Comparing pot to cigarettes:
List of additives in cigarettes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
List of cigarette smoke carcinogens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The list of added carcinogens in (home grown) pot:
1.
2.
3.
Ok, smoke itself isn't exactly healthy, but it's primarily the added junk in cigarettes that kills people.
I must once again congratulate you on your choice of screen name, as this post is the epitome of foolish. You connected the dots between cigarette additives
approved by the FDA (not necessarily added by manufacturers, but approved to be added) to a list of carcinogens found in cigarette smoke, and came to the brilliant conclusion that all of those carcinogens were actually added to the tobacco by the manufacturers. Then, without providing a list of carcinogens found in pot smoke, you provide the list of
added carcinogens in home grown pot. Brilliant again. It seems rather clear that you think pot smoke contains no carcinogens, and you think all the carcinogens found in cigarette smoke are added by the manufacturer.
Cigarette smoke contains more than 4000 identified chemicals, with 37 of them being known carcinogens. Wow that's a lot of chemicals and a really lot of carcinogens. Home grown pot smoke contain, uhm, yeah, more than 4000 identified chemicals, with 50 (37? no, 50) of them being known carcinogens. Pot smoke contains approximately 5 times the carbon monoxide, 4 times the tar, twice the amount of ammonia and hydrogen cyanide than is found in cigarette smoke. Pot also has 75% more benzanthracene and 50% more benzopyrene than cigarette smoke has in all forms of its benzene.
OMG! Pot contains ammonia, cyanide, benzene?!?! How did these carcinogens get into home grown pot? OMG!
They got in there the same way they got into tobacco smoke, and from the smoke of a wood fire, or a grass fire, or from burning leaves - from the chemical reactions of partially oxidized hydrocarbons created by burning the plant material.
Tobacco smoke and marijuana smoke are chemically very similar, as both contain the same cancer-causing compounds (carcinogens). Pot does contain THC and other cannabinoids, which lessens some of (not all of) the carcinogenic effects, and mitigates and/or suppresses certain cancers such as lung cancer, breast and prostate, leukemia and lymphoma, glioma, skin cancer, and pheochromocytoma. Nicotine and THC act on related pathways in the body, but they bind to different receptors to activate these pathways. For example, the cells of the lungs are lined with nicotine receptors but do not appear to contain receptors for THC, which explains why pot doesn't cause lung cancer the same way that tobacco does. But just as with any other drug there are side effects to its benefits, such as increased cellular damage of the lungs, increased cough, sputum production, airway inflammation, and wheeze. Chemicals in cannabis are also known to kill more brain cells and interrupt neurotransmitters in the brain. And if you smoke both cigarettes and pot, you're doubling down on the problems of cigarette smoke, as the medical benefits of pot are greatly reduced and the carcinogenic effects of cigarette smoke are increased.
But no, it's not primarily the "added junk" in cigarettes that kills people, it's the junk that's already found in the smoke of all biological plant material. Winston (also Russia's #1 selling brand, by far), American Spirit, Dunhill, Nat Sherman and several other US brands contain no additives whatsoever, and people smoking those die at the same rate as those who smoke Marlboro, Camel and Lucky Strikes.
