, laboratory studies, and clinical observations about probable ill effects. In some cases inferences depend upon arguments from what is known about the adverse effects of other drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol.
"flashback experiences ...have been rarely reported by cannabis users... have typically used other hallucinogenic drugs" The probable and possible adverse health and psychological effects of cannabis need to be placed in comparative perspective to be fully appreciated. "

The report is full of words like "possible", "probable", "uncertain". It is quite inconclusive, a huge waste of Australian money.

The USA Shafer Commission of 1975 said:
"There is no evidence that experimental or intermittent use of marijuana causes physical or psychological harm. The risk lies instead in heavy, long-term use of the drug. "

IS CANNABIS ADDICTIVE?

The LaGuardia Committee 1944 said: "The practice of marijuana smoking does not lead to addiction in the medical sense of the word"

The Shafer Commission of 1970 said:
Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug

The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy (1987) said:
"Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation".

High Times Online has published an excellent article that documents numerous studies showing that long term use of marijuana is NOT harmful

see also:
Marijuana gateway risk overblown: study
UK: Study Finds No Cannabis Link To Hard Drugs: Sunday Times, 16 December 2001
Cannabis and Driving
Potent Quotes
Cannabis and cancer
Cannabis studies
Does Marijuana Use Cause Long-Term Cognitive Deficits?: Four letters in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 22 May 2002