Rev 13 Jan 2012
Controlling the source of a drug’s production, distribution, and sales would control the huge illegal drug industry profits. It is historical political control of drug laws that creates illegal drug industry profits that produces resistance to drug law reform. Marijuana is the most widely used drugs whose production, distribution, sales, and use remains a U.S. Federal criminal act. Political corruption and costs associated with the political illegal drug industry is staggering. Science has never been a strong point for U.S. politicians, it gets in the way of reelections. U.S. political drug reform policy is to not respond and do nothing.
Marijuana is classified within our illegal drug law as the same harm as heroin. U.S. law enforcement and politicians have been able to impose their political will upon 100,000s pot smokers. Thus, by enforcing laws of self-serving politicians, the user price of marijuana remains too high in order to keep criminal illegal drug profits high. Kids know more about the effects of marijuana than inactive elected official are willing to admit. The only way to reduce crime within the U.S. is get rid of untoward politicians and reduce criminal drug profits.
Drug or other substance are placed in any schedule of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA 1970) according to what is identified to be harmful by the politics of the U.S. President, U.S. Attorney General, and international U.N. drug law. Technically unless there are identified findings made with respect to such drug or other substance as required for each CSA schedule, the drug is not "controlled." However, politicians, criminal syndicates, and drug definitions are now so intertwined within the illegal drug industry and our laws that Federal and State control of drugs no longer provide for individuals, but the laws are now intended to control people and maintain high criminal profit-levels. Society and individuals are harmed more by drug laws than the harm produced by the drugs.
In the U.S. smoking pot is almost as common as smoking cigarettes, but without the adverse pulmonary damage. If a person smokes one joint a day for seven years, or one a week for 49 years, there is "no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function.” The researchers concluded that occasionally using marijuana, particularly for medicinal purposes such as pain control, management of mood, and other chronic symptoms, may not be harmful to the lungs in the long run. However, too many pot smokers mix tobacco with marijuana, thus creating pulmonary and other damage.
“Howard Marks Interviews David Nutt On The Dangers of Drugs & Drug Policy Reform (November, 2010),” Reference LINK YouTube
A frank interview with David Nutt about the risks of drugs and drug reform. Dr. Nutt was sacked as the chairman of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after claiming in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. November, 2010. UK government drug politics is to kill the messenger rather than reform drugs laws.
Also See The Lancet, Volume 376, Issue 9752, Pages 1558 - 1565, 6 November 2010, "Drug harms in the UK: a multi-criteria decision analysis"
Controlling the source of a drug’s production, distribution, and sales would control the huge illegal drug industry profits. It is historical political control of drug laws that creates illegal drug industry profits that produces resistance to drug law reform. Marijuana is the most widely used drugs whose production, distribution, sales, and use remains a U.S. Federal criminal act. Political corruption and costs associated with the political illegal drug industry is staggering. Science has never been a strong point for U.S. politicians, it gets in the way of reelections. U.S. political drug reform policy is to not respond and do nothing.
Marijuana is classified within our illegal drug law as the same harm as heroin. U.S. law enforcement and politicians have been able to impose their political will upon 100,000s pot smokers. Thus, by enforcing laws of self-serving politicians, the user price of marijuana remains too high in order to keep criminal illegal drug profits high. Kids know more about the effects of marijuana than inactive elected official are willing to admit. The only way to reduce crime within the U.S. is get rid of untoward politicians and reduce criminal drug profits.
Drug or other substance are placed in any schedule of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA 1970) according to what is identified to be harmful by the politics of the U.S. President, U.S. Attorney General, and international U.N. drug law. Technically unless there are identified findings made with respect to such drug or other substance as required for each CSA schedule, the drug is not "controlled." However, politicians, criminal syndicates, and drug definitions are now so intertwined within the illegal drug industry and our laws that Federal and State control of drugs no longer provide for individuals, but the laws are now intended to control people and maintain high criminal profit-levels. Society and individuals are harmed more by drug laws than the harm produced by the drugs.
In the U.S. smoking pot is almost as common as smoking cigarettes, but without the adverse pulmonary damage. If a person smokes one joint a day for seven years, or one a week for 49 years, there is "no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function.” The researchers concluded that occasionally using marijuana, particularly for medicinal purposes such as pain control, management of mood, and other chronic symptoms, may not be harmful to the lungs in the long run. However, too many pot smokers mix tobacco with marijuana, thus creating pulmonary and other damage.
“Occasional Pot Smoking Won't Harm Lungs”
Smoking marijuana now and then doesn't appear to hamper lung function, researchers found. -JAMA
By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: January 10, 2012
Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
In fact, during a 20-year longitudinal study, patients who occasionally used marijuana actually saw an increase in levels of forced expiratory volume (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC), Stefan Kertesz, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues reported in the Jan. 11 issues of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"Up to moderate levels of marijuana use -- by that we mean up to the amount a person would smoke if they had a joint a day for seven years -- there's not a loss of air flow rate, there's not a loss of lung volume," Kertesz told The JAMA Report. "In essence, marijuana doesn't seem to behave like tobacco at those levels of use."
Smoke from marijuana contains many of the same chemicals as tobacco, but it's not clear if it has similar adverse effects on lung function, the researchers wrote, though some work has linked pot with airway inflammation, cough, and wheeze. Action Points
An analysis of over 20 years of data from the more than 5,115-participant CARDIA study found that minimal or moderate smoking of marijuana did not adversely affect pulmonary function.
Some detrimental effect was observed among heavy users, but the number of such individuals in the study was too small to draw firm conclusions. To assess the different effects on the lungs, Kertesz and colleagues looked at data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, which collected measurements of pulmonary function and smoking over 20 years for 5,115 patients in the U.S.
Smoking pot was almost as common as smoking cigarettes, but its use was lighter, with a median of two to three episodes per month, they reported.
As expected, they saw that greater tobacco exposure was associated with lower FEV1 and FCV, but the association between marijuana use and pulmonary function wasn't linear, they found.
Lower levels of exposure were associated with higher FEV1 and FCV values; air flow increased by 13 mL per joint-year and lung capacity rose by 20 mL per joint-year, they reported (P<0.001 for both).
If a patient smokes one joint a day for seven years, or one a week for 49 years, there's "no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function," they wrote.
This could be attributed to the way pot smokers inhale deeply, which may stretch the lungs and increase volume or strengthen chest wall muscles, the researchers said.
On the other hand, at higher exposure levels, there was a leveling off or even a reversal of the trend. Air flow was reduced by 2.2 mL per joint-year after smoking daily for 10 years -- although this was of borderline significance (P=0.08) -- and by 3.2 mL per episode if a patient smoked more than 20 times per month (P=0.02).
Among the heaviest users, air flow was reduced, but not significantly so, and that's likely a result of the very small number of users in this group, so estimates of high marijuana exposure may be imprecise. This issue requires further investigation, the researchers said.
Kertesz warned that the findings shouldn't be misinterpreted to suggest that smoking pot is good for your health: "It would be very incorrect to look at this study and say, 'Wow, if I smoke marijuana, that's going to improve my lung health,'" he told The JAMA Report.
Other experts emphasized that point. Robert Glatter, MD, of Lenox Hill Hospital, who wasn't involved in the study, said in an email to MedPage Today that "although marijuana smoking may have some positive effects on appetite and pain control in chronic disease states, it is important to emphasize that regular heavy use can lead to a rapid decline in lung function."
Glatter also noted that even though smoking pot occasionally doesn't appear to harm lung function, "marijuana smoke does contain high levels of tar and can lead to chronic cough, wheezing, and excess production of phlegm that we see in tobacco smokers."
Kertesz and colleagues noted that a positive short-term effect (stretching the lungs to increase volume) and a negative long-term effect (damage from smoke exposure) would result in a non-linear relationship like the one seen in the study.
The study was limited by its reliance on self-reported measures of pot and tobacco smoking; absence of data on other pulmonary function such as diffusing capacity; radiographic information about emphysema; or method of smoking marijuana (cigarette, pipe, bong). It also was limited by the potential of unattributed confounders found in any observational study.
The researchers concluded that occasionally using marijuana, particularly for medicinal purposes such as pain control, management of mood, and other chronic symptoms, may not be harmful to the lungs in the long run.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
The researchers reported relationships with Boehringer-Ingelheim, Forest Laboratories, AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline.
Primary source: Journal of the American Medical Association
Source reference: Pletcher MJ, et al "Association between marijuana exposure and pulmonary function over 20 years" JAMA 2012; 307(2): 173-181.
“Howard Marks Interviews David Nutt On The Dangers of Drugs & Drug Policy Reform (November, 2010),” Reference LINK YouTube
A frank interview with David Nutt about the risks of drugs and drug reform. Dr. Nutt was sacked as the chairman of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after claiming in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. November, 2010. UK government drug politics is to kill the messenger rather than reform drugs laws.
Also See The Lancet, Volume 376, Issue 9752, Pages 1558 - 1565, 6 November 2010, "Drug harms in the UK: a multi-criteria decision analysis"
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