‘One marijuana joint a day is as bad as 20 cigarettes’

Maybe you’ve heard that smoking marijuana is not as bad for your health as smoking tobacco cigarettes. Nevertheless, experts warn that smoking marijuana increases the chances of developing lung cancer by as much as an entire packet of 20 tobacco cigarettes, reports Sade Oguntola. While new research continues to reveal the multiple health consequences of smoking cannabis, marijuana or hemp, it is alarming that there is still lack of public awareness on how harmful this drug can be.

Many people, particularly the young ones who smoke marijuana are unaware that each wrap of marijuana they smoke increases their chances of developing lung cancer by as much as an entire packet of 20 tobacco cigarettes. Marijuana smoking involves inhaling vapours released by heating the flowers and subtending leaves of the cannabis plants, known as marijuana. It is one of the most widely-used recreational drugs in the world. A sizeable number of people have tried it, thinking that smoking marijuana is somehow a safe pastime.

 In Lagos, for instance, a study reported in the European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that between 4.0 and 4.8 per cent of Lagosians use addictive substances such as, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. Moreover, the use of marijuana cuts across all social sectors, as evidenced by a survey of Psychoactive substance use/abuse among students in Igbinedion University, Okada which found that about 2.8 per cent of the students smoke marijuana. This was reported in the 2011 edition of the Nigerian Journal of General Practice. The increasing use of marijuana is not restricted to developing countries like Nigeria alone. In fact, in the United Kingdom, marijuana is used by more than a third of people under 24, but 88 per cent believe it is less dangerous than tobacco.

 However, according to the British Lung Foundation (BLF), smoking one marijuana a day for a year increases the risk of lung cancer by eight per cent. By comparison, smoking 20 tobacco cigarettes a day for a year increases the risk of lung cancer by seven per cent. Why is marijuana more dangerous than tobacco? BLF argued that the way marijuana is smoked compared to tobacco (such as the tendency not to use filters; and deeper, longer inhaling) makes the risk of developing lung cancer from smoking a single marijuana daily a day despite similar carbon monoxide concentrations in the smoke”.

Also, the reports stated that people often mix marijuana with tobacco. There is strong evidence that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer and chronic lung disease. This makes it difficult to isolate whether health problems are specifically caused by marijuana or tobacco. The report highlighted that many of the same cancer-causing compounds in cigarettes are also present in marijuana, and that the way marijuana is smoked may mean that the body retains more of these harmful products than when smoking a similar quantity of tobacco. The average puff on a marijuana is two-thirds larger and is held four times longer than the average puff on a tobacco cigarette. As a result, someone smoking a marijuana inhales four times as much tar as from a tobacco cigarette, and five times as much carbon monoxide.

 Although, the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2009 indicated that smoking both tobacco and marijuana increase the risk of respiratory symptoms and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), BLF said that a single joint is equal to 10 cigarettes in terms of lung damage and 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer risk. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema, the two disorders that constitute COPD, often occur in long-time tobacco smokers. Symptoms — mainly coughing and shortness of breath — don’t usually develop till people are in their 50s or 60s. In chronic bronchitis, inflammation damages the bronchi, or air passages, over time. In emphysema, the damage occurs in the walls of the alveoli (tiny sacs in which gases are exchanged), reducing the lung’s capacity to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide.