Health issues/Cancer related to Cannabis

[LazySmoking420]

Has any member on this forum experienced Health Problem or Cancer that was a direct effect from Cannabis use only?

[Nochowderforyou]

From what I know, there hasn't ever been a single case of anyone getting cancer from a cannabis smoker only, or anyone dying from cannabis. :)

[thcbongman]

You gotta understand getting cancer isn't something that'll happen from just smoking cannabis or cigarettes.

The subject of how one gets cancer is so complex, the causes can't be defined.

When I got cancer at 23, I was literally in marathon-running shape, and text-book health nazi. I'd never thought I'd get cancer, especially in the excellent shape and lifestyle I had. You can control external factors, but you can't control what's inside.

I wouldn't worry about it. I used cannabis during chemotherapy, and it made life that much better :thumbsup:

[Wesley Pipes]

i thought u were 23 thc (or around that age anyways)? :confused:

how long ago was that?

[Storm Crow]

treatingyourself.com- a medical cannabis site. There are several people with cancer there. Perhaps they can answer your questions.

[thcbongman]

i thought u were 23 thc (or around that age anyways)? :confused:

how long ago was that?

I am still 23, lol! Seems like I painted myself to be some old man or something.

[Nailhead]

It is hard to know because many pot smokers probably smoke cigs too, you'd have to find people that smoke pot exclusively to get somewhat accurate results

It probably does though, but you can always use a vaporizer or cook it in brownies, it doesn't have to be smoked

[Prunedale]

You gotta understand getting cancer isn't something that'll happen from just smoking cannabis or cigarettes.

The subject of how one gets cancer is so complex, the causes can't be defined.

When I got cancer at 23, I was literally in marathon-running shape, and text-book health nazi. I'd never thought I'd get cancer, especially in the excellent shape and lifestyle I had. You can control external factors, but you can't control what's inside.

I wouldn't worry about it. I used cannabis during chemotherapy, and it made life that much better :thumbsup:

Wow bro.. /hug glad everythings ok.. Cancer is all around me on both sides of my family, and wifes as well. Its heart breaking.

[birdgirl73]

I have only experienced regular smokers' trouble such as coughing, wheezing, aggravated asthma, and congestion as a result, but that always stopped within a short while of ceasing to smoke cannabis.

I don't know of anyone here on the boards who's had lung cancer as a result. But I do know two gentleman, one of whom just died about a week ago at 63 in the hospital in my hometown, who were longtime, heavy, heavy cannabis smokers and developed a form of large-cell lung cancer (a slightly different variety than typical cigarette smokers' cancers). Neither of these guys had ever used cigs, but they were absolute chimneys when it came to weed. Heavy, multiple daily use over decades. The gentleman who is still alive, who's 52, is lucky that his cancer was caught a good bit earlier and has a better chance of surviving his cancer. Both are/were at various times dealers and had access to enough weed to be able to smoke it in the same volume as most heavy cigarette users.

Can anyone say that their cancers were for sure caused by cannabis? No, no one ever can. But considering that neither of them were cigarette users and that the big difference between their pulmonary history and that of nonsmokers was heavy lifelong weed use, it's a relatively easy conclusion to make. You have to take into account that they might also have been sensitive or likely to have gotten lung cancer anyway, just like someone like Christopher Reeve's wife Dana, who got it without explanation.

I'm going to see if I can encourage their pulmonary docs to send their information and histories to Dr. Donald Tashkin at UCLA and see if he had any other case reports like theirs among his research. We expect that he does, but he may also see something there in the pathology/morphology details that will explain their cancers better. Tashkin himself knows and mentions in his low-link-between-MJ-and-lung-cancer studies that there does seem to be evidence that longtime MJ use can put into motion some DNA changes. He's in the process of studying that now.

[thcbongman]

Wow bro.. /hug glad everythings ok.. Cancer is all around me on both sides of my family, and wifes as well. Its heart breaking.

Thanks man for the kind words. Everything's gonna be all right, One more major surgery, t-minus 18 days and hopefully I don't have to deal with oncologists, or urologists on a regular basis again!

My best wishes to your family to recover from such affliction. You just gotta have faith!

[lifeROLLSon]

FEAR NOT!!

Science Daily - Study Finds No Link Between Marijuana Use And Lung Cancer

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.

The findings were a surprise to the researchers. "We expected that we would find that a history of heavy marijuana use--more than 500-1,000 uses--would increase the risk of cancer from several years to decades after exposure to marijuana," said the senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles.

The study looked at 611 people in Los Angeles County who developed lung cancer, 601 who developed cancer of the head or neck regions, and 1,040 people without cancer who were matched on age, gender and neighborhood. The researchers used the University of Southern California Tumor Registry, which is notified as soon as a patient in Los Angeles County receives a diagnosis of cancer.

They limited the study to people under age 60. "If you were born prior to 1940, you were unlikely to be exposed to marijuana use during your teens and 20s--the time of peak marijuana use," Dr. Tashkin said. People who were exposed to marijuana use in their youth are just now getting to the age when cancer typically starts to develop, he added.

Subjects were asked about lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol, as well as other drugs, their diet, occupation, family history of cancer and socioeconomic status. The subjects' reported use of marijuana was similar to that found in other surveys, Dr. Tashkin noted.

The heaviest smokers in the study had smoked more than 22,000 marijuana cigarettes, or joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 to 22,000 joints. Even these smokers did not have an increased risk of developing cancer. People who smoked more marijuana were not at any increased risk compared with those who smoked less marijuana or none at all.

The study found that 80% of lung cancer patients and 70% of patients with head and neck cancer had smoked tobacco, while only about half of patients with both types of cancer smoked marijuana.

There was a clear association between smoking tobacco and cancer. The study found a 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer in people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day. The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater the risk of developing both lung cancer and head and neck cancers, findings that were consistent with many previous studies.

The new findings are surprising for several reasons, Dr. Tashkin said. Previous studies have shown that marijuana tar contains about 50% higher concentrations of chemicals linked to lung cancer, compared with tobacco tar, he noted. Smoking a marijuana cigarette deposits four times more tar in the lungs than smoking an equivalent amount of tobacco. "Marijuana is packed more loosely than tobacco, so there's less filtration through the rod of the cigarette, so more particles will be inhaled," Dr. Tashkin said. "And marijuana smokers typically smoke differently than tobacco smokers--they hold their breath about four times longer, allowing more time for extra fine particles to deposit in the lung."

One possible explanation for the new findings, he said, is that THC, a chemical in marijuana smoke, may encourage aging cells to die earlier and therefore be less likely to undergo cancerous transformation.

The next step, Dr. Tashkin says, is to study the DNA samples of the subjects, to see whether there are some heavy marijuana users who may be at increased risk of developing cancer if they have a genetic susceptibility for cancer.

ScienceDaily: Study Finds No Link Between Marijuana Use And Lung Cancer (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526083353.htm)