Everything is harmful these days - our water is loaded with chlorine and flouride, our meat is raised with antibiotics and growth hormones, our vegetables are often genetically modified and coated with pesticides, our cleaners and cosmetics are laced with toxins, our furniture is full of flame retardants... Sex, smoke, and alcohol are probably the only escape for the average Joe - we're all terminal, don't forget...

Oh my goodness. Nice attempt to freak out everyone who reads this. The word to pay attention to in the title is "may." Do the best you can. Make healthier choices. Continue living and enjoying your life without the spectre of disease and death following your every move. How sensational. MSN should be ashamed.

@ Wade...shame on them for suggesting young women protect themselves and get the HPV vaccine? Shame on you! I am a young women and a nurse and believe that every young women should be protected. These vaccines are even going to be administered in schools soon. I think it's ridiuclous to presume that it is shameful to be fully protected. Getting the HPV vaccine only helps, it doesn't send the message to go out and sleep with everyone you can, but to fully protect yourself!

THIS IS SO DUMB. just stop, weed is fun. and get over it... - pothead :D

I am very happy that sympatico posted the marijuana study below. Slide 3 is very untrue! There have been no studies relating marijuana directly to causing lung cancer. Very deceiving and unimpressed by this posting.

This article is disingenuous. They always imply that pot causes cancer but there is no study that shows any link between Marijuana smoking and cancer. In fact there is actually evidence to the contrary.

FTR I am not even a pot smoker. It makes me feel paranoid if I smoke it. That actually is a concern, especially for people who are predisposed to schizophrenia.

ARTICLE:

Marijuana doesn't harm lung function: study

10/01/2012 4:31:00 PM

Lindsey Tanner, The Associated Press

CHICAGO - Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn't harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn't do the kind of damage tobacco does.

The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users - those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren't enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.

Still, the authors recommended "caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered."

Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law although some states allow its use for medical purposes.

The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings echo results in some smaller studies that showed while marijuana contains some of the same toxic chemicals as tobacco, it does not carry the same risks for lung disease.

It's not clear why that is so, but it's possible that the main active ingredient in marijuana, a chemical known as THC, makes the difference. THC causes the "high" that users feel. It also helps fight inflammation and may counteract the effects of more irritating chemicals in the drug, said Dr. Donald Tashkin, a marijuana researcher and an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Tashkin was not involved in the new study.

Study co-author Dr. Stefan Kertesz said there are other aspects of marijuana that may help explain the results.

Unlike cigarette smokers, marijuana users tend to breathe in deeply when they inhale a joint, which some researchers think might strengthen lung tissue. But the common lung function tests used in the study require the same kind of deep breathing that marijuana smokers are used to, so their good test results might partly reflect lots of practice, said Kertesz, a drug abuse researcher and preventive medicine specialist at the Alabama university.

The study authors analyzed data from participants in a 20-year federally funded health study in young adults that began in 1985. Their analysis was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The study randomly enrolled 5,115 men and women aged 18 through 30 in four cities: Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Minneapolis. Roughly equal numbers of blacks and whites took part, but no other minorities. Participants were periodically asked about recent marijuana or cigarette use and had several lung function tests during the study.

Overall, about 37 per cent reported at least occasional marijuana use, and most users also reported having smoked cigarettes; 17 per cent of participants said they'd smoked cigarettes but not marijuana. Those results are similar to national estimates.

On average, cigarette users smoked about nine cigarettes daily, while average marijuana use was only a joint or two a few times a month - typical for U.S. marijuana users, Kertesz said.

The authors calculated the effects of tobacco and marijuana separately, both in people who used only one or the other, and in people who used both. They also considered other factors that could influence lung function, including air pollution in cities studied.

The analyses showed pot didn't appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. Cigarette smokers' test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores. Very few study participants smoked more often than that.

Like cigarette smokers, marijuana users can develop throat irritation and coughs, but the study didn't focus on those. It also didn't examine lung cancer, but other studies haven't found any definitive link between marijuana use and cancer.

___

Hopefully we can have a matching study for the harm caused by the lack of other good habits of youth. You know, Exercising, eating meat, having good sexual relationships, Sun Tanning, making a clean break with your parents, etc.
As for this study, I thought that there were things that can be done to ameliorate sun damage to skin but not to make up from a lifetime deficient in vitamin D.

settle down everyone its just a harmless article...

- your survey is woefully inadequate. People will not admit to some of the favorite "bad" habits from their childhood such as fe. auto-eroticism, ... .Or, is that something your survey is too prudish to publicize?

For all those pontificating on the harmlessness of marijuana, you need to check your facts. Once a substance is burned, it becomes a carcinogen (even the charred bits of meat from your barbecue). And any kind of smoking can lead to cancer, and not just lung cancer. Smoking (pot, cigarrettes) is one of the major contributors to bladder cancer - which has a high recurrance rate (like 50 - 60%) which can have debilitating side effects (many patients end up losing their bladder altogether over time). It's also not just a disease for older men, there is a higher occurance of younger males developing the disease. This isn't just me being a prude - I have a husband (former pot smoker) who has been diagnosed with bladder cancer (they found it the first time when he was 36), and he is about to go through another procedure to have new growth removed. (And if that doesn't hit home, look up the terms "cystoscopy" - which is a test that a urologist gives cancer patients 2 to 4 times a year, and the procedure called "TURBT" - which is how they remove the tumours from the bladder - lets just say it's the one time that female anatomy has the advantage over male anatomy.) I don't think it's a big deal if you spark up a doobie at the occasional get together, but being a regular smoker of any kind is not in anyone's best interest (and if you're thinking of switching from cigarrettes to cigars, since cigar smoke is generally not inhaled - think again.)

As for HPV - studies are showing that there is a higher occurance of young people with various mouth and throat cancers , which they are linking to HPV. It seems that this generation is not necessarily heeding safe sex practices when performing oral sex either - people should be using condoms & dental dams for these activities.

I am appalled at the way beer and other alcoholic beverages are deliberately aimed at young people. There is no earthly reason alcohol needs to be advertised at all, we know where it is sold, go there and watch ads. Quit telling college age kids that they should bring a lot of beer to the cottage, drink gallons of coolers so the gorgeous coed will talk to them and we also need to ban student nights at local bars. There is nothing wrong with having one or two drinks, no more than that but that is not what is pushed on these kids and no adult should ever drink around their children.

Use condoms and birth control, get vaccinated and respect yourself and your partners. I would much rather see people living with a healthy active sex life than listening to religious fanatacs who still think celebacy is the only answer. Sex is healthy and has a lot benefits, both physical and psychological so long as you are careful and well informed. These so call celebacy pacts that these churches are pushing on kids just makes it that much more appealing, come on, the whole taboo attraction, it just doesn't work. Teach them the psychological ramifications of having sex too young, of sleeping with too many casual partners, infidelity, all that stuff, you know the real world. Stop telling married couples that birth control is forbidden and if a 14-yr-old girl is responsible enough to ask for a morning after pill, give it to her. Babies should not be used as a deterrent.

..and of course someone has to come in and defend pot. sigh. Smoking cigarettes is bad, being a pothead is bad, get over it deal with the facts. Bad. period. Studies have proven that smoking pot does not help cancer victims it just gets them high, well we have pain meds for that. I just wish potheads would stop insisting their magical weed is...magical.

Erick - your girlfriends sister has cancer, so for her, smoking pot is a last resort, she's already basically dying. If it helps with her pain, then fine. Heroin, by the way, also helps tremendously with pain, but it's not good to start doing that either. Just because something helps her pain doesn't mean it's totally safe for her.

This article is talking about the idiotic pothead college student who thinks it's fun to smoke up all the time and then is surprised when they get lung cancer at 60. Your lungs weren't meant to inhale smoke of ANY kind - just air. It's not completely foolish or "media hype" to think that inhaling smoke is completely safe for you.

wow i cant believe you added pot in that list, saying it can cause cancer and then saying that maybe thats now true, why even mention it if there is no proof to back it up? all you are doing is further enforcing incorrect negative stereotypes about pot that have been brainwashed into the publics mind for decades.

Erick. Spoken like a true pothead.. thats it, blame the government

Did Eric even read the article? Pot as a treatment for pain, is not a curing cancer! I'm sorry his sister in law has cancer, but the article is nothing about that, but of the side effects of former habits, that everyone knows may have long term health effects.

Really? Get the HPV vacine? Are you sure you're about "HEALTH". This is complete nonsense. I agree this must be government run. What's the next bit of advice....eat only GMO grown vegetables. What crap. Shame on you all.

This is rediculous!
How many marijuana related deaths on file to date? ZERO
How many tobacco deaths on file to date? Who can count that high.
Watch a documentary called THE UNION.
Who ever wrote this slide is a complete moron and has done ZERO and/or incomplete research.
I luahged when I read this, then got annoyed!

I like how the writer tries to tell us that marijuana smoke contains SOOOO many more harmful chemicals then tobacco but can only provide a statistic regarding the number of tobacco related deaths. How many people died from marijuana smoke if it is so terrible? You shouldn't write about something you know nothing about. It takes away from your integrity and the integrity of our article. I truly have no interest in reading anymore of your garbage.

If you are speaking about the possibility of today's marijuana use affecting tomorrow's health then you are remiss not to mention the possibility of young cannibas users developing schizophrenia.

I am speaking from first hand experience, being a former (chronic) pot smoker who is now trying to live with that very serious mental illness. Many may believe pot is harmless. I once did. But after experienceing psychosis, you will probably develop, as I have, a profound love of sobriety.

Re #2
Information just released confirms that Marijuana smoke is far less toxic than tobacco smoke.

This is not true and is a load of crap, my girlfriend's sister has cancer. she has done chemo and it has not helped, she turned to pot and it has helped her so far so major pains or anything.This is government ran media.