Reefer Madness: Cannabis damages your DNA

We reported on it yesterday, but now the latest pot propaganda has hit FOX News, so let’s have at it, shall we?

Researchers at the University of Leicester in England have found “convincing evidence” that pot smoke damages DNA in ways that could potentially increase the risk of cancer.

“There have been many studies on the toxicity of tobacco smoke,” researcher Rajinder Singh said in a news release. “Cannabis in contrast has not been so well studied.”

I guess 17,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies on cannabis’ medical efficacy and relative harmlessness counts as “not been so well studied”.

Singh said cannabis smoke contains 400 compounds including 60 cannabinoids. It also contains 50 percent more carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons including naphthalene, benzanthracene, and benzopyrene, than tobacco smoke, Singh added.

“However, marijuana smoke also contains cannabinoids such as THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), which are non-carcinogenic and demonstrate anti-cancer properties in vivo and in vitro. By contrast, nicotine promotes the development of cancer cells and their blood supply. In addition, cannabinoids stimulate other biological activities and responses that may mitigate the carcinogenic effects of smoke, such as down-regulating the inflammatory arm of the immune system that is responsible for producing potentially carcinogenic free radicals (unstable atoms that are believed to accelerate the progression of cancer),” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano notes.

In the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, the scientists describe the development of a new method that provides a clear indication that cannabis smoke damages DNA, under laboratory conditions.

“The smoking of 3-4 cannabis cigarettes a day is associated with the same degree of damage to bronchial mucus membranes as 20 or more tobacco cigarettes a day,” the team wrote in the journal.

“These results provide evidence for the DNA damaging potential of cannabis smoke,” the researchers concluded, “implying that the consumption of cannabis cigarettes may be detrimental to human health with the possibility to initiate cancer development.”

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.

“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.”