Does Smoking Marijuana Cause Lung Cancer?

As well as cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke contains cancer-causing chemicals.  If in cigarette consist of 40 cancer-causing chemical, in marijuana contained 33 cancer-causing chemicals. Therefore, the marijuana smoking also causes a number of cancer. Marijuana smoke also deposits tar into the lungs. In short, when equal amounts of marijuana and cigarette are smoked, marijuana deposits four times as much tar into the lungs.

A number of research shown a link between marijuana and cancer. In 2005 a review looked at the results of several studies into marijuana use and cancer risk. The researchers looked at 2 cohort studies and 14 case control studies. The case control studies involved many different types of cancer. Results were mixed and the researchers could not make any firm conclusions about the risk of cancer. It was also difficult to draw conclusions because of limitations in the studies.

Smoking marijuana cause lung cancer

Like cigarette smoking, marijuana smoke is also an irritant to the lungs. These include coughing and phlegm production on most days, wheezing, bronchitis, and greater risk of lung infection, although most of these may go away after stopping smoking marijuana.

One of chemical in marijuana is benzyprene. It is in the tar of both tobacco and cannabis cigarettes. We know that benzyprene causes cancer. It alters a gene called p53, which is a tumour suppressor gene. We know that 3 out of 4 lung cancers (75%) occur in people who have faulty p53 genes. The p53 gene is also linked to many other cancers.

Marijuana also contains a substance called THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). It is the THC in the marijuana that changes your mood and behaviour. The amount of THC in a cannabis cigarette varies considerably. Researchers have shown that THC causes benzpyrene to promote the p53 gene to change.  But other researchers have looked at the effects of pure THC on brain tumour cells and found that it killed them in laboratory tests.  This is a long way from using it as a treatment.  But you can see from this that the evidence on cannabis causing cancer is confusing.

Therefore, Marijuana (also called: pot, grass, cannabis, weed, hemp, hash, marihuana, ganja, and dozens of others) causes cancer especially lung cancer. It associated with the formation of large air sacs in the lung, called bullae, which can lead to shortness of breath and, if they rupture, death. Similarly, there are reports of sudden lung collapse or air pockets forming between the lungs among marijuana smokers.