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Rare "Healthy" Smokers Lungs Explained
Bruce66423 writes: New research suggests that a portion of the population suffers few problems from smoking because their genes enable the smoke's effects to be overcome. The Medical Research Council reports: "The new findings, which used the first analyses of genetic data from participants in UK Biobank, may one day help scientists develop better treatments for diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a collection of life-threatening lung disorders affecting almost one million people in the UK. The findings could also help improve interventions aimed at helping smokers to give up."
That is an oversimplification. First of all where I live relatively few places ban e-cigs, the few that do ban them is more about people not wanting cloaks of smoke, or nicotine steam, sprewed on them.
But to be honest you do not know what is in the vaps. Are they using the "safe" liquids you can buy at the store, or did they mix their own and have other "unsafe" chemicals in them. You are free to smoke, you are not free to poison me.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
> Marijuana is not at all harmful like cigarettes
Right. It's harmful like marijuana, which clearly causes no parallel effects to cigarettes like elevated pulse, vasoconstriction, altered state of consciosness, and has no chance of causing addiction or of introducing naturally carcinogenic chemicals to your mouth and other respiratory passages.
That belief is strange, because it causes _all_ of those according to the reliable medical research. It's even stranger when surveys of the purity of street grade consistently show adulteration with different filler substances and mood-altering substances: a great deal of street grade marijuna is very poor quality, may be pesticide or herbicide contaminated, and is very occasionally still laced with PCP in the US. Moreover, tobacco and nicotine are still used medicinally, and even as an effective toothpaste in some parts of the world.
It's important to keep the scale of risk and benefit in mind for both, but to assert that one is completely harmless and the other completely useless midically is to ignore history and well-executed research on both.
Marijuana is not at all harmful like cigarettes. Inhaling any smoke is not good for you, however, the main difference is that marijuana is just a dried out plant which is basically harmless.
Innocuous? Maybe. Harmless? Demonstrably not.
Commercial tobacco, by comparison, is not just a plant but it is loaded with a plethora of toxic chemicals
First off, comparisons with tobacco based smokes is the very definition of damning with faint praise. There is basically nothing redeeming about tobacco based smokes. Second, marijuana has plenty of adverse effects of its own. Just because it isn't as toxic as other products isn't really germane.
Marijuana can also have health benefits
Spare me. "Medical marijuana" is in almost all cases nothing more than a fig leaf to cover people who want to get high. I do not actually care if people want to smoke weed but it offends me that they think I'm so stupid as to think more than a tiny number are doing so for any valid medical reason. I don't have a problem with people using it for actual medicinal properties (and it does appear to have some) but then it should be sold at a pharmacy like any other drug. I really don't have a problem with people smoking weed so long as they do so responsibly. I do have a problem with people pretending it is for medical conditions when it really isn't.
I have never heard of medicinal tobacco.
Tobacco is an important research crop and has its uses. It's not used so much directly as a medication but it does have some positive impact in this regard. Probably the only positive thing about it really.
Listen to drinky. Nicotine is a really pretty great medicinal. It was Adderall before there was Big Pharma, and it's not a fluke that Native Americans made it a sacrament. The main problem with smoking is not the drug, but the delivery system.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you're going to ban things that "pollute the common air" based on fear, misinformation, and paranoia I vote we ban scented candles and perfumes.
Scented candles fill the air with an mix of thousands of unknown chemicals. Worse, the FDA has not evaluated their safety! I don't care how much of an idiot you look like with your miniature fires.
Required reading for internet skeptics
And do you block all children from entering, or atleast the teenagers coming to eat with friends?
Way to move the goal post. Regardless, I would think it would depend on the legal age for smoking, wouldn't it? Hell, bars already deal with this. If someone's under 21, they have to be accompanied by their guardian in most places. There are tobacco bars as well. Have smoking restaurants follow the same policy.
a great deal of street grade marijuna is very poor quality, may be pesticide or herbicide contaminated, and is very occasionally still laced with PCP in the US
You lie. Not only is this not happening, your little tale doesn't even pass the smell test. Dealers selling bad marijuana are not lacing/spiking it with PCP. The dealers are in this to make money and buying PCP so they can sprinkle on their weed seems like a bad story from a 1982 DARE program speech. What's next, the kid who took LSD and thought he could fly?
How about this instead: a great deal of street grade marijuana is sold because marijuana sells itself. Nothing else needs to be added.
There is so much fail in this I don't even know where to start.
Marijuana has far more positive health effects than negative. In fact THC the chemical that gets you "high" is anti carcinogenic and has proven cancer fighting effects http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
"Purity" of street level product. Oy vey what a statement. You realize your fruits and vegetables have pesticides and herbicides on them as well right? Not to mention all of the nutrient "uptake" from fertilizers is in that plant. You are what you eat, includes plants as well. As for "purity" of the THC content, you either have cheap herb or dank green. Even a plant you grow yourself will have varying quality of THC. In the same way that your vegetables grown in the back yard won't have 100% the same nutritional facts as something grown on a properly fertilized farm.
Finally, PCP laced marijuana? Are you kidding me? Why would any dealer bother lacing weed with PCP? You know PCP is insanely more expensive than marijuana right? Why would a dealer undercut his own prices lacing it with a drug as ridiculous as PCP? Stop quoting DARE literature from 1982.
Want to know a secret about life long tobacco smokers? They're most likely cannabis smokers as well (that anti-carcinogenic effect).
Tell that to the families with children with epilepsy being successfully treated for seizures and other symptoms using cannabis oil.
Just as soon as you provide adequate evidence in the form of unambiguous medical studies confirming its effectiveness for the conditions. Right now the evidence for cannibidiol is largely anecdotal and the effectiveness or lack thereof is unclear.
Even if it does work it doesn't follow that because a demonstrably small number of people get genuine medical relief I'm supposed to believe that everybody people seeking marijuana are actually doing so for legitimate medical reasons. You must be either high yourself or dumb if you believe that. I had a dispensary open up (briefly) right next door to my office about 3 years ago. I assure you that NOBODY (or near as makes no difference) that was showing up was the slightest bit ill. These were people looking to get high. The medical exemption was largely an effort for most people to make an end run around federal and state laws against the substance so they could get high. Nothing more.
Your information is extremely prejudiced, and out of date.
Prejudiced? Hardly. I don't give a shit at all if people want to smoke weed recreationally. I just want them to be honest about it and stop pretending that it has anything to do with medicine for all but a tiny handful of cases.
There are many people with debilitating diseases and conditions that cannabis can provide treatment or relief from.
"Many"? Define many. I'll concur that the number is greater than zero. However the real number is a LOT less than the number seeking the product through. My wife is a physician and has been asked plenty of times for a prescription for marijuana by someone with no relevant medical condition.
Humanity is crying out for better painkillers, and marijuana, yes, medical marijuana, has promise there. Or do you not consider management of severe chronic pain a valid medical reason?
I'll consider it a valid medical treatment when it is sold through a pharmacy like any other drug. It it works for pain management then I am all for it. I'm even willing to accept that there is evidence that it could be an effective treatment for some. HOWEVER, stop conflating the issue. Most people aren't going to get medical marijuana cards for pain management. They are getting them so they can get high. If you believe otherwise you are either naive or you are one of the people trying to get high yourself. I strongly believe that marijuana should be regulated roughly the same as tobacco or alcohol but I'm not dumb enough to believe the transparent arguments that people are making for non-existent medical conditions that conveniently can only be treated by getting high with weed.
If we want to use products of cannabis to treat medical conditions then that is fine but let's do it just like we do for any other drug. It needs to go through the FDA and be tested in double blind studies just like any other drug. Show me the evidence and the properly conducted medical studies and I'm 100% on board if it works.
And there are not a "tiny number" of people with chronic pain. I'd argue ALL the other drugs are as bad or worse than marijuana for that application.
And you received your medical degree from where exactly? You've already spouted off a bunch of half informed nonsense to try to make the side effects of existing medications sound more horrible than they really are. You've also only selected a few of the many pain killers out there. I've dealt with pain management with family members personally including my mother right now. Your argument demonstrates to me that you have no idea what you are talking about on that topic.