No Link Between Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer (Excerpted)

People who smoke marijuana—even heavy, long-term marijuana users—do not appear to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 23rd. Marijuana smoking also did not appear to increase the risk of head and neck cancers, such as cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat, or esophagus, the study found.

Marijuana's Active Ingredient Kills Leukemia Cells

Virtues' of Ganja

The Politics of Pot

Pot Less of a Cancer Risk Than Tobacco

Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia

Mary Jane Trumps Joe Camel By Mary Beckman
CN Source: ScienceNOW Daily News May 23, 2006 USA
It seems logical that inhaling enough smoke will give you lung cancer. But a new study of Los Angeles residents suggests that smoking marijuana--even more than 22,000 joints in a lifetime--doesn't increase cancer risk. The results surprise many researchers, who point out marijuana has other ill health effects. Decades of research have shown that cigarette smoking dramatically increases the risk of certain cancers. But controversy surrounds the risk of smoking weed. A 1999 study of blood donors suggested a link between marijuana and head and neck cancer, but a larger study in 2004 found no such connection. Cont: cannabisnews/2/1868

Expert says tobacco pitched ads to young smokers - March 9, 1998

'Beverly Hillbillies,' 'Flinstones' and Joe Camel
* Youth smoking critical to companies
* R.J. Reynolds document cited
* Nearly 10 percent start at 12
* Related stories and sites

Marijuana Does Not Raise Lung Cancer Risk By Salynn Boyles
CN Source: Fox News May 23, 2006 USA  
People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer, new research suggests. While a clear increase in cancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users. Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers. Cont: cannabisnews/21869

U.S. GOVT. COVERS UP MARIJUANA CANCER CURE!

PROVEN: CANNABIS IS SAFE MEDICINE by Ian Williams Goddard (Excerpted)

The Jamaican study states that, even as cannabis use in Jamaica is pervasive and is used in heavier quantities with greater THC potency than in the U.S., its use is without deleterious social or psychological consequences. What's more, the three studies cited, the largest human cannabis studies to date, also revealed that heavy long-term cannabis users scored slightly higher on IQ tests, had slightly lower rates of illness and cancer, and lived longer on average than non-users. Users also proved to be more relaxed and sociable than non-users The best evidence indicates, contrary to GovtMedia disinformation, that cannabis is safe and good for you.

The journal TOXICOLOGY LETTERS published a study that found no link between cannabis smoking and lung cancer. The seven researchers in the study concluded: It has been suggested that marijuana smoking is a proximal cause of respiratory cancer. However, these intimations have not been borne out by epidemiological investigation.

Not only is the evidence linking cannabis smoking to cancer negative, but the largest human studies cited indicated that cannabis users had lower rates of cancer than nonusers. What's more, those who smoked both cannabis and tobacco had lower rates of lung cancer than those who smoked only tobacco-a strong indication of chemo-prevention. Even more, in 1975 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia found that cannabis showed powerful antitumor activity against both benign and malignant tumors (the government then banned all future cannabis/cancer research)

Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74

Cannabis: Legally grown and provided in daily smoked dosages

Marijuana (Cannabis sativa) is a treatment for pain and other symptoms of many diseases; its medical use goes back some 5,000 years. Sometimes cannabis can halt the development of a condition. It is medicine with a safe and effective dosage demonstrated by United States government research. The National Institute on Drug Abuse provides by prescription a standard dose of smoked cannabis to patients in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND) program. This is about two ounces per week -- a half-pound per month -- mailed in canisters of 300 pre-rolled cigarettes consumed at a rate of 10 or more per day.

"Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of
the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
-- DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young Docket No. 86-22. 1988.

Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”
The authorized on-line version

Therapeutic Use of Cannabis

Asthma * Glaucoma * Tumors * Nausea/Cancer Chemotherapy * Appetite
Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Back Pain & Spasms * Sleep & Relaxation
Antibiotics & Antibacterial CBDs * Stress, Migraines * Emphysema * Salivation
Herpes, Cystic Fibrosis, Arthritis & Rheumatism * AIDS, Depression

Lung Cleaner & Expectorant

Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust,
and the phlegm associated with tobacco use.

Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes—making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population. (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions).



The Official Story: Debunking “Gutter Science”

Lung Damage Reports * Radioactivity in Tobacco * Brain Damage Reports
Wasting Time & Lives * Doublespeak * Lingering Effects * Alcohol
Studies the Feds Don’t Talk About
Coptic Study * Jamaican Studies * Costa Rican Study * Amsterdam Model
Bush Strikes Again * Corruption: Carlton Turner * Nahas’ Studies & So On

Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia

Ganja/hemp lnfolinx
Thousands of products to harvest into jobs, housing, health and oil free clothing and food.

Marijuana May Spur New Brain Cells By Steve Mitchell
October 13, 2005 United Press International Washington, D.C
Scientists said Thursday that marijuana appears to promote the development of new brain cells in rats and have anti-anxiety and anti-depressant effects, a finding that could have an impact on the national debate over medical uses of the drug. Other illegal and legal drugs, including opiates, alcohol, nicotine and cocaine, have been shown to suppress the formation of new brain cells when used chronically, but marijuana's effect on that process was uncertain.

Needless to mention the hundreds of millions for thousands of years,
toking without problems.

Deaths in the United States in a typical year are as follows:

* Tobacco kills about 400,000
* Alcohol kills about 80,000
* Workplace accidents kill 60,000
* Automobiles kill 40,000
* Cocaine kills about 2,500
* Heroin kills about 2,000
* Aspirin kills about 2,000
* Marijuana kills 0

Marijuana Cancer Risk Played Down By Heather Burke
Source: Boston Globe May 24, 2006 New York 
People who smoke marijuana may be at less risk of developing lung cancer than tobacco smokers, according to a study presented yesterday. The study of 2,200 people in Los Angeles found that even heavy marijuana smokers were no more likely to develop lung, head, or neck cancer than nonusers, in contrast with tobacco users, whose risk increases the more they smoke.
Cont: cannabisnews/21870

"Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
- William F. Buckley Jr.



Government Suppresses Marijuana Research

Clinton Plan Attacks Medical Marijuana Initiatives, Targets Doctors
January 2, 1997 - Washington, DC, USA

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey in a seven-page release outlining the administration's response to the initiatives. "These propositions are not about compassion, they are about legalizing dangerous drugs," he told reporters.

Marijuana linked to lung cancer July 29, 1998

Dr Marinel Ammenheuser and her colleagues at the University of Texas Medical Branch now have evidence that marijauna smoking causes the same kind of damage to DNA as tobacco.

Dr Ammenheuser said: "We can't actually make statements about cause and effect from our study, but we can say that marijuana smoking probably increases your risk of getting things like lung cancer, in much the same way that we know that tobacco smoking increases this risk.

Dr Ammenheuser admitted that proviing marijuana causes cancer is difficult because most smokers also use cigarettes, or use tobacco as an ingredient in a joint.

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions."
Thomas Jefferson ..

Elderly change face of marijuana culture
Senior Citizens Who Rely on Medical Marijuana to Cope With Ailments Wonder Why the Federal Government Wants to Just Say No to Them.

Senior Home Care
Cannabis Caregivers
Ganjameds FARMaceuticals & Extractums

Patients Don't Need Politicians or COPs...Buzz Off

Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy ... and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with 'scientific support' ... fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others. ... The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents.
-- William F. Buckley, Commentary in The National Review, April 29, 1983, p. 495


Hal Margolin, 73

Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
William F. Buckley, Jr.

Clinton Signs Law Denying Student Aid To Marijuana Smokers

Study Finds No Cancer, Marijuana Connection By Marc Kaufman
CN Source: Washington Post  May 25, 2006 Washington, D.C

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.
"This is the largest case-control study ever done, and everyone had to fill out a very extensive questionnaire about marijuana use," he said. "Bias can creep into any research, but we controlled for as many confounding factors as we could, and so I believe these results have real meaning."

Tashkin's group at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA had hypothesized that marijuana would raise the risk of cancer on the basis of earlier small human studies, lab studies of animals, and the fact that marijuana users inhale more deeply and generally hold smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers -- exposing them to the dangerous chemicals for a longer time. In addition, Tashkin said, previous studies found that marijuana tar has 50 percent higher concentrations of chemicals linked to cancer than tobacco cigarette tar.

While no association between marijuana smoking and cancer was found, the study findings, presented to the American Thoracic Society International Conference this week, did find a 20-fold increase in lung cancer among people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.

The study was limited to people younger than 60 because those older than that were generally not exposed to marijuana in their youth, when it is most often tried.

Contact:: letterstoed@washpost.com * Website



The Politics of Pot
Souder Orders to FDA Backfiring!

"My disease makes it very hard for me to move.
My biggest fear is that the police will come to arrest me for my medicine,
tell me to raise my arms, and then when i can't do it, they'll shoot me."
- Cathy Jordan, Florida activist with Lou Gehrig's disease



The Ganjawar Fraud...

Silencing Political Dissent

"I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why?
Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."
- George W. Bush, US Pesrodent

Organic Cannabis/Tobacco vs Chemical Cigarettes

Caption contest



From Drug War Rant

Cannabidiol Dramatically Inhibits Breast Cancer Cell Growth, Study Says
June 1, 2006 - Naples, Italy



Naples, Italy: Compounds in marijuana inhibit cancer cell growth in animals and in culture on a wide range of tumoral cell lines, including human breast carcinoma cells, human prostate carcimona cells, and human colectoral carcinoma cells, according to preclinical trial data published in the May issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Investigators at Italy's Instuto di Chemica Biomolecolare assessed the anti-cancer activity of various non-psychoactive cannabinoids - including cannabidiol (CBD), cannabigerol (CBG), and cannabichromine (CBC) - in vivo and in vitro. Researchers reported that CBD acts as a more potent inhibitor of cancer cell growth than other cannabinoids, including THC, and noted that the compound is particularly efficacious in halting the spread of breast cancer cells by triggering apoptosis (programmed cell death).

Cannabigerol and CBC also possess anti-tumor properties, but lack the potency of CBD, they found.

"These results suggest the use in cancer therapy for cannabidiol," investigators concluded.

Previous studies have shown cannabinoids to reduce the size and halt the spread of
glioma (brain tumor) cells in animals and humans in a dose dependent manner. Separate preclinical studies have also demonstrated cannabinoids to inhibit cancer cell growth and selectively trigger malignant cell death in skin cancer cells, leukemic cells, lung cancer cells, and prostate carcinoma cells, among other cancerous cell lines.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500.
Full text of the study, "Antitumor activity of plant cannabinoids with emphasis on the effect of cannabidiol on human breast carcinoma," is available online at: http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jpet.106.105247v1. Additional information on cannabinoids' anti-cancer properties is available in NORML's report, "Cannabinoids as Cancer Hope," online at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6814

Freedom To Exhale& Cannabis News
Dedicated  To Helping People  Learn About The Drug War
Cannabis News is An Interactive  Drug Policy News Web Site Updated Daily!

RE: the caption contest.

So far, FrankD has the best one

"Very sorry Mr. President. It seem the dog thinks you're a dangerous dope."

Thanks for posting this info. again. I got started on cigarettes at the age of twelve. That was when they were advertised openly on the boob tube and even though many adults told us they were bad for us,we never took them seriously to my everlasting regret.I am really strung out on nicotene and have only been smoke free for a period of three years since 1962.I am pretty certain that if tobacco products were discontinued,I would be able to free myself from this filthy habit.Perhaps because I started smoking in my youth, it gained control of me through psychological and physical dependance.

I began smoking weed at 19 and have done so off and on since;yet I have never had any great difficulty stopping.
When a study such as this is made public,it should become difficult for the government to ignore.I think we will find that all the money doled out to politicians by drug and tobacco interests will make it easy for the bastards to ignore these findings. For the time being it looks like we are going to have to put up with looking over our shoulders and worry about being cited or arrested for enjoying our favorite herb.I do my part by telling people about my indulgence.If they get in my face about it, I present them with the facts i.e.,that Maryjane is much less harmful or addictive and life threatening than the legal poison many Americans use.One of my favorite practical jokes is to roll a joint with fresh Alfalfa hay,light it,and walk through a crowded bar.To the drunks and most others it smells like weed.If you are careful nobody knows who is smoking weed in the bar.I came close to getting arrested for doing this one time;in Oregon the owner/bartender is required to report any drug use to the cops immediately.I saw the bartender on the telephone and dropped my hayjoint on the floor.The cops took me outside and had their pooch work me over.Of course they found nothing and I had the opportunity to tell them what a waste of time it was to chase potheads like me.They agreed with me and said that they wished the law was changed.They said the worst thing about MJ was that it had to run with the hard shit as long as it was illegal.
Over the Hill in Portland.the Mayor and Police have decided to overlook posession of weed because it is a waste of man hours to go after.Slowly but surely,slowly but surely.Legalize!Decriminalize!