This discussion interests me, and so I asked my husband, who's a cardio-pulmonary physician, about it. My sister has advanced cancer and smokes to alleviate the symptoms of chemo, so no one here is very worried about her getting lung cancer since she already has it somewhere else But anyway, my husband is now a big advocate of medical MJ, and here's what he said.

"You won't find many reasonable, educated folks going around recommending that people inhale combustible raw vegetable matter of any kind into their lungs. Unless you grow it yourself and know what's been/not been sprayed on it, you simply can't fully know what you're getting, but chances are that the tar and the carcinogens folks get in cigarettes aren't present in MJ in the same way. We know cigarettes cause cancer because we've seen decades of evidence of that and because we know the cigarette companies manipulate their contents. But no one has ever actually done tests on MJ smokers, and since the FDA is so stupidly against the substance, we probably won't find out anytime soon."

He said that even the heaviest grass smoker probably doesn't take in nearly as much smoke as a cigarette smoker does. "If folks are really worried about the carcinogenic effects--or if causes breathing problems in some individuals--they ought to take it some other form." He figures most folks don't get enough smoke to be worried. Someday if they make it legal, perhaps we'll know because we can study the long-term effects. To me, it'd be interesting to go to Amsterdam and see if cancer rates among long term, frequent MJ smokers are higher.

Anyway, thought I'd pass that on. . .