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Smoking pot is not as safe as you think.

Depends on how "safe you think" it is doesn't it? Notice there are no numbers in the item, indications of prevalence, to allow one to assess the putative risks. Although the American Lung Association is a fine organization genuinely devoted to public health, and focused on one subject, minimizing the prevalence of lung injury, they are - by the same token - not interested in giving a balanced presentation of what is known about risks.

Here is the abstract from the current gold-standard study of this subject:

Regular smoking of marijuana by itself causes visible and microscopic injury to the large airways that is consistently associated with an increased likelihood of symptoms of chronic bronchitis that subside after cessation of use. On the other hand, habitual use of marijuana alone does not appear to lead to significant abnormalities in lung function when assessed either cross-sectionally or longitudinally, except for possible increases in lung volumes and modest increases in airway resistance of unclear clinical significance. Therefore, no clear link to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has been established. Although marijuana smoke contains a number of carcinogens and cocarcinogens, findings from a limited number of well-designed epidemiological studies do not suggest an increased risk for the development of either lung or upper airway cancer from light or moderate use, although evidence is mixed concerning possible carcinogenic risks of heavy, long-term use. Although regular marijuana smoking leads to bronchial epithelial ciliary loss and impairs the microbicidal function of alveolar macrophages, evidence is inconclusive regarding possible associated risks for lower respiratory tract infection. Several case reports have implicated marijuana smoking as an etiologic factor in pneumothorax/pneumomediastinum and bullous lung disease, although evidence of a possible causal link from epidemiologic studies is lacking. In summary, the accumulated weight of evidence implies far lower risks for pulmonary complications of even regular heavy use of marijuana compared with the grave pulmonary consequences of tobacco.

This is a balanced assessment. Yes, you will see the same concerns mentioned by the ALA -- but not the counterbalancing factor (for example) that there are no significant abnormalities in lung function which is kind of an important fact here.

Of course vaping cannabis is very popular now, so actual smoking of the material is surely on a steep decline.

One factor that explains why the numerous studies that have been done have failed to find any increase in lung cancer with cannabis use (aside from the fact that cannabis smokers consume far less material than tobacco smokers) is that nicotine is a cancer promoter, while THC suppresses cancer! You won't ever find that mentioned on an ALA page.

Smoking pot is not as safe as you think.

LIVING is not safe. You take risks every time you draw a breath. The question isn't if something is dangerous. The question is simply whether the risk outweighs the reward. Being chronically stoned is a crappy way to live life, regardless of its effects on your lungs. Occasionally getting a buzz involves some risks but can also improve the quality of some people's lives. A similar observation can be made about alcohol.

Smoking pot is not as safe as you think.

http://www.lung.org/stop-smoki...

That study in [8] seems to agree with me, as they define SHS exposure in terms of how much exposure is received, with SHS exposure below their threshold being considered non-exposure.

IOW, they don't consider "2nd-hand cigarette smoke from a passing smoker " to be SHS. This lets them lead the abstract off with "no levels of SHS are safe" because they specifically ignore non-chronic SHS. Smart. Misleading, but smart.

I've not seen any study on non-chronic SHS. Every study leaves it out, usually because the non-chronic SHS impact is too small to even be measured, nevermind compared against other things on the street (noxious fumes from cars comes to mind).

http://www.lung.org/stop-smoki...

Living near busy roads is bad for you too:

http://www.lung.org/our-initia...

Maybe this is why people like living in the suburbs?

There have been numerous studies on second hand smoke and it has been shown to be quite dangerous. Even a small amount is bad and has been shown that it can cause long-term health issues.

The health effects of coal power plant emissions are so horrible (50,000 deaths a year in the U.S., more in China)

No, you're thinking of second-hand smoke.

Notice that they say "22,700 to 69,600 deaths from heart disease each year." That's because there's a wide confidence interval. That page has a very important lesson -- none of these numbers are exact, and they all have a range. That's because it's difficult to figure out what the effects are. When I talk to these people, one of the questions I ask is, "Where did you get those numbers from?" They use good methods, but they'll be the first to acknowledge in their papers that their methods and results aren't exact.

As to the coal power deaths, Wikipedia gave 24,000 a year, and there are reasonable grounds to disagree.

The health effects of coal power plant emissions are so horrible (50,000 deaths a year in the U.S., more in China)

No, you're thinking of second-hand smoke.

When folks like the Koch brothers are found to directly affect local politics across the entire nation, donating millions to sway election decisions, it becomes simple fact rather than fear.

Fear itself is not a bad thing, but Irrational fear is. Frightened people are easily controlled. Although your argument might appear to put my statement in the same class, it only appears that way. For example, death panels were widely used to scare people when health care reform was begin drafted. The simple facts are quite different with specific text preventing the fed from denying any type of medical care or 'rationing'. This would be an irrational fear. In my statement, I indicated that big money is pulling the strings. The fact that these political organizations must often disclose their donors, and those donors happen to be folks like the Koch brothers, puts the statement into fact, rather than irrational fear.

http://philanthropy.com/article/Koch-Brothers-Influence/140227/

Their donations are public record. They spend millions to sway elections towards business friendly politicians. They aren't the only ones. Does this follow the same category that implied the president was friendly towards the 9/11 Terrorists that killed thousands of Americans, that Death Panels would be used to let the Fed decide who lives and who dies, etc. The above fear mongering had no basis in fact. Even worse, it was peddled by both news outlets, and directly from the mouths of representatives of the government itself. Pailin and her anti-immunization rant is a good example of fear based rhetoric with no basis in fact.

The following examples are reports, obtained from public disclosures of donations by various political groups, some loosely defined 'charities', etc.

http://www.lung.org/associations/states/california/for-the-media/inthenews/study-tobacco-money.html
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/01/12591/gun-lobbys-money-and-power-still-holds-sway-over-congress
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/11/local/la-me-special-interests-20100712

Are they in the same category?

You mean no-one can live within 20km of them?

Only because the coal companies would shit themselves if people believed that.