7 ms·

CT scans show cigarettes are harder on the lungs than marijuana

30 points by XzetaU8 1y ago

JimmyBiscuit 1y ago
I havent seen anything about frequency in the article. Unless they control for that it doesnt feel like you should claim that weed is somehow safer. Of course you will have less damage from smoking a few joints a day (which would be very heavy use) vs the standart amount of cigarettes a cigarette smoker smokes.
- consp 1y ago
  Isn't the "natural" reduction in frequency a factor which should not be accounted for as it might actually be the driving force behind it?
  - mandmandam 1y ago
    There is a long-standing tradition in cannabis research of confusing the dose. See: Rodent studies using insane super-doses injected directly with the equivalent of 140 joints+ every day, Marinol vs cannabis, claiming 5% THC cannabis as "high dose" in research, studies citing 'potency increase' as proof of increasing risk without controlling for dose adjustments, driving impairment studies using blood levels as measurement, etc.
- bdavbdav 1y ago
  Is this not a similar argument to condoms / birth control effectiveness? Condoms are 100% effective if used properly and they don’t burst. The failure proportion is primarily misuse. You build in the misuse / other factors into the effectiveness rate.
  - eru 1y ago
    If you want an even starker examples: abstinence is 100% effective, if 'used' according to protocol.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    You'd be surprised about artificial contraception. Sure, when used they can be highly effective to prevent pregnancy, but they also train people to do risky behavior. It's sort of like giving away free parachutes and plane rides to everyone. Sure, that support will encourage lots of skydiving. But eventually, isn't someone going to go up without a parachute, say "YOLO" and dive out anyway? The same thing happens with contracepting, promiscuous men and women: they become accustomed to using one another as objects and free, easy access to sex whenever. But when that contraception isn't readily available at hand, they're going ahead anyway. They're going to do it regardless, because it's the habit they're accustomed to now. So on balance, it's really been found that free access to artificial contraception tends to encourage and increase unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. And that's exactly why it's so plentiful, because the goal is the opposite of what you may think...
    - crtasm 1y ago
      You're saying it's a contraception conspiracy? Any sources for these findings would be appreciated.
      - AStonesThrow 1y ago
        https://naturalwomanhood.org/interview-abby-johnson-planned-parenthood-contraception-hormonal-birth-control-harms-risks-side-effects-092018/ https://naturalwomanhood.org/interview-abby-johnson-planned-... Abby Johnson: You can find different studies that say different things. One in Colorado said you give women contraception and abortion rates go down; other studies say that’s not true. What we do know for sure, according to Guttmacher themselves, Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, is that 54% of women who are having abortions are using contraception at the time when they get pregnant. So the idea that contraception is working for women and that it’s preventing abortion is not true. If it were, that number would not be 54%. > Sex is normal and healthy So is pregnancy and childbirth. Why administer drugs to disrupt normal, healthy biological processes? Absurd!
        dttze 1y ago
        > She is also author of Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line and founder of And Then There Were None, an organization that assists abortion-clinic workers seeking to transition out of the industry. Thanks for quoting some culture warrior clown, but they asked for real sources.
mywacaday 1y ago
Way back in my college days we mixed weed and tobacco in joints, I presume this was the worst of both worlds?
- oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
  Very common in the UK and Europe where hash was more prevalent than flower until fairly recently. The prevailing wisdom would say not as bad as tobacco, worse than just pure weed, worse than vaping or an alternative method of consumption than combustion.
- eru 1y ago
  Depends. You probably don't smoke as many of those as your typical cigarette chain smoker?
tomhow 1y ago
Referenced study here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0363018825000738 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03630...
everdrive 1y ago
I never see anyone describe just why Marijuana is less harmful than cigarettes (or apparently e-cigarettes) and it drives me up the wall. My intuition would be that this is due to frequency, since a normal person would smoke weed far less often than they would smoke nicotine, and this is a really important distinction. If frequency is important to this question, then Marijuana smoke is not actually safer, but is just enjoyed more rarely. Maybe the lungs have a chance to clear themselves out and reduce inflammation between marijuana sessions? Just asking about the lifetime impact on users makes no sense since these drugs have totally different usage profiles.
- throwup238 1y ago
  The answer is industrial processing. Inhaling combustants is bad no matter the plant matter but the tobacco industry has over a century of experience in optimizing their product which leads to a lot of nasty chemicals that have been grandfathered in as a historical accident. They “reconstitute” tobacco dust and other waste into usable material via binders (“sheet tobacco”), add humectants to keep the tobacco from drying out, preservatives to keep it from oxidizing, shit to enhance the flavor, “puff up” tobacco with a bunch of chemicals so it takes up more volume, and so on. Since the 2000s there’s also compounds similar to flame retardants (!!!) in the wrapping so that the cigarette goes out if you fall asleep, instead of burning your house down. Much of these additions come from reprocessing the waste from previous steps to “minimize waste.” Marijuana on the other hand is religiously tested for pesticides and other contaminants in most states. However that industry isn’t far behind: a friend loves diamond/oil infused blunts and to me it’s blatantly obvious that they’re using some of the same techniques to repurpose lost terpenes and adding synthetic aromatics that were never tested for combustion.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    I feel like the harms of alcohol are also magnified by adulterants here. For example, an alcoholic will often choose dirt-cheap beer or spirits to consume on the regular. Is that stuff pure and clean? No. There is no requirement to label ingredients in a bottle of wine, beer, or vodka. You can put any old stuff in there as long as you're not outright poisoning people. They're going to a convenience store, or a dive bar that carries the worst stuff and they're going to drink that, day-in, day-out, to excess. I believe that, if drinkers had access to pure and clean ethanol-based beverages, and also maintained good nutrition and a decent diet, they wouldn't get all this liver failure and horrific metabolic stuff that they suffer as alcoholics. I feel it's often tangential to the substance itself. When I smoked, I often picked up clove cigarettes. My hairdresser friend with purple hair advised me that the molecules of clove smoke were huge compared to tobacco smoke and I was killing myself that much faster. I thank President Obama for finally closing out the clove cigarette market. I was eventually smoking American Spirits, which are mass-market, but touted as extra pure or clean. Who knows, really?
rich_sasha 1y ago
Either way I don't want this shit in my lungs. Knowing it's less bad than one of the worst carcinogens out there is little comfort.
- Broken_Hippo 1y ago
  I mean, fine. Don't do it then. Few people care if you personally do and if they pressure you, they aren't your friends. This sort of thing really isn't about giving anyone comfort. It is an attempt to learn so folks can use them to understand the world better and the ways our bodies interact with it. It might result in harm reduction in other people, which benefits society in general.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  The equivalent of posting to say, "I never watch that stupid show anyway." No one is impressed.
montebicyclelo 1y ago
> Many have touted smoking marijuana as a safer alternative to cigarettes Wierd take, given that they are completely different drugs, with completely different effects on the brain, with the only similarity being that they are both ingested via smoke.
- zwnow 1y ago
  And any kind of smoke isn't good for the lungs. I'm tired of people pretending that Marijuana is that wonder drug that's somehow "healthier" than smoking. It's just less unhealthy, which still makes it unhealthy.
  - btreecat 1y ago
    Sitting in traffic is unhealthy, eating junk food is unhealthy, living with excessive heat is unhealthy, poverty is unhealthy, too much water is unhealthy. Lots of things are unhealthy. Some of those are many degrees worse than others, and some only in certain context.
    - zwnow 1y ago
      Some things you can actively avoid though. And inhaling smoke on a regular basis is one of them. I'm particularly sensitive about this topic because I live in a country in which my tax money is used to finance treatment of illnesses that people self inflicted due to smoking.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - dijit 1y ago
        I hear you, and I agree. For me, though, some amount of harm is built-in to our condition. We will eat junk sometimes, we will be sedentary sometimes- we might even overindulge sometimes. For me, marijuana is recreational, like alcohol. If a recreational session of marijuana is better for humans than a recreational session of alcohol, then I would actively promote that- since we are all keenly aware of how prohibiting all recreational unhealthy things goes in reality. “Perfect is the enemy of good”, in this case I might say that “perfect is the enemy of improvement”; maybe theres a better quote for exactly this. Knowing that its better on your lungs than smoking, which was socially acceptable 20 years ago, goes a long way to helping. Though I also agree with other commenters, its a low bar and the frequency of recreational drug use vs casual smoking is an apples to oranges comparison
Mc_Big_G 1y ago
I'd like to see smoking compare to vaping natural herb. It seems like the obvious, healthier choice.
- eru 1y ago
  Well, putting any kind of smoke in your lungs is bad. The difference between vaping and smoking dwarfs the relative rounding error between tobacco vs marijuana in terms of direct health effects. (There are indirect health effects, of course. Marijuana is more likely to give you the munchies. Tobacco is more likely to help you with weight loss, if anything.)
SavinMyLungz 1y ago
Tangentially, since moving to edibles to avoid damaging my lungs and hopefully live longer, I've noticed that I don't have cravings for edibles the way I do with smoking flower. Eg, if I smoke one day, then I will feel a craving to smoke for the next week or so. But if I eat edibles one day but not the next, I don't notice any craving. My hypothesis is that it's similar to cigarettes where the nicotine is much more addictive in combination with MAOIs in the cigarette. I don't know that MAOIs are the culprit here, I haven't looked into it. And this could be idiosyncratic to me, of course. Just another reason not to smoke. The cannabis industry in my state has perfected gummies and driven the price down to the point it's not much more expensive than smoking, even with my really high tolerance, and the dispensary will deliver them to my house, so I'm all out of excuses.
- elif 1y ago
  Cannabis addiction is a dopaminergic response so this makes total sense. The delayed response gratification of the edible onset is enough to break the response activation of dopamine behavioral reward.

30 points by XzetaU8 1y ago

I havent seen anything about frequency in the article. Unless they control for that it doesnt feel like you should claim that weed is somehow safer. Of course you will have less damage from smoking a few joints a day (which would be very heavy use) vs the standart amount of cigarettes a cigarette smoker smokes.

consp 1y ago
Isn't the "natural" reduction in frequency a factor which should not be accounted for as it might actually be the driving force behind it?
- mandmandam 1y ago
  There is a long-standing tradition in cannabis research of confusing the dose. See: Rodent studies using insane super-doses injected directly with the equivalent of 140 joints+ every day, Marinol vs cannabis, claiming 5% THC cannabis as "high dose" in research, studies citing 'potency increase' as proof of increasing risk without controlling for dose adjustments, driving impairment studies using blood levels as measurement, etc.
bdavbdav 1y ago
Is this not a similar argument to condoms / birth control effectiveness? Condoms are 100% effective if used properly and they don’t burst. The failure proportion is primarily misuse. You build in the misuse / other factors into the effectiveness rate.
- eru 1y ago
  If you want an even starker examples: abstinence is 100% effective, if 'used' according to protocol.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  You'd be surprised about artificial contraception. Sure, when used they can be highly effective to prevent pregnancy, but they also train people to do risky behavior. It's sort of like giving away free parachutes and plane rides to everyone. Sure, that support will encourage lots of skydiving. But eventually, isn't someone going to go up without a parachute, say "YOLO" and dive out anyway? The same thing happens with contracepting, promiscuous men and women: they become accustomed to using one another as objects and free, easy access to sex whenever. But when that contraception isn't readily available at hand, they're going ahead anyway. They're going to do it regardless, because it's the habit they're accustomed to now. So on balance, it's really been found that free access to artificial contraception tends to encourage and increase unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. And that's exactly why it's so plentiful, because the goal is the opposite of what you may think...
  - crtasm 1y ago
    You're saying it's a contraception conspiracy? Any sources for these findings would be appreciated.
    - AStonesThrow 1y ago
      https://naturalwomanhood.org/interview-abby-johnson-planned-parenthood-contraception-hormonal-birth-control-harms-risks-side-effects-092018/ https://naturalwomanhood.org/interview-abby-johnson-planned-... Abby Johnson: You can find different studies that say different things. One in Colorado said you give women contraception and abortion rates go down; other studies say that’s not true. What we do know for sure, according to Guttmacher themselves, Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, is that 54% of women who are having abortions are using contraception at the time when they get pregnant. So the idea that contraception is working for women and that it’s preventing abortion is not true. If it were, that number would not be 54%. > Sex is normal and healthy So is pregnancy and childbirth. Why administer drugs to disrupt normal, healthy biological processes? Absurd!
      - dttze 1y ago
        > She is also author of Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line and founder of And Then There Were None, an organization that assists abortion-clinic workers seeking to transition out of the industry. Thanks for quoting some culture warrior clown, but they asked for real sources.

mywacaday 1y ago

Way back in my college days we mixed weed and tobacco in joints, I presume this was the worst of both worlds?

oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
Very common in the UK and Europe where hash was more prevalent than flower until fairly recently. The prevailing wisdom would say not as bad as tobacco, worse than just pure weed, worse than vaping or an alternative method of consumption than combustion.
eru 1y ago
Depends. You probably don't smoke as many of those as your typical cigarette chain smoker?

tomhow 1y ago

Referenced study here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0363018825000738 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03630...

everdrive 1y ago

I never see anyone describe just why Marijuana is less harmful than cigarettes (or apparently e-cigarettes) and it drives me up the wall. My intuition would be that this is due to frequency, since a normal person would smoke weed far less often than they would smoke nicotine, and this is a really important distinction. If frequency is important to this question, then Marijuana smoke is not actually safer, but is just enjoyed more rarely. Maybe the lungs have a chance to clear themselves out and reduce inflammation between marijuana sessions? Just asking about the lifetime impact on users makes no sense since these drugs have totally different usage profiles.

throwup238 1y ago
The answer is industrial processing. Inhaling combustants is bad no matter the plant matter but the tobacco industry has over a century of experience in optimizing their product which leads to a lot of nasty chemicals that have been grandfathered in as a historical accident. They “reconstitute” tobacco dust and other waste into usable material via binders (“sheet tobacco”), add humectants to keep the tobacco from drying out, preservatives to keep it from oxidizing, shit to enhance the flavor, “puff up” tobacco with a bunch of chemicals so it takes up more volume, and so on. Since the 2000s there’s also compounds similar to flame retardants (!!!) in the wrapping so that the cigarette goes out if you fall asleep, instead of burning your house down. Much of these additions come from reprocessing the waste from previous steps to “minimize waste.” Marijuana on the other hand is religiously tested for pesticides and other contaminants in most states. However that industry isn’t far behind: a friend loves diamond/oil infused blunts and to me it’s blatantly obvious that they’re using some of the same techniques to repurpose lost terpenes and adding synthetic aromatics that were never tested for combustion.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  I feel like the harms of alcohol are also magnified by adulterants here. For example, an alcoholic will often choose dirt-cheap beer or spirits to consume on the regular. Is that stuff pure and clean? No. There is no requirement to label ingredients in a bottle of wine, beer, or vodka. You can put any old stuff in there as long as you're not outright poisoning people. They're going to a convenience store, or a dive bar that carries the worst stuff and they're going to drink that, day-in, day-out, to excess. I believe that, if drinkers had access to pure and clean ethanol-based beverages, and also maintained good nutrition and a decent diet, they wouldn't get all this liver failure and horrific metabolic stuff that they suffer as alcoholics. I feel it's often tangential to the substance itself. When I smoked, I often picked up clove cigarettes. My hairdresser friend with purple hair advised me that the molecules of clove smoke were huge compared to tobacco smoke and I was killing myself that much faster. I thank President Obama for finally closing out the clove cigarette market. I was eventually smoking American Spirits, which are mass-market, but touted as extra pure or clean. Who knows, really?

rich_sasha 1y ago

Either way I don't want this shit in my lungs. Knowing it's less bad than one of the worst carcinogens out there is little comfort.

Broken_Hippo 1y ago
I mean, fine. Don't do it then. Few people care if you personally do and if they pressure you, they aren't your friends. This sort of thing really isn't about giving anyone comfort. It is an attempt to learn so folks can use them to understand the world better and the ways our bodies interact with it. It might result in harm reduction in other people, which benefits society in general.
IAmBroom 1y ago
The equivalent of posting to say, "I never watch that stupid show anyway." No one is impressed.

montebicyclelo 1y ago

> Many have touted smoking marijuana as a safer alternative to cigarettes Wierd take, given that they are completely different drugs, with completely different effects on the brain, with the only similarity being that they are both ingested via smoke.

zwnow 1y ago
And any kind of smoke isn't good for the lungs. I'm tired of people pretending that Marijuana is that wonder drug that's somehow "healthier" than smoking. It's just less unhealthy, which still makes it unhealthy.
- btreecat 1y ago
  Sitting in traffic is unhealthy, eating junk food is unhealthy, living with excessive heat is unhealthy, poverty is unhealthy, too much water is unhealthy. Lots of things are unhealthy. Some of those are many degrees worse than others, and some only in certain context.
  - zwnow 1y ago
    Some things you can actively avoid though. And inhaling smoke on a regular basis is one of them. I'm particularly sensitive about this topic because I live in a country in which my tax money is used to finance treatment of illnesses that people self inflicted due to smoking.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - dijit 1y ago
      I hear you, and I agree. For me, though, some amount of harm is built-in to our condition. We will eat junk sometimes, we will be sedentary sometimes- we might even overindulge sometimes. For me, marijuana is recreational, like alcohol. If a recreational session of marijuana is better for humans than a recreational session of alcohol, then I would actively promote that- since we are all keenly aware of how prohibiting all recreational unhealthy things goes in reality. “Perfect is the enemy of good”, in this case I might say that “perfect is the enemy of improvement”; maybe theres a better quote for exactly this. Knowing that its better on your lungs than smoking, which was socially acceptable 20 years ago, goes a long way to helping. Though I also agree with other commenters, its a low bar and the frequency of recreational drug use vs casual smoking is an apples to oranges comparison

Mc_Big_G 1y ago

I'd like to see smoking compare to vaping natural herb. It seems like the obvious, healthier choice.

eru 1y ago
Well, putting any kind of smoke in your lungs is bad. The difference between vaping and smoking dwarfs the relative rounding error between tobacco vs marijuana in terms of direct health effects. (There are indirect health effects, of course. Marijuana is more likely to give you the munchies. Tobacco is more likely to help you with weight loss, if anything.)

SavinMyLungz 1y ago

Tangentially, since moving to edibles to avoid damaging my lungs and hopefully live longer, I've noticed that I don't have cravings for edibles the way I do with smoking flower. Eg, if I smoke one day, then I will feel a craving to smoke for the next week or so. But if I eat edibles one day but not the next, I don't notice any craving. My hypothesis is that it's similar to cigarettes where the nicotine is much more addictive in combination with MAOIs in the cigarette. I don't know that MAOIs are the culprit here, I haven't looked into it. And this could be idiosyncratic to me, of course. Just another reason not to smoke. The cannabis industry in my state has perfected gummies and driven the price down to the point it's not much more expensive than smoking, even with my really high tolerance, and the dispensary will deliver them to my house, so I'm all out of excuses.

elif 1y ago
Cannabis addiction is a dopaminergic response so this makes total sense. The delayed response gratification of the edible onset is enough to break the response activation of dopamine behavioral reward.