Did You Know Pot Was Bad For You?

I Have Known For Over 10 Years

A study done over 10 years ago found that smoking just one marijuana joint was the same as smoking five cigarettes in terms of the damage it does to your lungs. The damage marijuana does can result in chronic bronchitis, and other respiratory problems.

Dr. Richard Beasley, director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, was the lead researcher on the study and he said, "Many people think that marijuana is safe, but this shows that it's not safe." The study was printed in the journal Thorax and involved 339 people, those who smoked at least one marijuana cigarette a day for five years, people who smoked a pack of tobacco cigarettes a day for at least a year, and people who smoked both. There was also a group that smoked neither.

The 75 who smoked only marijuana, and the 91 who smoked tobacco and marijuana, complained of wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and phlegm. Signs of emphysema was found only among the tobacco smokers or tobacco plus marijuana. Marijuana did, however, damage the lungs, and stopped them from working correctly. It decreased the number of small fine airways, and damaged the large airways as well. The amount of damage was directly related to the number of joints smoked, so the more joints you have the more lung damage you get.

Damage from pot comes from its higher burn temperature, it being inhaled more deeply, it being held in the lungs longer than cigarettes, and because there is no filter. "We have always suspected that marijuana causes lung damage, but it's nice to have it quantified," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer at the American Lung Association. "Now we can say much more strongly, to people who smoke marijuana, that they are doing bad things to their lungs."

So put that in your pipe and smoke it hippies!