Canabis and its impact on YOUR health!

Thought you could avoid Lung Cancer by not smoking tobacco and being 'cool' and rolling a joint instead?

New Zealand researchers are NOT going to make your day! The ABC reports that:

Smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer risk, scientists in New Zealand have found, as they warned of an "epidemic" of lung cancers linked to cannabis.

In an article published in the European Respiratory Journal, the scientists say cannabis could be expected to harm the airways more than tobacco as its smoke contained twice the level of carcinogens, such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, compared with tobacco cigarettes.

The method of smoking also increases the risk, since joints are typically smoked without a proper filter and almost to the very tip, which increases the amount of smoke inhaled.

The cannabis smoker inhales more deeply and for longer, facilitating the deposition of carcinogens in the airways.

For those of us who live in the ACT, are part of the baby boomer generation and who already have one form of cancer this news is grim. If the research is accurate then we will soon have to compete with many others for the already relatively small number of services available in the community.

Of course this is a very egocentric view of the world.