Weed makes driving more dangerous, lowers motivation and focus, etc. You want to do that to unwind, fine. But do it at home or in a designated smoking area I can know to avoid.
Marijuana, on the other hand, slows your reaction time and hampers decision making, as well as (in a small percentage of people, but including me) triggers depression, paranoia, and psychosis. Although it is legal to have and to smoke where I live, you still can't do it while driving a car or in public spaces. Doesn't seem to stop people though :\
On the other hand. The impairment you are talking about has been shown to affect non regular users more.[0] and to be negligible to regular users.
I wouldn’t want to be driving on the road with someone after they smoked their very first cigarette. I remember what that was like the first time I inhaled. It’s all relative. Marijuana can be less psychoactive than nicotine depending on the person and their tolerances. Just anecdata but people also report some cultivars of marijuana calms nerves while improving focus.
[0] https://norml.org/news/2022/06/16/study-regular-cannabis-con...
I agree, in either tobacco or Marijuana, your not going to accidentally get high just existing in a smoking area. Marijuana however smells gross from a distance, I would be polite where you light up. Thats just common sense.
> I wouldn’t want to be driving on the road with someone after they smoked their very first cigarette. I remember...
As someone who had regularly done both, this is very wrong. First time smoking tobacco, yes I'd never want to drive in that state, but nicotine I would argue helps me pay attention, especially when driving for hours in a straight line. (Guess where I live) Marijuana however impaired me every time, and similar to alcohol I would never drive in that state.
I do think we can agree that the weed <-> tobacco comparison is not very useful, as weed is more closely comparable to alcohol.
You lost me there.
There is no reason to believe that weed smoke is any better or worse than cigarette smoke. Burnt plant matter is burnt plant matter and contains lots of garbage--most of which isn't good for anybody.
The only difference nowadays is that a lot of people consume both nicotine and THC using vaping and concentrated liquid. This is probably less damaging in terms of secondhand smoke as the temperature is lower and the goal is vaporization rather than oxidation.
It is impossible to say one way or another as the internet is full of both sides of opinions. It is easy to find articles that say that weed smoking isn't as bad as cigarette smoke. I personally don't trust either side though.
But, from a logical point of view, they have very different compounds in them, so there must be some sort of difference.
I haven't paid much attention, but there was a pretty big JAMA paper a decade or so ago that didn't demonstrate much risk at something like "a joint per day for 40 years" level consumption.
Vaping may well have its own -- perhaps even greater -- risks, but I hadn't assumed propylene glycol to be particularly carcinogenic. Is it? CDC says doesn't seem to be raising major red flags: https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=1...
Certainly not an area of expertise for me, I'd always thought of it as closer to a fog machine at a Halloween party than inhaling burning pieces of ash. Other than the vitamin e (?) associated illnesses a few years ago, is there good reason to think otherwise?
For some reason people think it is tobacco that causes lung cancer, and therefore joints are safe/healthy. Ridiculous. It is inhaling all that ash that gives you lung and throat cancer.
Vaping avoids the carcinogens of cigarette smoke, but likely carries its own risks. As you mention it's like breathing in a Halloween/stage smoke. But why do you think that is safe to do?
Ultimately if the air is smokey, it contains particulate matter. That particulate matter is not good for your lungs, no matter what it is.
I imagine that this is orders of magnitude lower for marijuana smokers than tobacco smokers, especially in this era with most flower being >20% THC by mass.
There are also vaporizers that just pass hot air over marijuana flower.
This reads like medieval miasmatic theory.
In other news, breathing and living is the #1 cause of death.
The quality of the air you breathe is what affects your risk of developing cancer. Burning tobacco releases the most amount of harmful particles, and even then, many people spend years inhaling it without ever developing cancer.
Vaporizing marijuana is done by exposing it to much lower temperatures, which doesn't release the same particles as burning. Thus, it's not the same kind of smoke.
Additionally, marijuana doesn't have the chemicals linked to cancer to begin with. Tobacco even if ingested can increase the risk of cancer.
But ultimately, everything you do, from the city you live in, to your household environment, to your genetic predisposition and lifestyle choices, affects your risk of developing cancer. Living is a balance act between these risk sources and actually enjoying your life.
Vaping marijuana is probably not great for you, but many people do so for many years without negative consequences, and the risks compared to smoking tobacco are much, much lower. All of this is handwavy, of course, since the effects of marijuana have been historically poorly researched.
But making a blanket statement that all smoke causes cancer is fearmongering at best, and objectively wrong at worst.
No, smoke doesn't _cause_ cancer. Breathing in anything other than clean air _may increase_ the risk of developing cancer, but there's no certainty that if you e.g. suck on a tailpipe you'll catch the cancer.
There's a substantial difference from inhaling the smoke from combusting tobacco laced with hundreds of harmful chemicals, and inhaling the vapor from exposing the cannabis flower to much lower temperatures. How much difference exactly? I'll wait for more research to be done to draw my conclusions, but you go ahead and think it's the same thing.
> Accumulation of mutations over time causes cancer.
Again, the keyword you're ignoring is "risk". Our cells go through millions of mutations throughout our lifetime, and there are many factors that determine each person's propensity towards cancer. The best way of minimizing that risk is by living in a bubble, but some people choose to live in polluted cities, drive ICE cars, enjoy eating grilled meat, and inhaling marijuana and even cigarette smoke. Just because you might be risk-averse to partake in any of this, doesn't mean that we should dump all of it under the same "causes cancer" category.
You seem to be conflating "looks smokey" with particulate matter, which I suspect is generally reasonable but perhaps not in all contexts. Water vapor can cause the air to look "smokey." If you go outside an a 5º day and exhale, does your exhaled breath contain more particulate matter than if you did so on a 50º day?
That is where most weed smokers end up or plan to end up.
God bless humanity, almost got rid of the vice completely only to have a reincarnation absolutely plunge a new generation into addiction.
Also “vice” in the meaning of a bad habit, not the drug squad.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eric-garner-dies...
But meh, awareness of those topics could probably stand to be higher anyway
At the end of the day this is the kind of random violence that backs up every mundane law.
Vaping nicotine has indeed replaced a lot of the consumption of old fashioned cigarettes. But that has nothing to do with weed.
Agree.
> Without added flavors you can argue it is completely harmless
No, it's not. Filling your lungs with fine particulate matter/grease is stupid. You can still get COPD, some do. That's pretty shitty way to go.