I don't think I've ever read a report on marijuana yellow-taped with as many warnings and dangers as those found in tobacco reports. Is this because not enough evidence has been gathered around the dangers of weed?
One big difference, though, is that weed itself is only very mildly physically addictive, and in a small percentage of the population. This is as compared with tobacco, which is more addictive than heroin, for pretty much everyone.
Also, weed contains chemicals, like THC, which are not so harmful, and can be ingested in ways other than smoking (e.g. inhalers). And unlike cigarettes it has benefits as a painkiller for people for whom other painkillers no longer work (e.g. terminal cancer patients, who probably don't need to worry about getting lung cancer 20 years from now).
Overall the scorecard seems to be:
Smoking weed is probably just as bad as smoking cigarettes, but has a number of benefits over cigarettes and is nowhere near as addictive. That makes it less harmful overall.
Weed has also a number of negative side effects over cigarettes. THC, after all, is a psychoactive drug and some people develop a psychosis from smoking weed. This doesn't happen when smoking tobacco.
It depends entirely on what you're comparing here. Do you compare smoking 10 joints vs. 10 cigarettes or 1 joint vs 10 cigarettes (per day? per week? per month?)? If one smokes as much weed as tobacco, he might develop way worse symptoms than someone who "just" smokes cigarettes.
Not really comparable to getting off of opiates for example.
Err, no. It's fucking horrible. Like most people, I tried to quit many times, usually cold turkey, so multiply your 2-3 days figure by 10 (which I think is roughly the average number of attempts before success). That's a month of your life. A friend from the UK described it as follows: "I feel like I want to climb a tower with a sniper rifle and shoot small children." I think that's accurate.
Besides, the insidious part is that you see it everywhere ... shops, bars, the street, movies ... withdrawl upsets your sleeping so you are awake at night to go out ... you feel you can 'just have one' .. it is usually prevalent in a social scene ... you drink .. you associate it with drinking .. you lose your reason with the alcohol which compounds the sense of 'just have one' ... you want a break from work and you associate it with a smoke .. other people are smoking ..
It's really hard to avoid. Not like heroin, which is hard to run in to by accident. (I also know of multiple people who have quit both and they said cigarettes were harder. Not physically, but overall.)
It's taken me some time to forget the good times I had when high, and associate it with anxiety, in order to stop myself from thinking "Yeah, I'd like to smoke a joint now". So while I had no withdrawal symptoms, it's taken me some time to remove the psychological "addiction".
Marijuana may be a drug with a lot of positive health benefits but may exacerbate psychosis and panic attacks in healthy people too. (i.e. not schizophrenic or with other major mental disorders)
On a personal level, I went through a period of using ~2 ozs a month (every single night) and I was able to cut down to once a month pretty much instantly. Sure I thought about going back but there wasn't any 'physical' addiction as such.
> According to the American Heart Association, nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break, while the pharmacological and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those determining addiction to heroin and cocaine.
NHS: ( http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2278.aspx?CategoryID=53 )
> Cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive.
> Even if you want to quit smoking, you may find it difficult because you’re addicted to the effects of nicotine. Some research has suggested that nicotine can be more addictive than heroin.
"Only mildly physically addictive"...
I don't mind smoking a cigarette, but I never found the urge to do so. I jokingly tell people I can't get addicted to cigarettes even though I smoked almost every day for 6 months.
Never found myself addicted to tobacco. Chips on the other hand...
It's common in the U.S. in New York and California.
Population studies are hard because it is illegal and because the product is so variable.
The illegeity of cannabis means that some of the health warnings are ignored as anti-cannabis propaganda.
And from what I've heard the hazard of micro particles emitted when warmed goes like this: fireplace > weed > smoke. However smoking is more addictive and weed has positive substances that decrease risk of cancer.
Best idea is not smoke weed, but ingest it. Avoid cigarrets and never have a real fireplace inside. Just stick a picture of a fireplace and add a heating element behind it.
So the feasibility of a study is not so clear, even in places where legality is not an issue.
You can't pay people to take pot and take regular exams in such countries? That's what studies are for, no? Besides I'm pretty sure there must be some 'native' pot smokers. Not many, but surely there must be a few people, even if majority are tourist.
Gather enough studies in a meta study and you'll get enough of a sample.
Personally, I think a big part of the problem is the tobacco in the joint. I'd like to see a safe or safer tobacco replacement for rolling joints with. I know they are other ways to consume pot, a joint is the most convenient. All the things you can do with a ciggy on the go, you can do with a joint on the go. <HNHumourbypasstag>Driving for example.....</HNHumourbypasstag>
There already is one: Marijuana.
The fact is you don't have to mix it with tobacco :) It's commonplace here in the UK but you can just smoke it on its own or you can use a vapourizer. You can even cook it with butter but that increases the effects
The evidence for marijuana causing psychosis is extremely thin. Basically the strongest evidence out there are observational population studies (not controlled) that found there is a slight correlation between marijuana use and eventual development of psychosis.
The obvious problem is that correlation != causation. It seems pretty reasonable to postulate that people who are mentally unstable are also more likely to try and seek solace/release in drugs.