I'm guessing you didn't actually
read the above book review, never mind consider reading the book itself. So let me summarize and highlight what I feel is the most relavent factoid.
Study: Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
By FRED GARDNER
Marijuana smoking -"even heavy longterm use"- does not cause cancer of the lung, upper airwaves, or esophagus, Donald Tashkin reported at this year's meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society. Coming from Tashkin, this conclusion had extra significance for the assembled drug-company and university-based scientists (most of whom get funding from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse). Over the years, Tashkin's lab at UCLA has produced irrefutable evidence of the damage that marijuana smoke wreaks on bronchial tissue. With NIDA's support, Tashkin and colleagues have identified the potent carcinogens in marijuana smoke, biopsied and made photomicrographs of pre-malignant cells, and studied the molecular changes occurring within them. It is Tashkin's research that the Drug Czar's office cites in ads linking marijuana to lung cancer. Tashkin himself has long believed in a causal relationship, despite a study in which Stephen Sidney examined the files of 64,000 Kaiser patients and found that marijuana users didn't develop lung cancer at a higher rate or die earlier than non-users. Of five smaller studies on the question, only two -involving a total of about 300 patients- concluded that marijuana smoking causes lung cancer. Tashkin decided to settle the question by conducting a large, prospectively designed, population-based, case-controlled study. "Our major hypothesis," he told the ICRS, "was that heavy, longterm use of marijuana will increase the risk of lung and upper-airwaves cancers."
Ya get it? Now, go through all of the research, pulp journalism cites and other sources and try and find one not based on Tashkin's opinions or research. They're all bunk, he has just published a detailed recantation. I wonder if NIDA will try and get their money back somehow?
Yes, in isolation, some of the componants of Cannabis are known to cause cancer. So are some of the isolated componants of tomatos or milk or damned near any wholesome food product you can think of. But, for some damned reason the drug warriors are unwilling to research, when you put it all together, Cannabis is ....
...in its natural form, [] one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.1"
--
the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief administrative law judge, Francis L Young, after a long series of hearings, September 6, 1988
Cite: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=1071664
(note the TLD, .gov)
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves
--Ronald Reagan
