marijuana vs. tobacco, which is more harmful for lungs?

[Edgar]

ive heard the same thing barret.

[dylan]

yes, me too! the stude said that bongs reduce the amount of thc, but leave the cbn.

[ermitonto]

That's ridiculous. Where does the THC go? It's not water-soluble. That is, drinking the bong water does NOT get you high for the same reason you can't get high by letting some buds soak in water and then drinking the water.

[jadeius]

I can tell you that there are over 4000 chemicals in cigarettes that not only kill you, they cause more addiction to the nicotine...nicotine is relatively harmless....there's a lot more nicotine in marijuana than there is in tobacco....but marijuana (even though it has tons of chemicals) is not treated by man in a factory as is tobacco....cigarettes contain cyanide, ammonia, and thousands of unnatural chemicals...so even though marijuana has chemicals, it's all naturally synthesized within the plant....chemicals in cigarettes, I would say, are more harmful than chemicals in marijuana. The only other factor you want to take into account is the filter; you smoke tobacco through a filter with cigarettes, but not at all with marijuana...so that's a factor.

I personally think it all weighs out...they're probably both just as harmful as the other in smoke form...you're oxidizing thousands of different chemicals with that sudden fire with both substances...

But to sum it up, if you were to take tobacco out of cigarettes and smoke it filterless, say, in a bong or pipe, it would probably kill you a lot faster than pot would....

The nicotine in cigarettes is free-based with ammonia, much the same way cocaine is free-based with baking soda to make crack...so it's 100 times more potent and 1000 times more addictive...

[F L E S H]

Nicotine in marijuana? That's the first time I hear of that...

But like ermitonto said, it's been proven, yet not publicized, that most people who develop cancer due to cigarette smoking did not do so because of the carcinogens themselves, but because the tobacco is actually radioactive. It contains radium.

[jadeius]

Hmm, well I've never heard that, but I believe it though....

[ermitonto]

Yes, and the thing is most of the radiation is caused by the phosphate fertilizers the big tobacco companies use. If you grew your own tobacco I doubt it would be much more harmful than marijuana.

http://www.acsa.net/HealthAlert/radi...e_tobacco.html

[Nullific]

Many people don't realize that there is a difference between marijuana smoke and tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke does not contain polonium 210 whereas tobacco smoke does.
People like to talk about 'tar', tar this tar that...tar is not what causes lung cancer. Polonium 210, however, "is the only component in cigarette smoke tar that has produced cancers by itself in laboratory animals as a result of inhalation exposure". (Yuille CL, Berke HL, Hull T. Lung cancer following Pb210 inhalation in rats. Radiat Res. 1967;31:760-774)

Marijuana has been used for thousands of years, and since the day of George Washington in the United States yet there are no known cases of death that can attributed to the use of marijuana. Of all the studies done, none have been able to link smoking cannabis directly with cancers or life threatening damage to the lungs.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_57309
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1432/a02.html
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread10025.shtml

THC and other cannabinoids are antioxidants, they have been shown in laboratory experiments to prevent the growth of, shrink and destroy tumors. Further research will be done involving humans.
Hampson et.al 98
http://www.alternet.org/story/9257

Other evidence states that cannabis smoke acts as an expectorant in 80% of the population, as in it cleans the lungs increasing the life expectancy of moderate cannabis smokers who also smoke tobacco. (The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Chapter 7)

For the bong users out there, the study performed by MAPS and NORML used NIDA supplied marijuana and tested seven smoking devices.

[jakenthegentiles]

no man its 22 ciggs for 1 joint

[mellow mood]

i heard 10 cigs=1 joints. depends on how big is your joint and how long u keep your hits. too variable