Effects in man of short- and long-term use of cannabis sativa

[Latency]

[quote=contag;28541593][quote=study]to investigate the effects of chronic marijuana smoking on lung function, pulmonary function tests including single-breath carbon monoxide diffusing capacities were performed in 15 healthy women who smoked 1.7 +/- 1.4 (mean +/- sd) marijuana cigarettes per day for 235 +/- 135 days per year for a mean of 10.5 +/- 3.7 years. Control groups included 27 nonsmoking and 26 tobacco-smoking women. Results revealed that marijuana smoking with or without tobacco is associated with a reduction in the single-breath carbon monoxide diffusing capacity to [B]74 +/- 20[/B] percent of predicted, which was significantly different from that in the nonsmoking control subjects (92 +/- 11 percent; p less than 0.05). The subset of subjects who smoked marijuana and tobacco had a further reduction of the single-breath carbon monoxide diffusing capacity to [B]65 +/- 17[/B] percent, which was significantly different from that in both nonsmoking and smoking control subjects (80 +/- 7 percent).[/quote][/quote]

This diffusion capacity stuff is something I was never taught, but apparently
[quote=wikipedia]Values between 75% and 125% of average diffusion capacity in the healthy population are considered normal.[/quote]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_capacity#Interpretation[/url]

I'm guessing the lower end of those ranges (54% cap and 44% cap) were the people who smoked 3.1 joints/day. I did the rough math in my head and it looks like people who smoke 1 joint a day are on the healthy side of 75+%, even if they smoke cigarettes. So it doesn't seem like a big problem for a casual user.

If it's affecting alveoli and hemoglobin it can have some other bad effects, though. Goddamn, this stuff needs to be funded more.

[Contag]

Yeah, it's certainly not "YOU GONNA DIE!" like many think.

Agreed, in fact, all studies need to be funded more.

[Dedmytas]

THC killed my mother and raped my father