Chest Pains

[chillinoutblazebowls]

Hey Everyone:

Iv'e been smoking for about 2 years now, but this past year Iv'e just about done it everyday, 80% bongs 20% blunts. (Mostly Kush)

How often do you guys take breaks?? How long for each break?

Ive been getting chest pains lately and Ive been coughing a lot.

Any Input would be great!

Jon

chillinoutblazebowls Reviewed by chillinoutblazebowls on 11-23-2006. Chest Pains Hey Everyone: Iv'e been smoking for about 2 years now, but this past year Iv'e just about done it everyday, 80% bongs 20% blunts. (Mostly Kush) How often do you guys take breaks?? How long for each break? Ive been getting chest pains lately and Ive been coughing a lot. Any Input would be great! Rating: 5

[Captain Hanks]

Do you smoke cigarrettes? Smoking cannabis only has been shown to lower your chances of developing lung cancer!

[chillinoutblazebowls]

Lowers the chance of it??? Wow!!

What about like Bronchitis?

[orangeman]

I think you are still open to things like bronchitis and lung damage because of the smoke...

[birdgirl73]

Yep, Orangeman's right. Even though the THC and other cannabinoids in weed seem to be responsible for lowering the risk of lung cancer in those who smoke it, weed still contains far more carcinogens and irritants than cigarette smoke (or no smoke). It is associated with a higher risk of pulmonary infections and inflammation and increased risk of bronchitis and pneumonia. THC itself is a beneficial expectorant and broncho-dilator, but THC isn't all you're getting when you smoke weed. Your lungs are getting all the crappy stuff, too, when you inhale smoke. If you're having chest pains and coughing, it may be time to try vaporizing or eating your cannabis instead of smoking it.

[orangeman]

I occassionally have chest pains but it's weird because most of the time my chest area doesn't hurt after I give my self a break, 2 days after the break my chest feels better. When I start smoking again it doesn't bother me but within that period of time it comes back but it's strange because it doesn't bother me all the time, it just pops up randomly in the day and then goes away, also I don't even cough at all. The only time I cough is when I'm inhaling way too much smoke and try to hold it in but..I can't recall when I have ever coughed other than that . Sometimes I think I have problems and other times I don't. I know Birdgirl, I need to go to a doctor. Every day I'm getting closer to actually doing it .

[chillinoutblazebowls]

Yeah the response you gave Birdgirl i couldnt agree more...i think im going to try eating really healthy foods and excercising more...while still having some bong tokes.

If i still then experience the chest pains....then i know the vaporizer might be my ticket.

More comments are appreciated..please!

Thanks!

Jon

[pu ekot]

I'd go for the vaporizer for sure.

[Captain Hanks]

I believe both Orangeman and Birdgirl are wrong on this one:
ASTHMA

More than 15 million Americans are affected by asthma. Smoking cannabis (the "raw drug" as the AMA called it) would be beneficial for 80% of them and add 30-a60 million person-years in the aggregate of extended life to current asthmatics over presently legal toxic medicines such as the Theophylline prescribed to children. "Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown asthma attack." (Personal communication with Dr. Donald Tashkin, December 12, 1989 and December 1, 1997.) The use of cannabis for asthmatics goes back thousands of years in literature. American doctors of the last century wrote glowing reports in medical papers that asthma sufferers of the world would "bless" Indian hemp (cannabis) all their lives. Today, of the 16 million American asthma sufferers, only Californians, with a doctor's recommendation, can legally grow and use cannabis medicines, even though it is generally the most effective treatment for asthma.

(Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA Pulmonary Studies (for smoked marijuana), 1969-97; Ibid., asthma studies, 1969-76; Cohen, Sidney & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Life Insurance Actuarial rates; Life shortening effects of childhood asthma, 1983.)

LUNG CLEANER AND 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). (See section on asthma - a disease that closes these passages in spasms - UCLA Tashkin studies, 1969-97; U.S. Costa Rican, 1980-82; Jamaican studies 1969-74, 76.) Statistical evidence - showing up consistently as anomalies in matched populations - indicates that people who smoke tobacco cigarettes are usually better off and will live longer if they smoke cannabis moderately, too. (Jamaicna, Costa Rican studies.) Millions of Americans have given up or avoided smoking tobacco products in favor of cannabis, which is not good news to the powerful tobacco lobby - Senator Jesse Helms and his cohorts. A turn-of-the-century grandfather clause in U.S. tobacco law allows 400 to 6,000 additional chemicals to be added. Additions since then to the average tobacco cigarette are unknown, and the public in the U.S. has no right to know what they are. Many joggers and marathon runners feel cannabis use cleans their lungs, allowing better endurance. The evidence indicates that cannabis use will probably increase these outlaw American marijuana-users' lives by about one to two years - yet they may lose their rights, property, children, state licenses, etc., just for using that safest of substances: cannabis.

THERAPEUTIC EMPHYSEMA POTENTIAL

Medical research indicates that light cannabis smoking might be useful for a majority of mild emphysema victims. It would improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and extend their life spans. The U.S. government and DEA (since 1976) say the side effect of being "high" is not acceptable, no matter how many years or lives it saves; even though some 90 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million still smoke marijuana relaxationally, or use it responsibly as a form of daily self-medication, without one single death from overdoes - ever! All research into the oxygen blood transfer effects cause by cannabis indicates that the chest (lung) pains, extremity pains, shallowness of breath, and headaches we may experience on heavy smog days are usually alleviated by cannabis smoking throughout the day. Dr. Donald Tashkin, the U.S. government's leading scientist on marijuana pulmonary research, told us in December 1989*, and again in December 1997, that you cannot get or potentiate emphysema with cannabis smoking. * See Tashkin's Marijuana Pulmonary Research, UCLA, 1969-1997. Since 1981, this author has personally taken part in these studies and has continuously interviewed Tashkin on cannabis' medical indications; last personal interview was in December 1997.

TO REDUCE SALIVA

Marijuana smoking can help dry your mouth for the dentist. This is the best way to dry the mouth's saliva non-toxically in what is known among smokers as its "cotton mouth" effect. According to the Canadian Board of Dentistry in studies conducted in the 1970s, cannabis could replace the highly toxic Probathine compounds produced by Searle & Co. This may also indicate that cannabis could be good for treating peptic ulcers.

Radioactive tobacco
by David Malmo-Levine (02 Jan, 2002) It's not tobacco's tar which kills, but the radiation!


image: Adbusters
Cannabis is often compared to tobacco, with the damage caused by smoking tobacco given as a reason to prohibit use of cannabis. Yet most of the harms caused by tobacco use are due not to tar, but to the use of radioactive fertilizers. Surprisingly, radiation seems to be the most dangerous and important factor behind tobacco lung damage.

Radioactive fertilizer

It's a well established but little known fact that commercially grown tobacco is contaminated with radiation. The major source of this radiation is phosphate fertilizer.1 The big tobacco companies all use chemical phosphate fertilizer, which is high in radioactive metals, year after year on the same soil. These metals build up in the soil, attach themselves to the resinous tobacco leaf and ride tobacco trichomes in tobacco smoke, gathering in small "hot spots" in the small-air passageways of the lungs.2 Tobacco is especially effective at absorbing radioactive elements from phosphate fertilizers, and also from naturally occurring radiation in the soil, air, and water.3

To grow what the tobacco industry calls "more flavorful" tobacco, US farmers use high-phosphate fertilizers. The phosphate is taken from a rock mineral, apatite, that is ground into powder, dissolved in acid and further processed. Apatite rock also contains radium, and the radioactive elements lead 210 and polonium 210. The radioactivity of common chemical fertilizer can be verified with a Geiger-Mueller counter and an open sack of everyday 13-13-13 type of fertilizer (or any other chemical fertilizer high in phosphate content).4

Conservative estimates put the level of radiation absorbed by a pack-and-a-half a day smoker at the equivalent of 300 chest X-rays every year.5 The Office of Radiation, Chemical & Biological Safety at Michigan State University reports that the radiation level for the same smoker was as high as 800 chest X-rays per year.6 Another report argues that a typical nicotine user might be getting the equivalent of almost 22,000 chest X-rays per year.7

US Surgeon General C Everett Koop stated on national television in 1990 that tobacco radiation is probably responsible for 90% of tobacco-related cancer.8 Dr RT Ravenholt, former director of World Health Surveys at the Centers for Disease Control, has stated that "Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source."9

Researchers have induced cancer in animal test subjects that inhaled polonium 210, but were unable to cause cancer through the inhalation of any of the non-radioactive chemical carcinogens found in tobacco.10 The most potent non-radioactive chemical, benzopyrene, exists in cigarettes in amounts sufficient to account for only 1% of the cancer found in smokers.9

Smoke screen

Surprisingly, the US National Cancer Institute, with an annual budget of $500 million, has no active grants for research on radiation as a cause of lung cancer.1

Tobacco smoking has been popular for centuries,11 but lung cancer rates have only increased significantly after the 1930's.12 In 1930 the lung cancer death rate for white US males was 3.8 per 100,000 people. By 1956 the rate had increased almost tenfold, to 31 per 100,000.13 Between 1938 and 1960, the level of polonium 210 in American tobacco tripled, commensurate with the increased use of chemical fertilizers.14

Publicly available internal memos of tobacco giant Philip Morris indicate that the tobacco corporation was well aware of radiation contamination in 1974, and that they had means to remove polonium from tobacco in 1980, by using ammonium phosphate as a fertilizer, instead of calcium phosphate. One memo describes switching to ammonium phosphate as a "valid but expensive point."15

Attorney Amos Hausner, son of the prosecutor who sent Nazi Adolf Eichmann to the gallows, is using these memos as evidence to fight the biggest lawsuit in Israel's history, to make one Israeli and six US tobacco companies pay up to $8 billion for allegedly poisoning Israelis with radioactive cigarettes.16


image: Adbusters
Organic solutions

The radioactive elements in phosphate fertilizers also make their way into our food and drink. Many food products, especially nuts, fruits, and leafy plants like tobacco absorb radioactive elements from the soil, and concentrate them within themselves.17

The fluorosilicic acid used to make the "fluoridated water" most of us get from our taps is made from various fluorine gases captured in pollution scrubbers during the manufacture of phosphate fertilizers. This fluoride solution put into our water for "strong teeth" also contains radioactive elements from the phosphate extraction.18

Although eating and drinking radioactive products is not beneficial, the most harmful and direct way to consume these elements is through smoking them.19

The unnecessary radiation delivered from soil-damaging, synthetic chemical fertilizers can easily be reduced through the use of alternative phosphate sources including organic fertilizers.20 In one test, an organic fertilizer appeared to emit less alpha radiation than a chemical fertilizer.21 More tests are needed to confirm this vital bit of harm-reduction information.

Organic fertilizers such as organic vegetable compost, animal manure, wood ash and seaweed have proven to be sustainable and non-harmful to microbes, worms, farmers and eaters or smokers. Chemical phosphates may seem like a bargain compared to natural phosphorous, until you factor in the health and environmental costs.

To ensure that cannabis remains the safest way to get high, we must always use organic fertilizers and non-toxic pesticides. We should also properly cure the buds, take advantage of high-potency breeding and use smart-smoking devices like vaporizers and double-chambered glass water bongs. These will all help to address concern over potential lung damage far more effectively than either a jail cell or a 12-step program.

Tobacco smokers can also use this information to avoid radioactive brands of tobacco. American Spirit is one of a few companies that offers an organic line of cigarettes, and organic cigars are also available from a few companies. You can also grow your own tobacco, which is surprisingly easy and fun.

Until the public has an accurate understanding of how phosphate fertilizers carry radiation, and why commercial tobacco causes lung cancer but cannabis does not, there will be many needless tobacco-related deaths, and increased resistance to the full legalization of marijuana.


References

1. Winters, TH and Franza, JR. 'Radioactivity in Cigarette Smoke,' New England Journal of Medicine, 1982. 306(6): 364-365, web
2. Edward A Martell, PhD. 'Letter to the Editor,' New England Journal of Medicine, 1982. 307(5): 309-313, web
3. Ponte, Lowell. 'Radioactivity: The New-Found Danger in Cigarettes,' Reader's Digest, March 1986. pp. 123-127.
4. Kilthau, GF. 'Cancer risk in relation to radioactivity in tobacco,' Radiologic Technology, Vol 67, January 11, 1996, web
5. Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. Website, 2001, web
6. Office of Environmental Health and Safety, Utah State University. 'Cigarettes are a Major Source of Radiation Exposure,' Safety Line, Issue 33, Fall 1996, web
7. Nursing & Allied Healthweek, 1996,
8. Herer, Jack. The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 11th edition, 1998. p. 110, web
9. Litwak, Mark. 'Would You Still Rather Fight Than Switch?' Whole Life Times, April/May, 1985. pp 11, web
10. Yuille, CL; Berke, HL; Hull, T. 'Lung cancer following Pb210 inhalation in rats.' Radiation Res, 1967. 31:760-774.
11. Borio, Gene. Tobacco Timeline. Website, 2001, web
12. Taylor, Peter. The Smoke Ring. Pantheon Books, NY, 1984. pp. 2-3, web
13. Smith, Lendon, MD. 'There Ought to Be a Law,' Chiroweb.com, November 20, 1992, web
14. Marmorstein, J. 'Lung cancer: is the increasing incidence due to radioactive polonium in cigarettes?' South Medical Journal, February 1986. 79(2):145-50, web
15. Phillip Morris internal memo, April 2 1980. Available online at www.pmdocs.com, web
16. Goldin, Megan. "'Radioactive' cigarettes cited in Israeli lawsuit." Reuters, June 23, 2000.
17. Health Physics Society, 'Naturally occuring radioactive materials factsheet,' 1997. see also: Watters, RL. Hansen, WR. 'The hazards implication of the transfer of unsupported 210 Po from alkaline soil to plants,' Health Physics Journal, April 1970. 18(4):409-13, web and web
18. Glasser, George. 'Fluoride and the phosphate connection.' Earth Island Journal, earthisland.org, web
19. Watson, AP. 'Polonium-210 and Lead-210 in Food and Tobacco Products: A Review of Parameters and an Estimate of Potential Exposure and Dose.' Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1983. Florida Institute of Phosphate Research.
20. Burnett, William; Schultz, Michael; Hull, Carter. 'Behavior of Radionuclides During Ammonocarbonation of Phosphogypsum.' Florida State University, Florida Institute of Phosphate Research. March, 1995, web
21. Hornby, Paul, Dr. Personal communication, 2001.


• David Malmo-Levine: email [email protected]
• American Spirit: 1-800-332-5595; web www.nascigs.com

[birdgirl73]

Captain, you can think what you want. But first, do a Google search on cannabis and lung irritation. Then another on cannabis and asthma. Also cannabis and pulmonary inflammation. You'll find more references than you listed above proving just the opposite. You'll also want to visit the emergency rooms and pulmonary wards and respiratory therapists who worked with heavy cannabis smokers.

The deal about cannabis is this. THC is a wonderful bronchodilator and expectorant. But smoked cannabis itself is harsh and irritating and contains a lot more than just THC. Ask smokers who use it heavily. Ask me, who smoked it very lightly this past summer. It aggravated my asthma to a significant degree. This is why many savvy cannabis users, particularly those who use it medicinally, choose to vaporize it or eat it.

Like I said, you're welcome to your own opinion. I'm basing mine on what Iv'e read--and I've read a lot--and on my own experience and the experiences I've read from many heavy smokers here. More people need to understand the not-so-subtle differences between the great benefits of the isolated THC and CBD active compounds in cannabis and the potentially very irritating effects of inhaled burning cannabis smoke.