Pizza pizza.
Why would a doctor that’s prescribing marijuana suggest smoking it at all? Why not a healthier alternative like ingestion, sublingual dosing, or using a vaporizer?
Patient resistance?
You got me curious about the cost of Marinol, and now Cesamet.
If this website is to be believed, the synthetic Δ[sup]9[/sup]-tetrahydrocannabinol is expensive.
Well, you’d see me doing that with cigarettes, if you happen to catch me outside a theater before the start of Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Version), or outside an airport before boarding a plane, or some other place where I know I can’t smoke another cigarette for many hours and I forgot to bring my stupid gum. But yeah, it’s not how I smoke normally.
This is at a slight tangent to the OP, but I found it fascinating.
Last year our office received some pamphlets from the DEA discussing the use of various illegal drugs. Now no one would say the DEA was advocating such use. But according to their own pamphlets, less than a million people in the USA had ever tried Ecstasy or LSD. About twenty-eight million people in the US had ever tried cocaine, of whom seven million had tried it as crack (I was impressed by how much more prevalent powder cocaine use is).
About forty million people had tried marijuana.
Wow.
That’s not far below the number who have tried tobacco.
In an attempt to find a cite for my memories, I went and checked the DEA website, where they didn’t quote the number, but stated that about a third of the entire US population has used marijuana (this includes one use all the way up to heavy use).
Wow!!!
Two thoughts went through my mind:
- Can a usage that widespread really be considered socially unacceptable?
- We better hope it’s not more carcinogenic than tobacco!
Here is a cite for some statistics from 2000. [\http://oas.samhsa.gov/NHSDA/2kNHSDA/2knhsda.htm]
As for the smoke composition, look here.
Pretty much the smoke of both tobacco and marijuana are close to each other except pot has THC and tobacco has nicotine. Some bad things are more in one than the other, but unless someone does a comparision that states something like “Phenol is SOOOO much better for you than Napthalene!” I’m going to see the differences between the two as 6 of one, half-a-dozen of the other.
As for the inhaling, these guys say it doesn’t matter how long you hold it for (so there’s your cite for you Excalibre):
Block RI, Farinpour R & Braverman K. (1992). “Acute effects of marijuana on cognition: relationships to chronic effects and smoking techniques”. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behaviour 43(3): 907 – 917.
But even so, this all doesn’t take into consideration of the strength of the pot. Smoking 3 joints of bad pot, no matter whether you hold it in or not, is still going to put more bad things in your body than buying the good shit and taking one puff. So, just logically speaking, one inhalation of strong pot to get high versus 20 inhalations per cigarette, multiplied by 20 cigarettes for a pack-a-day habit. You do the math to figure out which is worse for you.
And, of course, there are vaporizors that heat the THC up to vaporization, but do not burn the green matter and thus one can inhale all of the drug and little of the bad stuff.
If someone is concerned about the ill effects of the smoke of pot, then they should probably just eat the stuff.
-Tcat
Sure it can. Don’t forget, smoking tobacco is considered socially unacceptable by a huge fraction of the population.
I have long thought that pot would be legalized except for the vocal minority. I have never tried pot, but view it as no more evil than my beer drinking. I would have no problem if they legalized it. But don’t feel strongly enough about it to fight for it the way other fight against it. It is my belief though (and it is a belief, I am not claiming facts) that the people who feel that strongly are in the minority.
I am what most people would consider to be a heavy smoker. My son is a regular pot smoker. He and every other regular pot smoker I’ve ever known cough WAAAAAAY more than I ever do (my cough is virtually nonexistent), and I’ve been smoking for a *really * long time.
A college friend and daily pot smoker told me that he had a conversation with his doctor, told him of his frequent marijuana use, and asked what he was really doing to his body. Supposedly the doctor told him that despite all the hoopla about pot, it’s a minor lung irritant and that’s about it. In fact the doctor (again, supposedly) told him that if he had to choose between pot and alcohol, the good doctor would prefer my buddy smoked the weed since alcohol affects every cell in the body, and weed just kills off the brain cells. So there’s that.
I always thought it was drinking that killed brain cells.
I highly doubt that weed kills brain cells.
(pun intended?, possibly)
Some things to add from experience:
Pot smoke is a considerable lung irritant, where as some element of tobacco smoke seems to inhibit coughing. One heavy pot smoker I know is also a cigarette smoker and he finds that a smoking a cigarette considerably reduces pot smoke induced coughing. Quebecois pot smokers I have known invariably mix tobacco and pot.
Exercise induced asthma became a problem for me in the past few years, and there is no question that pot smoke for me not only exacerbates the problem but can induce an attack due to irritation. Some studies and anecdotal evidence from some asthma suffers suggests that pot can act as a bronchiodialator but this certainly doesnt work for me. Obviously I dont smoke it so much now because of this.
The behavior of holding pot smoke in is almost entirely confined to new or inexperienced users who have learnt it from movies I suppose. No regular smokers I have known do this.
I have read theories that lung deposits from tobacco use is partially due to tobacco’s inhibition of coughing, the deposits tend to remain instead of being worked out.
I think they are both bad for your lungs but perhaps ultimately in different ways.
(You know, I DO wish dudes would use the “Quote block” feature to quote outside sources. It’s there to quote other *posts, * not outside sources, and if you do use it, I have to go through several steps to quote your cite) :mad:
OK, give a 30 year “lifetime of smoking”, that’s two doobies a day. :eek: :rolleyes: Compare to 40 cigs a day. I have never known anyone that smokes 40 doobies a day. Thus, I doubt that for the usual casual maijauna user there is a problem. In fact, I know a few dudes that smoke a couple cigars a week and their Doctors aren’t worried. It’s the difference in the drug- Nicotine is very addictive and demands frequent dosing, thus some smoke as much as 60 cigs a day. The heaviest marijauna smoker I ever knew burned through one joint every 4 waking hours, which is 4 a day, and thus 1/15th the consumption of a heavy cig smoker, so even IF MJ was as dangerous as tobacco- 1/15 the danger. (note that in some things, a lot is dangerous where a little is safe).
However, (read my sig)- still and all- inhaling smoke into your lungs is NOT A GOOD THING.
Why would a patient be more resistant to THC inhaled through a vaporizer than through a joint? The only difference is that they’re not inhaling burning plant matter.
Yeah, I don’t really see the point of these. THC is soluble in fat/oil and alcohol, so it’s fairly easy and inexpensive to make a tincture or food with it if smoking/vaporizing isn’t an option for some reason.
No, which is why I took time to describe this as my personal experience. Take it for what its worth without being snippy.