Feds' Top Pot Researcher Says Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer: A U of California researcher who has performed US-government sponsored studies of marijuana and lung function for over 30 years says that pot does not cause lung cancer. Dr. Donald Tashkin said that, when he began his work thirty years ago, he "opposed ... legalization because [he] thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects." However, he now admits that his decades' worth of scientific research revealed an opposite conclusion. In 2006, Tashkin led the largest population case-control study ever to assess the use of marijuana and lung cancer risk. The study, which included more than 2,200 subjects (1,212 cases and 1,040 controls), reported that marijuana smoking was not positively associated with cancers of the lung or upper aerodigestive tract – even among individuals who reported smoking more than 22,000 joints during their lifetime. "What we found instead was no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect," Tashkin told the newspaper chain, noting that cannabinoids cause "cells [to] die ... before they age enough to develop mutations that might lead to cancer." For more information on marijuana smoke and cancer risk, please see: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6891. A literature review of cannabinoids' anti-cancer properties is available at: http://www.norml.org//index.cfm?Group_ID=7008.

LOL. Had to laugh at San Jose suspending the park smoking ban for the stoner rally. Oh well, only in CA. Guess the stoners who are anti-tobacco will have to rethink all this or think a little for the first time in their lives through the haze.

hey are these people morons or what?Do they expect us to beleive this BS.If they do then they should move everybody out of california because the air there causes cancer. WASHINGTON – Millions of people living in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency. The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution. The average cancer risk across the country is 36 in 1 million, according to the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, which will be released by the EPA on Wednesday. That's a decline from the 41.5 in 1 million cancer risk the EPA found when it released the last analysis in 2006. That data covered 1999 emissions. "If we are in between 10 in 1 million and 100 in 1 million we want to look more deeply at that. If the risk is greater than 100 in 1 million, we don't like that at all ... we want to investigate that risk and do something about it," said Kelly Rimer, an environmental scientist with the EPA, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. Parts of Los Angeles, Calif., and Madison County, Ill., had the highest cancer risks in the nation — 1200 in 1 million and 1100 in 1 million,

yeah, and of course LEGAL tobacco cigarettes DON'T cause cancer right? come on, everything causes cancer :)

And people wonder why the youth of today do not trust their government... we thought it was bad in the '60's... the right has gone so far right they might have to start wearing brown shirts

Everything is a carcinogen if enough people whine about it. The big pharmaceutical companies will come up with some deadly drug to combat the politically incorrect object of the time and then push for a ban on it. Car emmissions are carcinogenic but no one whines about that, they just attribute the global warming they may cause to cows farting, so now they want to ban the cows. Insane!

Oh My! Seems as though the report from U.C.L.A, Harvard and The Cancer research Center released last year stating after a 30 year study there is no LINK between Smoking MJ. and indeed use may be preventative as well as curative in some cases.

Maui420L I think you got the wrong hand. It should be Left. The lefties from the 60's are the problem, if you look at the ages of most of our Legislators.

I don't think the government is going right or left.... They are just trying to lead lemmings off the cliff ....in a very straight line.

1. Note that the above report mentions no case of anyone who actually died of a cancer attributed to cannabis use (compare tobacco with over a million a year worldwide). 2. I am surprised they didn't take issue with Tashkin whose recent work has been widely reported (mentioned by Bernie Ellis). 3. Where Tashkin proposed that cannabis possibly caused some cells to die before they could mutate, I wonder if the key is that cannabis energizes your macrophages (sp.?) to capture and devour those danger-cells more promptly. 3. Not mentioned was the dosage issue: contrary to warnings recently heard from a kookish Congressman, stronger herb is a godsend because as little as a single 25-mg. toke of high-THC cannabis every second morning (4-1/2 grams a year) may be enough to provide the inspiration (L.E.A.P.=Long-term Episodic Associative Performance Memory) needed by any modern artist/technician/engineerperson on a long-term basis, whereas a pack-a-day nicotine addict uses up 14 grams a day of acknowledged carcinogenic tobacco product.

Weed kills the same way guns kill, it is usually the individual using it that does something stupid, causing the death of another. Especially when they drive under the influence.

Give me a break. This is common sense, if think about it. You take pretty much any plant material and burn it and the smoke produced will contain tar. The tar is basically just burnt residue. Suck tar into your lungs and they won't thank you. I doubt the source of the tar matters all that much. Deliberately inhaling a bunch of tar, which is what smokers (of any kind) are doing, is going to set your lungs up for some kind of problem down the line. If not cancer, maybe it will be COPD. It's just common sense.

A last gasp of the prohibitionists.

Pete: Google "vaporizer Donald Abrams". Then, Pete, Google "Tashkin marijuana COPD cancer". Read the actual studies that demonstrate how to reduce tar exposure to virtually 0 (Abrams) and then read that, even without the use of vaporizers for the past 30 years, lung cancer and COPD rates for marijuana users are minimal (Tashkin). Google can be your friend. Check back with us and tell us what you learned. There won't be a quiz but there will be free admission to another level of understanding of where we are, where we can be and why we should try to get there. Reality -- the other white meat.

God knows, all those potheads vaporize their weed. You are so smart Bernie. Let's make it a law that the only way a Marijuana patient may consume their medicine is by vaporizor. We could increase the fines to $1000 per gram for possession of marijuana without a vaporizor. I wish I would have thought of it sooner. I need to write my legislator.

It's not hard to believe that smoking marijuana causes cancer. If smoking does its common sense that marijuana does. It has strong and powerful toxins. Just as you smoke daily cigarettes same marijuana. It effects the brain and does impair judgement, cells too. More orless your lungs. This is a drug and it will harm you eventually over time......

If more people smoked pot then tobacco, there wouldn't be all this contraversy. Cigarettes have always given the image of being tough, can't say pot has. Make love, not war!

I remember when this site was used primarily by clinicians and the posts were about abstinence and recovery. I am sorry to see this is no longer the case.

This debate is useless. No one on either side is coing to convice anyone on the other side. This is worse than having a religious argument. Pot heads are correct in saying that there is no link to smoking marijuana and lung cancer. They are also correct in noting that Marijuana causes some cells to die before they mutate and cause cancer. However, marijuna smoking does increase the risk of cancer in the head, neck and testicles. Yes, there are other things that cause this kinds of cancer besides Marijuana but if you are in a situation where you are exposed to both, then you have a higher risk.

Musician is right, and Verde must be the "Leader of the Lemmings Movement." Junk science can be made into anything that one would like, especially if there is money and/or fame attached. The "hole in the ozone layer" is still there, growing and shrinking but not because we got rid of "Freon." That did make money for a lot of folks who were not concerned that our primary pollutant EVERY DAY is ozone. The "global warming hoax" is some more money-making junk science. More lemmings join the parade and more money is made (and lost.) How long has it been since you saw the "hole in the ozone layer" mentioned in the media? Did you hear that the ice build-up in the Antarctic is so rapid that it will take a lot more ice-melt at the North Pole to keep the international ports open? Think about it.

Can we please keep the arguments above the level of name calling? Calling people "potheads" or "prohibitionists" doesn't make your point any stronger. Thanks.

My most sincere thanks for our Moderator's reminder. We may not all be experienced professioanls in this field, however; we do need to express ourselves in civil manner.