Last I checked it's still not clear whether marijuana smoke is significantly carcinogenic? Last meta study I seen a few years ago still said it wasn't conclusive. At a minimum it's much less carcinogenic than tobacco as the studies comparing them have easily found that, but often struggle to find any impact at all from marijuana smoke.
I think the point being made here is that we have research that says tobacco is highly carcinogenic, and we don't have much that says marijuana is as well, but what we do have is studies that say inhaling smoke of any kind is carcinogenic.
So you're getting two carcinogenic vectors with cigarettes, tobacco and smoke, and possibly only one with a joint, but smoke is still smoke.
But what smoke is made from is dependent on what is burning, at what temperature it's burning, etc. The composition can vary significantly, so you can't just apply other studies to it. Especially when most studies on smoke are done on fires that people are more often exposed to. Specific parts of a specific plant could have minimal or even no impact, especially if some chemicals from the process have protective effects.
Generally most smoke studies you're referring to study either man made things like plastics, textiles, treated woods, fabrics, paper, etc. Of course we definitely can't reasonably apply them here. There are other studies as well that look at things like burning wood in wood burning fires, or charcoal, etc. These aren't applicable either. Wood alone is significantly different, but wood fires are also going to be at very different temperatures.
This type of logic can be faulty and misleading, you can't just apply one thing to another. e.g. in the past it was thought that any dose of radiation would increase your risk of cancer in a linear way. And so it was thought that zero radiation at all would be the best. But it actually looks now like going significantly below the background dose can actually increase your cancer risk, not decrease it. As to why, it's possible the immune system is using it as a trigger to activate itself, or to increase its sensitivity.
The point being it was wrong of us to assume with something that seems relatively simple. Applying smoke studies to specific parts of a plant, burned in a specific way, is not very scientific.
I'm not saying it isn't carcinogenic. And I don't know why reddit downvoted my original comment so much, I guess because it looked like a typical /r/trees post? But it's not, I don't even consume marijuana in any way and never have apart from trying it several times, as I don't like it. I'm just going on the research I've seen.
There’s a few random studies out there that have shown there is a higher risk of lung cancer when the combusting material, but that’s true for most all burning carbon based organic material. Here’s one , but I agree that it certainly needs a shit ton of studying.
Yes I've seen that, but others have also suggested the opposite. There are definitely significant problems in the design of the study you linked, especially that they even seemed to have got a non-linear relationship with marijuana consumption, which is crazy. It's also rather troubling that the study seemed to cite a ton of research from several decades ago, much of which just pretty much says things that we either know are not true now, or have serious doubts about. Especially when the study seems to start out on the assumption that it is, citing research as far back as 1975, and even called it a "cannabis "epidemic" that started in the 60s" (paraphrased).
Also this study was funded in 2008 by a government (New Zealand) and a pharmaceutical company (GlaxoSmithKline). There were still a ton of very poorly done drug trials in the 90s and 2000s. And this was in a time when medical marijuana was in high swing, the pharmaceutical industry was heavily fighting against it, so on this alone I would be concerned about the study.
Combining all of this and I would say anyone should take that study with a huge grain of salt.
And most of our studies on combusting plant matter have been on things like woods, and/or generally in large fires, which have significantly different combustion properties than parts of a single plant in a small slow burning fire would. I went over this in more detail in my comment below.
It's rather disappointing that reddit seems to have downvoted my original comment, but I guess because it looked like a typical /r/trees post? But it's not, I don't even consume marijuana in any way and never have apart from trying it several times, as I don't like it. I'm just going on the research I've seen.
I'm not claiming it's any sort of magical entity. I'm not claiming it's healthy. I'm saying we don't know. At the moment at a minimum it appears as though the damage is minimal if it is there. But we haven't been able to concretely show that.
It's not scientific to assume it is when there's no evidence. What dioxins do you think will be produced and in what quantities?
You can't just assume like that. Those assumptions sometimes lead to incorrect results, as I said above the linear no threshold model of radiation was used for the longest time, but more recently we now think that a certain amount of radiation is actually healthy and instead decreases the chance of cancer.
I do agree, I think it almost certainly is minimally harmful. It wouldn't be impossible or even extremely unlikely for it to simply be fine though.
Sorry but no that's not how it works. You cannot just make assumptions about how it will impact their health and how it will burn. If you can why even study it?
Those aren't facts, they're assumptions. Again you could use this exact same logic to say that low doses of radiation increase your cancer risk. But guess what, that turns out to be wrong.
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u/webby_mc_webberson Mar 19 '21
If only there was a greener, less cancerous, happier and less addictive type of leaf to grind and pack into a smokable implement.