Smokers cough (not cigs)

[Captain Hanks]

No, I've not seen any research on permanent symptoms, either. Except that if people already have, say, asthma or a tendency toward bronchitis and they find weed smoking makes those particular conditions worse, the asthma and/or bronchitis themselves tend to be permanent problems, if you see what I mean. That is, people with those conditions tend to have ongoing or recurring trouble with them. So weed smoking, while it's occuring in conjunction with asthma or bronchitis, tends to add fuel to an already burning fire, at least while it's happening.

If you don't have any existing pulmonary concerns and you successfully handle cardiovascular exercise, you're probably in good shape. I still maintain that it's the THC and other cannbinoids that are the beneficial compounds on the lungs, however. Most of what I've read says it's the THC that has the protective effect where cancer is concerned. And there's a lot of other stuff in burning cannabis in addition to cannabinoids. We've left out the whole area of potential cardiac complications (do another Google search on cannabis and heart attack risk), which, of course, has pulmonary implications, too. But you're young and probably aren't at increased risk of heart attack right now.

If you're concerned about your pulmonary health, it'd be interesting, especially if you know a respiratory therapist or some sort of physician who deals with pulmonary matters, to periodically measure your vital (lung) capacity. They have you blow into a spirometer machine, and it tests your lung volume, basically. We all tend to lose lung volume as we age, and cigarette-smoking, pulmonary inflammation and infections, and allergies can cause that to happen faster. Sounds like you don't have any of those things. It'd be interesting, as a regular weed smoker, for you to see whether you personally experienced any diminishment in your pulmonary capacity over a period of years. Then you would have studied yourself and could write up those results!

Question, when you say "add fuel to the fire" (making syptoms worse), do you mean it brought their symptoms to a higher level permanentally? Or untill smoking was disscontinued?

Also, when you saying that smoking causes lung capacity to shrink faster through our aging process, do you mean permanentally or just untill smoking is disscontinued (in wich your lung capacity would return to normal).

Funny you mention lung capacity. I was watching the Montel William "Medical Marijuana" episode in wich Montel invited one of the six patients in the U.S. who are legal cannabis users (I assume you know these people in whom I am speaking of). The guy has been smoking 10 pre-rolled cannabis cigarettes everyday for the past 30 years. He and a few other patients were curious as to why none of the negative affects the feds said would occur were happening and decided to get checked up. Allow me to quote: Rosenfeld put in, "I've been getting this medicine for 22 years from the federal government, and they don't want to research me. They don't even want to know what's happening with me." A few years ago he and three other patients went, at private expense, to the University of Montana for complete medical evaluations. "And we all came out normal," he said. "My lung capacity was 108 percent of normal." Nor is he lacking in energy and motivation, Rosenfeld pointed out over footage of him at his desk in a brokerage firm, dealing with five matters at once.:rasta:

[birdgirl73]

That's interesting to know! I wish I'd seen that Montel show. I like what Montel has done for this substance, and I'm glad he's helping educate folks.

I don't know whether smoking causes lung capacity to shrink permanently or just until smoking is discontinued. That's why we need you to test this!! What we really need is for thousands to test this. Then we could draw some real conclusions.

My reference to adding fuel to the fire of making those pulmonary conditions worse referred to the time while smoking was occurring. Again, though, this is a slippery semantic slope to be on. Because certainly bronchitis tends to be a progressive disease anyway. Asthma can hold steady or even improve over time. But bronchitis and even regular colds can diminish respiratory capacity, so there's not a good way to know how weed smoking, even for brief periods, might factor in. Aging is an annoying bugger, too, since vital capacity shrinks inexorably over time, unless people work very hard for that not to happen (with regular cardio-exercise and intentional deep-breathing lung-expanding exercises).

[Captain Hanks]

I got you. So, unless you allready have these symptoms, you won't develop them permanentally basically?

[Captain Hanks]

oh yeah, and you can still watch the episode on the pot tv website

[birdgirl73]

I got you. So, unless you allready have these symptoms, you won't develop them permanentally basically?

I don't know that we have any way of knowing this definitively since every body is different. But my guess is that this is a fairly safe conclusion.

I'll check out that pot TV and find that show!

[LIP]

My personal experience with cannabis and Asthma.

Well, i used to smoke cigs, and i've recently quit. When i was smoking cigs my breathing would be bad, and i'd weeze, but with weed i didnt, it stopped the weezing. And with a mate of mine, who has asthma, he said it can stop him having an attack, almost instantly after the first hit.

They're just my personal experiences with it.