"Marijuana..."

The use of marijuana is very popular in the United States and around the world. Seen as one of the less dangerous illegal drugs marijuana still poses many health threats for those that use it. While smoking marijuana might seem like a cool way to pass time you could be opening the gates to more powerful illegal drugs Learn the facts about marijuana before you think about using it.

Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; Your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. James Lane Allen.

Marijuana and the paradox. Of the harmful affects and then benefits that can be achieved through the experience of the brain being stimulated differently and illusionary in a safe environment...

These articles are about the harmful affects as the same sensory perception can be found in other safe and healthy practices...

Marijuana and the Personality...
The Harmful Effects Of Marijuana...

Marijuana

How much pot (the word pot comes from the Mexican potagua ya, or hemp plant) do you smoke a day?
There is no other drug used or abused by man “that has the staying power and broad cellular actions on the body that cannabinoids do.” (Cannabinoids are chemicals found only in the cannabis plant, the source of marijuana and hashish.)

Each cannabinoid identified so far is metabolized, or broken down into many other chemicals. Some are psychoactive; some are not. All are biologically active. In human studies, the chief psychoactive cannabinoid, delta-9-THC, and it’s by products showed up in all body fluids tested. The cannabinoids are fat-soluble and accumulate in the fatty sections of the cells and in the fatty organs.

Some of the non-psychoactive cannabinoids have been shown to be more harmful to certain organs than the psychoactive ones. Cannabinoids make up only a fraction of the known chemicals in the cannabis plant; new ones are constantly being identified. (In contrast to marijuana, most other drugs of abuse – LSD, cocaine, alcohol, etc. – are single chemicals.)

Marijuana smoking is harmful to the entire pulmonary tree, ranging from the sinus cavities to the deepest recesses of the lungs. Marijuana may be even more injurious to lungs than tobacco smoke, and its symptoms may strike faster. In a year or less heavy cannabis smoking produces sinusitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, asthma and other respiratory disorders. When tests were carried out on heavy Marijuana smokers more than 20 years ago pulmonary symptoms far outranked older cigarette smokers who averaged 30 cigarettes a day for 11years. Certainly that was some time ago however Marijuana has gotten stronger with the new strains of Hydroponics varieties.

Pot smokers without symptoms can also have hidden lung disease. Marijuana smokers who had 2.2 joints a day for 5 years had 25% more airway resistance than a matched group of tobacco smokers who averaged 16 cigarettes a day for the same period. Airway resistance determines how well we can get oxygen into our bodies and how well we can get out the toxic carbon dioxide that can poison the cells. Marijuana enhances enzymes that potentially contribute to the digesting of the lung itself.

Can using pot cause lung cancer?
Studies comparing an unfiltered cigarette with a joint found both smokes contained equal amounts of such irritants and gaseous toxic agents as carbon monoxide, ammonia, acetone and benzene. The carcinogens benzopyrenes were present in Marijuana smoke 50-70% greater than the cigarette smoke. When both marijuana and cigarette smoke condensates were applied to the back of mice, both produced cancerous tumors.

In experimental cancer research, more than 5000 animal and human lung-cell cultures exposed to puffs of smoke from a marijuana cigarette and from a tobacco cigarette were studied; the conclusion was that fresh smoke from marijuana cigarettes is harmful to lung cells in that it contributes to the development of pre-malignant and malignant lesions. The smoke from cigarette smoke had much less affect.

Results of actual lung biopsies taken from 30 soldiers (average 20 years of age) who had smoked hashish heavily for 8 months to a year showed 91% of those who had smoked both hashish and cigarettes showed squamous-metaplasia cells, one step removed from “wild” or cancerous cells. Remember these results were tested over 20 years ago; we are dealing with stronger potency of marijuana and hashish these days. Those who had smoked either hashish or cigarettes alone had a much lower incidence of these pre-cancerous cells. Noted was the fact that the hashish-smoking men were also likely to be cigarette smokers too. In summing up the Doctor said if the condition that caused the squamous-metaplasia cells doesn’t stop, then cancer will probably ensue.

Sick of being sick?
A study centered on T –lymphocytes, white bloods cells that play a key role in the body’s defense system, the T-cells constitute 70% of the lymphocytes in the bloodstream, and they respond by “charging up” (dividing rapidly) to increase their attack forces when they sense invasion by a virus, bacterium or other foreign body. The study involved 51 young chronic pot smokers (average age 22) and 81 non-pot-smokers (average age 44). It was found that the biochemically measured rate of the division of the T-lymphocyte cells was a startling 41% lower in the young cannabis smokers than in the middle-aged non-pot-smokers. This study was then taken a step further and 24 kidney-transplant patients were given regular doses of special medication to suppress the immune system so that fighter cells would not reject the “foreign body”- the newly transplanted kidney. As an extra comparison 60 cancer patients were tested who were known to have depressed immune systems. The results: the specially medicated transplant patients showed the highest impairment of T-lymphocyte response – 53%. However pot smokers ran neck to neck (41%) with the cancer patients (40%) in the suppression of their T-lymphocyte fighter cells. Photo-Micrographs taken of Neutrophils (bacteria-fighting cells) from subjects who had never used cannabis showed up on slides as round “plump,” with a distinct “skin,” or cell membrane. However Neutrophilis from long term (20 year) hash users were smaller, crumpled-looking, with dramatic alterations in the cell membrane. They were described as deformed cells, which probably could not function when challenged to do their assigned task of cleaning the blood.
Animal studies and most human studies show that marijuana not only inhibits the ability of immune cells to recognize the encroachment of disease or a “foreign invader”; it also suppresses the ability to take any action once encroachment is recognized.

Marijuana should never be used by anyone with heart trouble. A relatively weak joint was given to 10 patients with angina pectoris (chest pain caused when insufficient oxygen is supplied to the heart muscle because of narrowing of the heart muscle because of narrowing of the coronary arteries). Their average heart rate was 70 beats a minute. Ten puffs of pot jumped it to 100 beats a minute. Blood pressure also increased significantly. By increasing either the heart rate or blood pressure, you increase the amount of oxygen needed by the heart muscle, with 10 puffs of pot you increase both simultaneously. Marijuana increases the amount of oxygen delivered to the heart muscle. Not only could marijuana precipitate a heart attack or cause sudden death in patients with known coronary disease but people who might have sub clinical heart disease – without symptoms – could also be taking a risk. Some persons dying suddenly from coronary heart disease have had no prior recognized symptoms of heart disease. What about the cardiovascular system of the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who are stoned more than three hours per day? More than 100 young pot smokers were studied (ages 18-25) and it was found that during all the hours of the “high” their heart rate was significantly elevated, in many cases rising from the normal 60 to 70 beats per minute to 130 to 150. The more THC absorbed, the faster the heart rate. Such over-stimulation of the heart muscle could be the cause of chest pains so commonly felt by young, chronic pot smokers. Chest pains, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis – these are conditions not normally seen in young people. At a time when so many teenagers are pot users, research and clinical evidence strongly suggest marijuana as a cause of these and other early symptoms and diseases of middle and old age.

We know that tobacco smoking is one of the largest preventable causes of death. There are many preventable causes of death. There are many reasons to believe that marijuana smoking may be even more harmful.

This article has used information from a pamphlet written in 1980 however we can only imagine the statistics would be higher as the potency of THC is higher in marijuana these 25+ years later. The names of the doctors, scientists and professors have been withheld as have allot of the statistics as there has been recent studies. I have done this to show readers that things maybe more serious these days.

This article has been taken from a booklet reprinted from Readers Digest in 1980 and written by Peggy Mann called MARIJUANA MORE OF THE GRIM STORY.

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