Has science proven cannabis to be completely safe?

Blaze Master

Well-Known Member
i don't think there has ever been a long term comprehensive study done on the effects of marijuana. i'm sure long term use has some negative effects but then again what doesn't. imo any damage i may be doing to my body is well worth it. :bigjoint:
 

researchkitty

Well-Known Member
Proving something "safe" is only done by not showing that its unsafe. Has anything shown cannabis to be unsafe? If not, then its safe till someone proves us all wrong again! :)
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
Grind weed (coffee grinder is a great way), heat oven to 300 to 275 . Bake for 3 hours.....thats it , drink the oil and get high as fuck.
Oh, drink the oil. I see. Oil extract. I was wondering if maybe you were proposing a technique for
vaping the cannabin-oil out of the other oil. Temp difference diffraction, or something.

IAC, that is a good idea, thanks.
 

VILEPLUME

Well-Known Member
Some good ideas here.

I did buy a vaporizer and not only does it feel healthier, but my place doesnt stink either. Also I think the weed last longer too.
 

Obi Wan Kenabis

Active Member
Nothing is completely safe. Everything has a risk.

What's certain is that whatever the risks of cannabis, they're relatively minor and they only affect the user. Okay, maybe a very occasional car crash, but texting's a lot more likely to cause that. And I once cut myself on a broken bong.

What's been proven, beyond any doubt, is that pot's extremely benign compared to almost anything else. Teens are much, much more likely to sustain brain damage from playing sports. So where's the War on Football?
 

Rtazmann

Active Member
Anything that our government has put out is bullshit,,,nothing but ngative,,,,,,if you want to find fact do your own research.....my own personal opinion is there is more people smoking mj thats not telling the truth.....and it's probably because the majority of those people why it hasn't been legalized...picture a ceo of a corp.. Admitting he or she smokes pot to unwind,,,,bullshit,,,,it would never happen,,,,,why,,,biggest reason he or she is a liar.
 

Alesso

Member
You can possibly get cancer from the SMOKE produced by burning marijuana. It sounds wrong to say such a thing, but bear with me. There are peer-reviewed journal articles on the smoke produced by burning marijuana that confirm the expected hypothesis that marijuana smoke contains carcinogens.

Now, this actually isn't a shocker. The carcinogens, or the molecules that have an affinity to bind to DNA, are actually found in lots of plant matter that is burned. So it logically follows that these same compounds found in burnt plant matter such as tobacco (excluding the many dangerous chemicals that are added to tobacco by cigarette companies) also appear in burnt plant matter from marijuana.

The active constituents IN marijuana themselves are noncarcinogenic. For example, THC-A is noncarcinogenic. In fact, some claim it is "anti-carcinogenic", although I'm not sure I've seen any peer-reviewed literature on that (feel free to point to any). In other words, if you vaporize your marijuana, thereby avoiding the combustion of plant matter, you are avoiding the risk of cancer to a greater degree. You could also do purified extracts, whereby you avoid burning the plant matter, and instead heat up the extract (note: extracts made poorly with strong solvents could leave additional carcinogens).


Finally, all that being said, there is no definitive number on how likely smoking "X amount" of blunts or joints will give you cancer. In my personal opinion, cigarettes are more dangerous in terms of lung/throat cancer. It's just that you can't ignore the fact that there are indeed carcinogens in the SMOKE of burnt marijuana plant matter. I think it's possible that you hack up a lot of the grime, which would contain the carcinogens, when you blaze. For whatever reason. I don't know how significant that is to preventing cancer, but it seems that you cough up the gross stuff whereas with cigarettes you do not. You develop tar lungs. I think we'd need to have a look at the lungs of people who have ONLY smoked marijuana for 20+ years and absolutely nothing else, in addition to controls of people with 20+ years of cigarette smoking and 20+ years of abstaining from both, in order to know anything for sure about the dangers of smoking marijuana. Thoughts?
 

MixedMelodyMindBender

Active Member
The science of this has been ridden with propaganda and truly baseless formulations.

Does cannabis in its natural form contain carcinogens. NO. Does cannabis gases from the combustion of the flower contain carcinogens. YES. But there has never been one recorded cases of cancer caused by cannabis smoke only. Its an utter lie that more than likely was started by the National Institute of Drug Abuse to state that cannabis smoke contains more carcinogens than tobacco. Tobacco contains carcinogens in its natural form, cannabis does not. Tar production from the combustion is much more profound than that from a cannabis flower. If your smoking joints, your boosting this number greatly.

Take 10 bongs hits and blow it into a used white t-shirt, now do the same with a cigarette ( if u smoke, if u dont, then dont).....see the HUGE difference.

There are over 1800 psycho active compounds in a cigarette. There are 4,000 chemical compounds in tobacco, some said to be radioactive, and 43 of which are accepted as carcinogens.

There are rougly 400 active compounds in cannabis, of which only 3-4 are psycho active. If smoked by means of water filtration or vaporization, this number is drastically reduced.

Saying cannabis causes cancer, is merely speculation at best, and most def propaganda. The anti cancerous properties of cannabis are still being studied, and are very numerous. Tobacco has 0 anti cancerous properties.

I will gladly take my bong now :)

*If you don't wish to ignore the fact that cancer has carcinogens, I suggest you stop breathing. This once clean air on earth is more ridden with carcinogens than the mind can imagine.

Cheers World~
 

Alesso

Member
The science of this has been ridden with propaganda and truly baseless formulations.

Does cannabis in its natural form contain carcinogens. NO. Does cannabis gases from the combustion of the flower contain carcinogens. YES. But there has never been one recorded cases of cancer caused by cannabis smoke only. Its an utter lie that more than likely was started by the National Institute of Drug Abuse to state that cannabis smoke contains more carcinogens than tobacco. Tobacco contains carcinogens in its natural form, cannabis does not. Tar production from the combustion is much more profound than that from a cannabis flower. If your smoking joints, your boosting this number greatly.

Take 10 bongs hits and blow it into a used white t-shirt, now do the same with a cigarette ( if u smoke, if u dont, then dont).....see the HUGE difference.

There are over 1800 psycho active compounds in a cigarette. There are 4,000 chemical compounds in tobacco, some said to be radioactive, and 43 of which are accepted as carcinogens.

There are rougly 400 active compounds in cannabis, of which only 3-4 are psycho active. If smoked by means of water filtration or vaporization, this number is drastically reduced.

Saying cannabis causes cancer, is merely speculation at best, and most def propaganda. The anti cancerous properties of cannabis are still being studied, and are very numerous. Tobacco has 0 anti cancerous properties.

I will gladly take my bong now :)

*If you don't wish to ignore the face that cancer has carcinogens, I suggest you stop breathing. This once clean air on earth is more ridden with carcinogens than the mind can imagine.

Cheers World~
I did not say it causes cancer.

You did not really refute what I said. This is the logic of my argument:

1) Carcinogens are molecules that bind to DNA. Continuous exposure to them can result in cancer.
2) Marijuana smoke, similar to the smoke of other combusted plants, contains carcinogens.
C) It is possible that smoking marijuana can result in cancer.
(You can then derive that doing something like vaporizing, or using a water bong, should be much safer, because it lowers the amound of tar. I also personally think, although it doesn't follow from the logic here, that smoking marijuana is far safer due to the easier coughing up of the tar)

That there have been no cases recorded attributed specifically to marijuana use does not prove it can't cause cancer. That is not a sound argument. Nor can you refute the fact that there are carcinogens in the smoke of marijuana. The tests performed by various labs are on the plant matter. You can't simply ignore that by saying it's a government conspiracy. You also can't argue that there are "carcinogens everywhere" in order to justify exposure to carcinogens.
Carcinogens in cannabis smoke:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18062674 (or here-->) http://www.ukcia.org/research/ComparisonOfSmoke.pdf

I mean, this paper concludes that the two plant matters' smoke is largely similar, in fact. Only a couple carcinogens are different (ammonia is evidently higher in the smoke of cannabis). What you are suggesting is illogical. Why should marijuana, a plant matter not very dissimilar to tobacco in terms of broken down components (i.e. excluding active components such as nicotine vs. cannabinoids), have radically different smoke properties? That just does not make sense. We're not talking about tobacco that has been adulterated by the tobacco companies. We're talking about raw plant matter. If you want to argue otherwise -- that cannabis smoke in fact radically differs from tobacco smoke, and that it has no carcinogens -- you can do so but you absolutely can't make bald statements. Back it up with peer-reviewed evidence. And, if you have issues with the peer-reviewed literature I provide -- point to the experiments and where the methodological errors are rather than the source of funding and other conspiracy drivel. Academic work is academic work. Believe it or not, just because the Drug Control whatever is funding your lab, it does not mean they steal your integrity as a scientist. You still do the right work, and that is the case the VAST majority of the time. Suggesting otherwise -- baldly -- is conspiracy-theorist behavior, no offense.

I'm not sure how you managed to take such an aggressive stance anyway by assuming I'm saying it definitely causes cancer. I'm merely being RESPONSIBLE by informing people what they should know. Everything I said is verifiable on PubMed. Run a search on "Marijuana, carcinogens" yourself. I will provide more links if utterly necessary. Did you think I was anti-Marijuana or something? That's not at all my stance. I just think it's good to be informed about potential risks, etc, however small they might be.
 

MixedMelodyMindBender

Active Member
All I am saying is that I refute the propaganda of " because it contains carcinogens, its a cancers product"....This plant has been utilized for over 2000 years. Well before the introduction of tobacco. In that mast time, there has never been one recorded fatality from the use of cannabis. Especially from the combustion of cannabis plant matter. That in and of itself, says that, for the 99%, it will never cause you to have cancer. 2000 years of testimony is very powerful science and history. If it was as cancerous as you like to think or say, I am sure that over all these years, someone, somewhere, would have been diagnosed with cancer from cannabis.

Cannabinoids, and their anti-cancerous properties greatly attack dying or dead cells that have been effected with cancer. It literally removes cancerous cells from your body, and even more prolific in mice studies. To say that these cannabinoids cause cancer is a fallacy.

There have been MANY recorded cases of people being cured of cancer from the INHALATION of cannabinoids. Why would the medical field utilize its plants for its anti-cancerous properties if it was the factor causing cancer????

Lastly, I have been a smoker of cannabis for 21 years. I still have 85% of my lung capacity, and I am 44 years old. I am positive, that if I would have spent those years smoking tobacco instead, I would be a dead man.
So, to say that the inhalation of cannabis smoke is unhealthy is baseless and speculation. There is not one bit of science that proves that, and more so, the science of cannabis and its anti-cancerous properties and medical marijuana's proliferation and use of the plant is LIVING proof, that NO CANNABIS COMBUSTION CONSUMPTION does NOT CAUSE CANCER.

Its merely speculation with suspend use of human logic, and more so, propaganda.

*One of the fastest marathon runner on this planet is a man by way of Kenya. He has openly stated that he has smoked cannabis for 30 years, every day of his life. Since the very young age of 10. He's the worlds fastest runner Patrick Makau. He has literally ran in his lifetime, a distance 5 TIMES greater than the circumference of planet earth.

Think this would have happened if he smoked cigarettes since the age of 10???? NO, cause he would be well beyond his grave :) And that is my point exactly. Even with documented long term use, the human does not succumb to cancer from cannabis. In and of itself, cannabis does not have the capacity to cause a body to become ridden with cancer. Unlike, tobacco. Cannabis has been known to remove toxins from the human body since almost the 17th century. Its an active compound that goes to work FOR YOUR BODY, not one of those compounds in combusted cannabis, is known to attack your body, and more so, compound attacks of the body. Our species has EVOLVED with this plant for more years that we can even look into. In all those years of co-evolution, not one man/women has become a victim to this plant.
 

psari

Well-Known Member
One potential grey underlining:

Not going to debate lung health/memory/development/psychosis/and the other scare tactics but the question was about potential/proven harms ... This is one outlying thing that comes up that thankfully the prohibs dont latch onto: Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.

WIKI LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndrome

I've run into only one person first hand who developed this. Based on consumers reporting or being diagnosed, you're looking at >1% potential. I chaulk it up to an allergy for lack of a better analogy. This is only analogist and the understanding of the endocannibinoid system is no where near where it should be.

More people are allergic to peanuts than this potential issue with cannabis use. And while this may nearly kill you, you are again more likely to die from an acute allergy to something else. Like bees.

The debate surrounding this one gets ugly fast. People blame the lighters, pesticides, smoking vs oral ingestion, etc. Only thing I've noted is these are hypothesis that dont correlate at all. The person's physiology or specific genetic pre-disposition or "something else" is the factor. Not a one time occurrence. People diagnosed/reporting this usually wind up testing delivery method and product types over and over again until they just cant handle being hospitalized or becoming that ill again.

Again, this is not a direct harm caused by cannabis. If I were allergic to peanuts or soy or a host of other things we all enjoy daily I would feel left out, but I would just have to do without.

Figure this will cause the usual response with a large call of BS about it, but I figured it might be worth noting in relation to this thread's call for examples it fits in. Sort of like all the outlying medical conditions, this sounds like BS or potential scare tactic until you meet someone with the condition.


(This probably doesn't fit in here really now that I think about it ... but, I bothered to type it up, so wth.)
 

MixedMelodyMindBender

Active Member
Just for your information, Dr. Lestor Grinspoon was the great individual to source the propaganda and further more, disprove "CHS" aka Cannabinoid Hyperemesis syndrome. It was one of his many great accomplishments in life. Also, of the 9 cases that were made public, Dr. Grinspoon also made it a case to point out that these individuals were under a slew of different medications. To say cannabis is the culprit is baseless. 90% of your ability to feel the effects of cannabis is within your brain. 90+% of cannabis smoke is absorbed by receptors within your brain, when the smoke dissipates throughout your body, a very small ( under 10%) is absorbed by your body. The chances of you coming up with this fallacy of a disorder is none. Its been disproven as fallacy. Thank You Dr. Grinspoon!


The case exactly is that the variables involved in this pathetic debate over run sciences capabilities.

Lastly, to anyone who says " oh im allergic to cannabis"...BULLSHIT, if you WERE, YOU WOULD BE DEAD. Your body natural produced cannabinoids and its literally the most abundant receptors in the human brain.
Yes, people are allergic to smoke inhalation that does result in death. Cannabis is not capable of causing death. Smoke, in and of itself can cause allergic reactions that result in death. With that said, the death toll for cannabis smoke that causes an allergic reaction is ZERO. The worst case scenario for some who is allergic to smoke is one hell of a nights sleep :)
 

Alesso

Member
All I am saying is that I refute the propaganda of " because it contains carcinogens, its a cancers product"....This plant has been utilized for over 2000 years. Well before the introduction of tobacco. In that mast time, there has never been one recorded fatality from the use of cannabis. Especially from the combustion of cannabis plant matter. That in and of itself, says that, for the 99%, it will never cause you to have cancer. 2000 years of testimony is very powerful science and history. If it was as cancerous as you like to think or say, I am sure that over all these years, someone, somewhere, would have been diagnosed with cancer from cannabis.
But your refutation of propaganda does not follow from my statements. Hence my confusion. I am not stating that it causes cancer, definitively. I am stating that it logically follows from the facts that you CAN get cancer from cannabis smoke by virtue of the fact that there are carcinogens in the smoke. However small that chance may be is totally irrelevant. It's there following from the scientific logic, and therefore a responsible person will consider it, regardless of the inferiority or unimportance of the risk. I don't want to be mean, but you seriously need to work on your reading comprehension if you honestly think I'm vigorously claiming it causes cancer. It's almost like you don't even want to entertain an academic discussion on the matter because you're older and you've already got your dogma engrained -- that precious marijuana couldn't possibly ever cause cancer, when in fact it can. 2000 years of loosely recorded "testimony" isn't science at all. That's preposterous and I'm sorry to say but your mentality is dangerously unsafe if you're truly that quick to discredit the scientific method.
Cannabinoids, and their anti-cancerous properties greatly attack dying or dead cells that have been effected with cancer. It literally removes cancerous cells from your body, and even more prolific in mice studies. To say that these cannabinoids cause cancer is a fallacy.
Provide the peer-reviewed evidence on this or it's just a meaningless bald statement. Moreover, I'm not talking about cannabinoids being carcinogenic -- yet another indicator that you simply ARE NOT reading what I write. Nor are the authors of the paper I provided you stating that cannabinoids are carcinogenic -- clearly you didn't even read it! That alone proves you're not interesting in learning anything. You think you know the truth, therefore you don't need to broaden your perspective on the matter. That's dangerous. In any case, if you'd actually read the paper, they're talking about carcinogens in the smoke, and they aren't calling them cannabinoids. It's possible for smoke to have many particles. In the case of marijuana, there are carcinogens in addition to cannabinoids and all the other molecule types.

There have been MANY recorded cases of people being cured of cancer from the INHALATION of cannabinoids. Why would the medical field utilize its plants for its anti-cancerous properties if it was the factor causing cancer????
Provide the peer-reviewed literature on these cases. Moreover, this is irrelevant. But just to humor the logic, try this: Chemotherapy and radiation therapy cause cancer -- and yet, they are currently employed as weapons with which to combat cancer. It's ironic, yet that's how it is. Just because smoking marijuana COULD cause cancer does not preclude it from medicine. Just because x-ray ratiation COULD cause additional cancer does not preclude it from medicine. And so on. Hopefully I've illustrated the point there without needing to actually spell it out.

Lastly, I have been a smoker of cannabis for 21 years. I still have 85% of my lung capacity, and I am 44 years old. I am positive, that if I would have spent those years smoking tobacco instead, I would be a dead man.
So, to say that the inhalation of cannabis smoke is unhealthy is baseless and speculation. There is not one bit of science that proves that, and more so, the science of cannabis and its anti-cancerous properties and medical marijuana's proliferation and use of the plant is LIVING proof, that NO CANNABIS COMBUSTION CONSUMPTION does NOT CAUSE CANCER.
Plenty of people can smoke tobacco for 21 years+ and be "fine", with their lung capacity intact. Yet some people get cancer and die after a year of smoking. So what, then? Personal anecdotes != science. You smoking weed for 21 years and being fine doesn't mean it can't cause cancer. Do you understand what a logical fallacy is? You commit so many logical fallacies and make so many bald statements that it's hard to debate properly with you without being condescending, no offense.
 

Alesso

Member
Your body natural produced cannabinoids and its literally the most abundant receptors in the human brain.
Just wanted to chime in here:

CB1 receptors are what THC binds to in your brain. You are correct that we do make our own endogenous cannabinoids that naturally bind to our CB1 receptors -- these molecules are called anandamide. Anandamide is not the same as THC. They are similar. Therefore, it could be possible for someone to have a specific allergic response to something in cannabis, even if they have no problems with their own anandamide (which they wouldn't assuming they're alive). Also, what if someone was allergic to one of the terpenoids or cannabinoids produced by cannabis smoke -- which certainly do not naturally appear in us? That could be a possibility too. I could be allergic to one compound, but totally fine with another compound differing by only a small amount.
 
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