Saturday, May 27, 2006

Major study finds no link between marijuana, lung cancer


Researchers even found 'a suggestion of some protective effect.'

THE WASHINGTON POST
Friday, May 26, 2006

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana use for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful.

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

The heaviest marijuana smokers had lit up more than 22,000 times in their lifetimes, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.

More here and here.


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