Leading researcher: “At this point, I’d be in favor of legalization.”

(McClatchy) UCLA pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin, who has studied marijuana’s effects on the lungs for three decades, studied heavy marijuana smokers to determine whether the use led to increased risk of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. He hypothesized that there would be a definitive link between cancer and marijuana smoking, but the results proved otherwise.

“What we found instead was no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect,” says Tashkin, whose research was the largest case-control study ever conducted. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Tobacco smokers in the study had as much as a 21-fold increase in lung cancer risk. Cigarette smokers, too, developed COPD more often in the study, and researchers found that marijuana did not impair lung function.

Tashkin, supported by other research, concluded that the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, has an “anti-tumoral effect” in which “cells die earlier before they age enough to develop mutations that might lead to lung cancer.”

However, the smoke from marijuana did swell the airways and lead to a greater risk of chronic bronchitis.

“Early on, when our research appeared as if there would be a negative impact on lung health, I was opposed to legalization because I thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects,” Tashkin says. “But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization. I wouldn’t encourage anybody to smoke any substances. But I don’t think it should be stigmatized as an illegal substance. Tobacco smoking causes far more harm. And in terms of an intoxicant, alcohol causes far more harm.”

Dr. Tashkin is one of the government’s leading anti-pot researchers.  His whole career has been spent searching for that (pardon the pun) smoking gun showing marijuana causes cancer.  His prohibitionist funders (our government) have spent millions looking for such a link, one that Dr. Tashkin was certain he would find.  A link between the tragedy of cancer that kills so many Americans and the marijuana the government has told us is our country’s gravest threat.  A link that would provide the political justification for the war against that grave threat, even though all the evidence seems to show that marijuana is actually quite benign and there is no link to cancer.  A supposed link that unnecessarily frightens Americans into supporting that war, which diverts our attention from real threats like meth.

Fake links, lying government, ignoring evidence, diverting attention, a war on a noun… man, it all seems so vaguely familiar…

This is a huge moment when even the government’s own researchers can’t deny the science behind marijuana anymore.