No Cancer-Marijuana Connection

[Swiss Miss]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...501729_pf.html

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

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.

"This is the largest case-control study ever done, and everyone had to fill out a very extensive questionnaire about marijuana use," he said. "Bias can creep into any research, but we controlled for as many confounding factors as we could, and so I believe these results have real meaning."

Tashkin's group at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA had hypothesized that marijuana would raise the risk of cancer on the basis of earlier small human studies, lab studies of animals, and the fact that marijuana users inhale more deeply and generally hold smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers -- exposing them to the dangerous chemicals for a longer time. In addition, Tashkin said, previous studies found that marijuana tar has 50 percent higher concentrations of chemicals linked to cancer than tobacco cigarette tar.

While no association between marijuana smoking and cancer was found, the study findings, presented to the American Thoracic Society International Conference this week, did find a 20-fold increase in lung cancer among people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.

The study was limited to people younger than 60 because those older than that were generally not exposed to marijuana in their youth, when it is most often tried.

Where's my bong-rippin' emoticon when I need it!?

[Martin]

Originally Posted by Swiss Miss

Where's my bong-rippin' emoticon when I need it!?

lol..yeah. Marijuana has all these medically therapuetical properties too..

While Alcohol has nothing close to beneficial. Yet Alcohol is legal..and Marijuana isnt. Go Figure.

Thats an interesting study though. Alot of mainstreamers out there think that any kind of smoking causes lung cancer. Which is wrong..Cigarettes have an overload of cancer causing carcinigens. (I think we need Creep over here to correct my spelling..me too tired)

[Sypher]

Originally Posted by Martin

...Cigarettes have an overload of cancer causing carcinigens. (I think we need Creep over here to correct my spelling..me too tired)

I'm not creep so all i can do is point out redundancy errors. :D
carcinogen.
car·cin·o·gen
n.

A cancer-causing substance or agent.

[waltky]

Granny says, "It'll make ya goofy!...

Marijuana withdrawal rivals nicotine
February 05, 2008 * Quitting pot causes irritability, anxiety * Withdrawal as severe as for nicotine

QUITTING marijuana can cause withdrawal symptoms as severe as those from quitting tobacco, a small US study suggests. The study, of 12 adults who were heavy users of both marijuana and cigarettes, found that stopping either substance triggered similar withdrawal symptoms. As with nicotine withdrawal, quitting marijuana caused symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, sleep problems and difficulty concentrating, researchers found.

"Marijuana is not as innocuous as some people would lead you to believe," said lead researcher Ryan Vandrey, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Previous research had shown that there is in fact a "marijuana withdrawal syndrome," he said. These new findings give some idea of its significance, Dr Vandrey explained.

It's not clear from this study whether marijuana withdrawal symptoms hinder many people from successfully quitting. However, Dr Vandrey said that past surveys of marijuana users in treatment have shown that people with withdrawal symptoms tend to have more failed quit attempts. The men and women in the current study, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, used marijuana four times a day, on average, and smoked an average of 20 cigarettes per day.

More Marijuana withdrawal rivals that of nicotine | NEWS.com.au

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - ya smoke dat goofyweed an' it'll make ya go crazy"...

Teen Potheads at Risk of Suicide
May 9, 2008 - Drugs, Teens, Pot Are Dangerous Mix

Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday. A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed -- 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters, director of the office. "This is not just youthful experimentation that they'll get over as we used to think in the past." Smoking marijuana can lead to more serious problems, Walters said in an interview. For example, using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers, it said. The report also cited research that showed that teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed were more than twice as likely as their peers to abuse or become addicted to pot -- 8 percent compared with 3 percent.

Experts who have worked with children say there's nothing harmless about marijuana. "I've seen many, many kids' lives negatively impacted and taken off track because of marijuana," said Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, director of adolescent services for Phoenix House treatment centers in California. "It's somewhat Russian roulette. There are so many factors, emotional, psychological, biological. You can't predict the experimentation and how it will impact a kid." The drug control policy office analyzed about a dozen studies looking at marijuana use, including research by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

More ABC News: Teen Potheads at Risk of Suicide

See also:

Texas Teens Make Bong From Human Skull
'Head' Cases Turn Skull Into Bong; 3 Houston teens charged with digging up a human skull and making a water bong

Three teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a marijuana bong. Police found a grave in the city of Humble that had been disturbed, but were still investigating the rest of the teens' story, Houston police Sgt. John Chomiak said.

Kevin Wade Jones, 17, and Matthew Richard Gonzalez, 17, both of Kingwood, were arrested Wednesday night and were being held on misdemeanor charges of abuse of a corpse, Chomiak said. The juvenile was referred to the Harris County juvenile justice system. A woman who answered the phone at Gonzalez's home declined comment. A telephone number for Jones could not immediately be found, and it wasn't clear from court records if either had an attorney.

Police were interviewing Jones about the use of a stolen debit card when he told them about the grave theft, which purportedly occurred around March 15, according to court documents. Asked why Jones would volunteer such a story, Chomiak said, "We can only speculate and guess to what goes on in the criminal mind." Gonzalez confirmed the story to investigators in a follow-up interview. Police were led to a heavily wooded site in Humble where they found a knocked-over headstone and water-filled hole more than 4 feet deep. At the time, the muddy water did not allow police to see if the coffin had been disturbed.

"They dug into this gravesite and that was enough to warrant the abuse of corpse charge," Chomiak said. "There has to be further investigation into the actual gravesite." Police believe the grave is that of an 11-year-old boy who died in 1921. Preliminary reports indicate it was part of a 19th-century veterans cemetery, Chomiak said. While residents in the area knew of the cemetery's existence, it did not appear to be maintained.

ABC News: Texas Teens Make Bong From Human Skull

[waltky]

"High"er Education...

Drug Use Up 52% on College Campuses
This Week's San Diego State U. Drug Bust Highlights Rise in University Cooperation with Law Enforcement

The arrest this week of 96 suspects on drug-related charges, including 75 students, after a six-month sting operation at San Diego State University is shining a fresh spotlight on the issue of growing substance abuse at America's colleges and universities. The incident also highlights the growing sophistication of on-campus drug sellers and the need for university officials and police to broaden their response capabilities to meet the growing challenge.

"The drug problem on American campuses has become so extensive that more and more university police are finding they don't have the manpower to fight it by themselves," says Joseph Califano, founding chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA). He says the stakes have risen in recent years with so many more hard drugs being used and sold. Local university police have noticed a big uptick in the numbers of related crimes, such as fights, robbery, property damage, and vandalism.

While the proportion of students who drink and binge has remained constant from 1993 to 2005, rates of daily marijuana use have more than doubled during that period, and use of other illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin have risen 52 percent, according to a CASA study. Just under half of full-time college students indulged in illegal drugs, the study found. Increasingly in recent years, and especially since the shootings at Virginia Tech last year, campus police at colleges and universities have forged better links with law enforcement.

More ABC News: Drug Use Up 52% on College Campuses

See also:

Busted Student to Dad: 'Sorry I Screwed Up So Bad'
May 7, 2008 - Arrested San Diego Student Apologizes to His Family; They Tell Him It's Too Late

"I'm sorry I screwed up so bad" were the shameful words of one of the arrested San Diego State University (SDSU) students to his stunned and saddened family. The father of the student, one of the 75 SDSU students arrested in yesterday's Drug Enforcement Administration drug bust, said his son was an "excellent" student who made a very "stupid" mistake.

"What was he thinking?" asked the father, who did not want to be named for fear of bringing more shame to his family. "I told him 'sorry' isn't going to do anything now," the father told ABCNews.com. "It's too late." His son, who was charged with selling cocaine to an undercover agent on campus, will spend the night in jail because his family cannot afford to pay his $9,000 bail.

Authorities arrested 96 people for charges stemming from possession and sales of cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and other drugs at SDSU. The mother of another student charged with possession of up to one ounce of cocaine and selling cocaine to an undercover agent on campus is worried about her son's future. "Every time my boy goes to check a box, he might be denied a job for this. They took the future of my son away," she said. But she added, "He put himself in that position."

More ABC News: Busted Student to Dad: 'Sorry I Screwed Up So Bad'