>
> Pot doesn't cause lung cancer, researcher says
>
> Author: Canadian Press
>
> Pot doesn't cause lung cancer, researcher says Also
> doesn't seem to cause
> emphysema or birth defects, Senate hearing told
>
> OTTAWA (CP) - Smoking marijuana does not seem to
> cause lung cancer,
> emphysema or cause birth anomalies in fetuses, a
> prominent U.S. researcher
> told a Senatecommittee Monday.
>
> John P. Morgan of City University of New York
> Medical School said heavy
> marijuana smokers do show some symptoms of lung
> damage, such as coughing,
> frequent colds and bronchitis, but not the
> life-threatening conditions seen
> among tobacco smokers.
>
> ''We are some 30 to 40 years into this marijuana
> epidemic and still have
> not seen evidence of pulmonary cancer in marijuana
> smokers.''
>
> He was speaking before a special Senate committee
> reassessing federal
> legislation and polices on marijuana.
>
> Morgan said there are reasons to believe the heavy
> smoker of cannabis will
> not succumb to emphysema, a condition frequent among
> cigarette smokers.
>
> He said cannabis contains just as many harmful
> compounds and irritants as
> tobacco, but even heavy marijuana smokers - those
> who consume four to six
> joints daily - don't smoke nearly as much as tobacco
> smokers.
>
> ''The critical issue is the amount of smoke
> inhaled.''
>
> He said marijuana smokers have slightly more
> respiratory complaints than
> non-smokers, but the difference is so small that it
> is of no practical
> significance.
>
> Morgan also criticized research purporting to show
> fetal damage among women
> who smoke marijuana and scoffed at the theory that
> marijuana is a gateway
> leading to hard drugs.
>
> ''Many critics in the United States have decided
> that marijuana incites
> some biochemical trance that leads people to tramp
> the streets looking for
> heroin and cocaine.''
>
> But statistics show that most marijuana smokers
> never go on to other drugs,
> he said. ''There is no gateway, there is no credible
> gateway theory.''
>
> He said prohibition of marijuana only makes young
> people more interested in
> trying it.
>
> Rates of marijuana use in The Netherlands, where the
> drug is freely
> available, he said, are lower than in the United
> States where it is banned.
>
> Morgan conceded that marijuana smokers are impaired
> for several hours after
> smoking.
>
> People who are high should not drive, babysit, mow
> the lawn or enter into
> marital contracts, he said.
>
> He attributed opposition to decriminalization of
> marijuana to what he
> called ''the drug-law industrial complex'' in the
> United States.
>
> ''I don't believe anyone should go to jail for using
> a psychoactive
> substance,'' Morgan told the committee.
>
> The committee's hearings continue.
>
>
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===== "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
-Karl Marx
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