Hacked Off About Pot

I read this story yesterday about how researchers in New Zealand have concluded that smoking one joint is as damaging to your lungs as smoking five cigarettes. No surprise there; now could they determine how many apples you can consume against a single Kiwi fruit?

“We have always suspected that marijuana causes lung damage, but it's nice to have it quantified," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer at the American Lung Association. "Now we can say much more strongly, to people who smoke marijuana, that they are doing bad things to their lungs."

Umm, duh, or as your average pot smoker is likely to put it, “Duh…ummm.”

Is it really newsworthy that inhaling smoke from burning vegetable matter can damage the delicate tissues of one’s internal organs? And are we to take that as an admonition not to smoke dope? Or is it just incentive to all buy vaporizors?

It seems like this sort of story on the dangers of marijuana smoking comes up every few months; of course smoking pot is not the best thing you can do for yourself, but is it significantly worse than standing around a campfire or riding a bike in traffic or removing asbestos insulation from the ceiling of your basement?

The point that struck me is that the group studied was people who smoked at least one marijuana cigarette a day for five years; my question: how in the world did they remember that? After a week or so of such steady use, I think they’d be lucky to recall where they lived, much less how much they smoked, much less, where they left their stash the last time they indulged.

As a far less frequent user, I’m not particularly worried about the long-term effects on my lungs. If it’s a 5 to 1 ratio of cigarettes to joints, that makes me the equivalent of about a pack a month or two smoker.

I’ll take my chances with that.