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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."

7 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Won't stop the moral hysteria by thaylin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    When you cant win, ad hominem.
  2. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > 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.

  3. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you look around you can find information on a number of health benefits to tobacco, many of which are legitimate.

    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.

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    You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. Re:Won't stop the moral hysteria by narcc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Won't stop the moral hysteria by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  6. You lie. by tacokill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by areusche · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).