Posted on 01/27/2008 5:32:48 AM PST by saganite
A new study finds that the development of bullous lung disease occurs in marijuana smokers approximately 20 years earlier than tobacco smokers.
A condition often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or long-term exposure to tobacco smoke, bullous lung disease (also known as bullae) is a condition where air trapped in the lungs causes obstruction to breathing and eventual destruction of the lungs.
At present, about 10% of young adults and 1% of the adult population smoke marijuana regularly. Researchers find that the mean age of marijuana-smoking patients with lung problems was 41, as opposed to the average age of 65 years for tobacco-smoking patients.
The study "Bullous Lung Disease due to Marijuana" also finds that the bullous lung disease can easily go undetected as patients suffering from the disease may show normal chest X-rays and lung functions. High-resolution CT scans revealed severe asymmetrical, variably sized bullae in the patients studied. However, chest X-rays and lung functions were normal in half of them.
Lead author Dr. Matthew Naughton says, "What is outstanding about this study is the relatively young ages of the lung disease patients, as well as the lack of abnormality on chest X-rays and lung functions in nearly half of the patients we tested."
He added, "Marijuana is inhaled as extremely hot fumes to the peak inspiration and held for as long as possible before slow exhalation. This predisposes to greater damage to the lungs and makes marijuana smokers are more prone to bullous disease as compared to cigarette smokers."
Patients who smoke marijuana inhale more and hold their breath four times longer than cigarette smokers. It is the breathing manoeuvres of marijuana smokers that serve to increase the concentration and pulmonary deposition of inhaled particulate matter – resulting in greater and more rapid lung destruction.
This paper is published in the January 2008 issue of Respirology.
Nah!
If you look back on my posts on the subject of marijuana over the years I have been in FR, you will see that I am no pro-drug libertarian. I am no pro-drug anything.
However, I am highly (no pun) skeptical of this “study”.
Marijuana smokers have been around a long time. I don’t see pieces of coughed-up lung on the subway, and I ride the NYC subway every day, and I’m sure there’s more than a few potheads riding with me.
This sounds like Reefer Madness to me.
Why are these side effects any more dire than 90% of other prescription drugs?
Think they care? More business for them.
When my youngest son was going through the tortures of hell in the early 80's with the cut-burn-poison regime of cancer treatment, they gave him 'medical marijuana" to combat nausea. It was in pill form and did diddly - he threw it away after the first week
Doctors don’t prescribe it in California. They can only make what are called “recommendations”.
I don’t see coughed up lung myself but what’s that supposed to prove. Good grief, come up with something more substantive than that as an excuse to dismiss the study!
Dude! Get a bong.
The article isn’t talking about marijuana in pill form. If you read it, it specifically refers to marijuana ingested through smoke.
Gotta keep that WOD going, man. The govt relies on the forfeiture incomes now. Cops have excellent second incomes by stealing form the homes they raid and selling the stuff later after stealing it from the evidence room. No way it can ever be stopped, even though it is a complete and total failure on all levels.
The Pharisees of the Public Temple gotta have these issues to prove how superior they are to everyone else.
Heavy drug use, drinkin, smoking.....whatever you abuse and put into your body WILL show in the body. Forty year olds who have lived this lifestyle look sixty. It all adds up, especially when you do all of the above.
I’m not trying to prove anything. I am not a medical researcher.
I am just coughing-up my gut reaction to this story. Marijuana smokers have been around in very large numbers since the late 60s and suddenly some “researcher” has “discovered” they have a high incidence of lung disease.
If that turns out to be true with further studies, then tough titties for the marijuana smokers, of which I am not one.
But until it’s confirmed with a lot more studies, I remain HIGHLY skeptical — without being high at all. Ever.
I don’t get high on anything, but I am often highly skeptical of things I read, even things labeled “research”.
I am not one of you. I am not an anti-WarOnDrug fanatic. Don’t count me as one of your soldiers. I just call’em as I see’em and this stinks of bogus to me.
Guess Bill was lucky he “didn’t inhale”...
Potheads are divorced from reality.
Ice climbers, sky divers, ocean kayakers and even sushi eaters face significant risks to their survival. It is not the job of government in a free society to deny risky choices to people, unless those people violate the rights or damage the property of others.
Ok, the following dismisses the study: Smoking pot is already illegal under federal law, therefore, it simply doesn’t matter how hazardous it is. Why was this study even done?
Of course they are.
But so are you Armchair Drug Warriors.
The war on drugs is a farce and designed to keep drug dealers in business. Legalize most drugs and take the money out of it. You instantly lose a huge amount of crime, just as happened when prohibition was repealed. Take the money out of it and you take the crime out of it, and if MJ smokers want to ruin their lungs , let them. Their lungs belong to themselves not the government or some self righteous A**ho** pretending to be a conservative.
It is.
Every so often the War-On-Drugs types have to re-justify their own existence.... and it doesn't matter to them what crap study they use to get folks worried again.
Next we'll hear that smoking pot makes your left arm fall off. The fact that nobody actually knows any real person whose left arm fell off due to pot smoking will be ignored....
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