Tornado Alley (PROG)

[DesertDrifter]

The jury is not in on that one yet. JAMA says the correlation is inconclusive. There is apparently some suppression of cancer cells by compounds in marijuana so the negative effects of the bad stuff may be compensated for by one of the cannabinoids. One can find articles all over the place that say marijuana MAY cause some lung cancers, which seems intuitive, but it is not settled science.

Whether smoking marijuana causes lung cancer, as cigarette smoking does, remains an open question.67,70 Marijuana smoke contains carcinogenic combustion products, including about 50% more benzoprene and 75% more benzanthracene (and more phenols, vinyl chlorides, nitrosamines, reactive oxygen species) than cigarette smoke.67 Because of how it is typically smoked (deeper inhale, held for longer), marijuana smoking leads to four times the deposition of tar compared to cigarette smoking.71 However, while a few small, uncontrolled studies have suggested that heavy, regular marijuana smoking could increase risk for respiratory cancers, well-designed population studies have failed to find an increased risk of lung cancer associated with marijuana use.67

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/what-are-marijuanas-effects-lung-health

The researchers found no increased risk of lung cancer from marijuana smokers compared with controls, although they did find a 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer among those who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.

“The odds ratio was always less than one for marijuana use, except for lung cancer at the lowest level of use, where the odds ratio was exactly one,” Dr. Tashkin said. “We found no association, not even a suggestion of a positive association, of marijuana use—even heavy, long-term use—and lung cancer after controlling for tobacco smoking and other potential confounders.”

James Jett, MD, Professor of Medicine at Mayo College of Medicine, a lung cancer expert who was not involved with the research, called the study well done. “The results moved me from thinking that there was an association of marijuana smoking with lung cancer to a more neutral position that there is evidence on both sides.”


https://journals.lww.com/oncology-times/fulltext/2006/06250/new_data_find_no_lung_cancer_link_for_marijuana.11.aspx

So, confirmation bias aside, the difference in risk between smoking tobacco and marijuana is apparently significant. I found an article about which compound is apparently a cancer suppression agent but haven't been able to find it again on my phone. I will look some more.