Teen’s Take The High Road – Tobacco many times more harmful than marijuana

It seems that teens have gotten smarter over the years as Marijuana is now just about the most widely used substance to smoke among teens today, based on market research by an anti-drug organization… and that is a good thing!

The nut bags at DrugFree.org [who are backed by the tobacco industry] discovered that 27% of teens stated they’d smoked marijuana in the last month. That’s considerably greater compared to area of teens-17%-who told the Cdc and Prevention (CDC) inside a 2009 survey that they used to smoke throughout the last month.

The CDC survey also noted the rate of teenybopper smoking cigarettes had fallen since 2000, once the percentage have been 28%.

The research through the Partnership learned that up to 50 % of teens (47%) used marijuana at least one time, a rise of 28% since 2008 This compared using the CDC poll revealing only 30% had played around with with smoking cigarettes at least one time. However teens who smoke tobacco regularly still outnumber teens who smoke marijuana regularly.

Authorities using the Partnership worry that pot is becoming stabilized among teens. They are saying this because not just convey more youthful people than ever before attempted it, but additionally 73% stated their buddies had used marijuana regularly without concerns over unwanted effects.

Basically, their research used to show that marijuana is more harmful for your lungs and breathing system than tobacco shows the polar opposite. One need only  read the marijuana smoking test outcome to see that tobacco / Cig’s scored worse in almost all categories with regards to its effects on the lungs. A 5:1 ratio comes from the “airflow obstruction” category, in which weed did score worse. But that’s just one of many categories. Furthermore, the study didn’t even say marijuana was 5 times worse in that category. It said between 2.5 and 5 times worse, which dishonest reporters simply rounded up to 5 to get headlines.

If we’re talking about the lungs, the two biggest concerns are emphysema and lung cancer. Tobacco scores far worse in both categories:

Emphysema was detected in only one of the cannabis smokers (1.3%), in 15 (16.3%) of the cigarette smokers, in 17 (18.9%) of the combination smokers, and in none of the non-smoking groups. 

With regards to lung cancer, the case for is even stronger. Conclusive evidence shows that marijuana does not cause lung cancer at all, and may even help prevent it.
While smoking marijuana is never good for the lungs, the active ingredient in pot may help fight lung cancer, new research shows.

Harvard University researchers have found that, in both laboratory and mouse studies, delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cuts tumor growth in half in common lung cancer while impeding the cancer’s ability to spread.

That’s the research, now for the common sense. It should be easy to understand that tobacco users smoke more than marijuana users. That’s just a fact, and it has everything to do with the relative harm of each. Even if marijuana were more harmful to the lungs, it still wouldn’t matter at all, because hardly any marijuana users actually smoke enough to hurt their lungs. Most don’t even smoke every day. They also quit more easily, thus consuming a vastly smaller quantity in their lifetime. The two cannot even be compared for this reason.

One should never be surprised to find the anti-marijuana propaganda machine turning out wildly exaggerated scare stories about the dangers of pot. But this whole episode provides a startling depiction of how irresponsible and just plain wrong marijuana’s critics always prove to be.