Does methodology matter to no one.

[Baby Lee]

Saw this all over the net today and finally clicked on it.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012...1&f=1128&sc=tw

Smoking a joint a week for up to seven years doesn't hurt lung function, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. They came up with that number after following more than 5,000 people for 20 years. The results were just published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.


In fact, those occasional pot smokers actually had improvements in some measurements of lung function. That may be due in part to the stretching involved in the deep tokes typical of marijuana use. By contrast, both past and present cigarette smokers had impaired lung function.

But the pot smokers didn't get a completely clean bill of health. Heavy marijuana users, which the study defined as smoking more than 20 times a month, did see a decline in lung capacity. But that's after exposure to more than 10 "joint-years," which the scientists calculated as a joint a day for a decade. That's a fair amount of weed.

WTF - I don't know a thing about pot use, ie how strong your reaction is or how often the average person consumes. But this comparison to smoking is REDICKULUS. Doctors measure cigarette smoking density in PACK years, ie, '20 cigarette' years. They're talking about heavy use of marijuana being measured in joint years, and moderate use as a joint per week.

You're talking, for a 2PPD smoker, a 40x to 280x consumption density. I'd submit that people who consume 280 ounces of soda, heck water, per day would have more health problems than those who consumed 1 ounce of Everclear per day.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by tooge

The other thing is that most people dont smoke but a partial joint at a time.

Says who?

[alnorth]

I had this EXACT same line of thought this morning. Saw a story with a startling headline, clicked it, read it, saw the glaring obvious problem.

They are basically comparing several packs to one joint. WTF, really?

Aside from the obvious reason why its not comparable, its also not reasonable to assume that several-joint MJ smokers wont exist if MJ is legal. They don't exist now because its not legal and its not cheap.

This study is worthless. I understand the difficulty of finding incredibly-heavy MJ-users, but if they cant find those, then they should only compare what they've got to very light cigarette smokers who only light up a few times a month.

[ct]

Is there an exponential factor for those exercising both PYs & JYs concurrently?

Not that I need to know or anything...

[sedated]

Originally Posted by alnorth

They are basically comparing several packs to one joint. WTF, really?

The difficulty is finding a decent comparison. A pot user doesn’t light up and smoke an entire joint every hour or so like a smoker does. They may smoke once or twice a day (and that’s a pretty serious user, assuming they have a job).

And who are these idiots who think that a joint is the universal form of smoking pot? Of all the regular smokers I know, I’d guess less than 1% use joints as their main form of consumption, and those are generally the people who smoke the least overall, since a joint is a social thing.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by sedated

They may smoke once or twice a day (and that’s a pretty serious user, assuming they have a job).

In that case, they can easily find a good comparison. They need to cull out all the heavy tobacco smokers, since people smoking several packs a day are in another world by themselves.

Take 1,000 typical pot users, compare them with 1,000 very light few times a month cigarette smokers, and see what you got. I do think cigarettes are more harmful, but the difference wont be much under that condition.

[trndobrd]

Waiting to see the study comparing the health impacts of pot brownies to Oreo consumption.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by trndobrd

Waiting to see the study comparing the health impacts of pot brownies to Oreo consumption.

People who eat a pot brownie a week are more healthy than people who eat 40 Oreos per day. You're welcome.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by sedated

The difficulty is finding a decent comparison. A pot user doesn’t light up and smoke an entire joint every hour or so like a smoker does. They may smoke once or twice a day (and that’s a pretty serious user, assuming they have a job).

And who are these idiots who think that a joint is the universal form of smoking pot? Of all the regular smokers I know, I’d guess less than 1% use joints as their main form of consumption, and those are generally the people who smoke the least overall, since a joint is a social thing.

Blunts FTW.
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[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Says who?

I wondered that too
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[DRU]

Originally Posted by chasedude

One word... Vaporizer!

Yup

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by DRU

Yup

Got one. Dont like it much though. Not the same to me
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[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by DaFace

People who eat a pot brownie a week are more healthy than people who eat 40 Oreos per day. You're welcome.

Apt and succinct. I approve.

[DRU]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

Got one. Dont like it much though. Not the same to me
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Took me about a week to get used to it. The reason it's not the same is because of exactly that...it's not the same.

The process, the steps involved, the smell, the taste (which is actually a lot nicer with the vape), the cached feeling in your lungs, etc. That all goes away with the vaporizer so all you get is the end result.

That end result does still work just fine, and you feel a lot of better in general, too, because you're not sucking in all that nasty, resinated shit that gets left behind. Not to mention you save on your shit because it's a lot more efficient. No flame. No burning up your stuff. No carcinogens. You gotta get past the habit of everything else involved and be able to realize it.

Point is I think you should try it again.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by DRU

Took me about a week to get used to it. The reason it's not the same is because of exactly that...it's not the same.

The process, the steps involved, the smell, the taste (which is actually a lot nicer with the vape), the cached feeling in your lungs, etc. That all goes away with the vaporizer so all you get is the end result.

That end result does still work just fine, and you feel a lot of better in general, too, because you're not sucking in all that nasty, resinated shit that gets left behind. Not to mention you save on your shit because it's a lot more efficient. No flame. No burning up your stuff. No carcinogens. You gotta get past the habit of everything else involved and be able to realize it.

Point is I think you should try it again.

Lol. I use it quite a bit still.

Just isn't the same
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[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by loochy

What's your point? Every sane person knows that inhaling any kind of smoke is a bad thing. Marijuana users just look for a reason to justify using, so they say it's better than smoking. Well, maybe it is, but inhaling smoke is not good, period.

That's actually not true at all. The dose makes the poison. Anyone who has studied toxicology knows this.

Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_limit_value

Of course, inhaling smoke DIRECTLY usually does cause one to pass that threshold. I don't know the exact figures for marijuana .. I do know that it is far worse on carcinogens than cigarettes are.