Marijuana Causes Cancer

    Marijuana has never caused cancer in any human being or animal, and this is the most prominent argument towards this myth. There has never been a reported documentation of lung cancer due to marijuana smoking. This is for a number of main reasons. The first is that marijuana smoke is comparable to tobacco smoke, but not the same. Marijuana smoke has much larger particles, which cannot reach the small airways, and affect less surface area than tobacco smoke does. This makes it easier for your lungs to remove combusted particles, similar to dust and pollution particles. Secondly, nicotine constricts and hardens the blood vessels in the lungs, making it harder to pump blood into them and remove smoke particles. This is not a cause of cancer, but a cause of lung disease, chronic bronchitis, lung infections, and the like. THC dilates the blood vessels which makes it easier for your lungs to heal from damage from smoke. Finally, it has been stated that it is the nicotine that is carcinogenic, along with many other dangerous and even radioactive chemicals in today's cigarettes like radon and radium that are linked to cancer, not the actual amount of combusted plant material. All-natural tobacco (not easily available in Canada or the United States) would probably not cause cancer like industrialized cigarettes do. Marijuana can be grown in an all natural and organic way, or the chemical fertilizers can be easily flushed during the last couple weeks of growing, leaving no cancer causing chemicals.

Sources:

1. Daniel E. Ford, M.D., M.P.H. H.T. Vu, C. Hauer, K.L. Helzlsouer, J.C. Anthony Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Boston, (May 8 2000 Study). Marijuana Use is not Associated With Head, Neck or Lung Cancer in Adults Younger Than 55 Years: Results of a Case Cohort Study Cancer Risk and Preventive Health for Marijuana Users National Institute on Drug Abuse, R01 DA08199 (1994 - 1999).

2. Raymond Cushing, reporter, (2000), Pot shrinks tumors; government knew in '74 Retrieved from: http://www.ardpark.org/research/shrinktumors.htm (Oct. 5, 2006).

3. Jennifer Warner, WebMD Medical News, (2005), Pot Smoke: Less Carcinogenic Than Tobacco? Retrieved from: http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/113/110884.htm (Oct. 5, 2006).

4. 1997 UCLA School of Medicine study (Volume 155 of the American Journal of Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine).