(San Jose Mercury News) Marijuana smoke is a carcinogen, sharing space on the list with arsenic, asbestos, and DDT, according to a scientific board of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Under today’s ruling, some medical marijuana dispensaries will be required to label their baggies and joints with a warning that the contents, when smoked, may cause cancer. Pot brownies, lollipops, and other non-inhalables are not affected by the new ruling.
“Marijuana smoke is a mixture of different chemicals, and a number of those were already on Prop. 65,” said Allan Hirsch, chief deputy director of the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. “That was significant to the panel to go ahead and list marijuana smoke.”
Proposition 65, enacted by voters in 1986, requires the state to publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, and that businesses and government agencies post warnings when they use such chemicals.
Though marijuana smoke was added to the Prop. 65 list today, the labeling requirements won’t go into effect until June 19, 2010. Only medical marijuana dispensaries with 10 employees or more are required to post a warning either in their shop or on the products themselves. Violations of the law carry a fine up to $2,500 per violation, per day.
Dispensaries will be required to carry a warning that cannabis may cause cancer, even though it does not cause cancer. Dr. Donald Tashkin’s thirty years of research shows that even long-term cannabis smoking is not associated with an increased risk of head, neck, or lung cancer. He hypothesizes about a protective effect, an anti-tumoral effect from THC that seems to mitigate the carcinogens found in marijuana smoke.
But the California EPA did not need to prove that marijuana causes cancer, only that there were some chemicals in marijuana smoke that are listed as possible carcinogens by the State of California. It doesn’t matter whether THC counteracts those chemicals; if even one of its chemical ingredients are on the list, California considers the whole substance carcinogenic.
This would be somewhat like labeling water as an explosive because the hydrogen in H20 is combustible.
We can fully expect the prohibitionists to point to California now and say, “See, even in the land of almost-legal pot they know that it causes cancer!”
Paraquat causes a lot more damage to the lungs than cannabis!
Yes, Thanks for your relpy, I have not tried the volcano, but was told it`s the best system.
I think the UBIE is a great product but for some reason it doesnt seem to have have the same effect on my friend who preffers a unfiltered pipe, but I fear cancer using his pipe.
Cannabis ought to be become re-legal,
Tobacco ought to REMAIN legal.
It’ll be made legal? ;)
BOTH tobacco and cannabis can be VAPED,
and NEITHER ought to be illegal…
Slippery Slopes.
If the public thinks smoking Marijuana is the same thing as smoking tobacco then marijuana will fowllow the same paths as tobacco.
Prohibitionists will use tobacco as precident for marijuana.
Karen.
I agree.
Even if cannabinoids DO
have a protective-effect
against pyrolytically-generated
carcinogens in cannabis-smoke,
smoking still produces carbon-monoxide,
whereas vaporization doesn’t.
This CANNOT be OVER-EMPHASIZED!!!
VAPORIZE!!!
VAPE is the WAY!!!
It seems wrong that there are no comments on this article. It’s such a heinous ruling that I’m lost for words. Instead I’ll post a comment I made today to a similar situation..
A huge section of our people are still tied to a time long ago when the church represented the “rightful order” of the world, and logical thinking was viewed as a threat to this order.
We approach the issue of marijuana’s prohibition with logic. We say that marijuana is incredibly safe and that its prohibition causes far more damage than marijuana ever could.
Prohibitionists believe marijuana should be illegal simply because that’s the right status for it. They don’t use logic because that would be a violation of their belief. That’s why no matter how much science we present to them they’ll always finish the debate with “marijuana is a dangerous drug which should be kept illegal forever”.
Simple solution, the VAPORIZER.