Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Who says Marijuana is not as lethal as tobacco?


Marijuana use and testicular cancer
4:54 PM, February 9, 2009
Young men who began using marijuana as adolescents or who smoked pot at least once a week were twice as likely as those who never used the drug to develop testicular cancer, according to researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
The association was strongest with nonseminoma, an aggressive, fast-growing subtype of testicular cancer that typically strikes men between ages 20 and 35.
"It's not just that you develop testicular cancer, but you develop a worse type of testicular cancer,"


Read the rest of this article from the LA times!


What are its long-term effects?
Marijuana smoke contains some of the same cancer-causing compounds as tobacco, sometimes in higher concentrations.Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day. The carcinogens in marijuana are 50-70 % stronger than that of tobacco.


Because within the first view hits, marijuana use increases the heart rate by over 50%, this dramatically increases the risk of a cardiac episode.