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Comment by trose | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but feel that statistic they're using is a little disingenuous. Yes cannabis has a ridiculously high lethal dose, more than you could ever smoke or consume. You'd basically have to create a concentrate and inject it directly or something.

I don't think you should be saying that cannabis is 114 times less deadly than alcohol. There are other contributing factors that could cause harm. There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for example. I'm an avid user of cannabis but I dont think we need to go around pretending like there are no side effects and its completely harmless.

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The connection to mental illness in teen usage is particularly worrisome.

http://www.futurity.org/teen-marijuana-abuse/

memory issues as well:

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2013/12/marij...

The problem here is that the age that you'd most likely use drugs is the age where you probably shouldn't. That said, of course the currenly policy is madness, but when I speak to "drug culture" people they seem 100% unaware of the risks and often tell me pot is a magical healing herb that can fix just about everything and, of course, is completely safe to drive on.

The activists have painted this false picture of it being this ultra-safe magic drug and I think its time we started building a rational view of it, as well as discussing with people what it means to be high and drive a car, and building out breathalyzer-like devices for police enforcement. It should be treated the same as a DUI.

>There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for example.

Isn't part of the problem the fact that marijuana is scheduled as a drug so dangerous that it's incredibly difficult to do that research?

Marijuana and Heroin are both Schedule 1. the reasons for this cannot possibly be objective (and aren't).

Illegality doesn't help, but there are jurisdictions where marijuana is legal. In fact there are plenty of studies, but the answers are so disparate that the original study authors reasonably chose not to factor them in: depending on whose studies you believe, a couple of joints a day could be a bit more likely to induce lung cancer than a few cigarettes, pose a negligible risk or even mildly reduce the risk if you're already smoking the tobacco.

A bigger (although not entirely unrelated) problem than legal status is that controlling for appropriate variables is an absolute minefield when studying usage of something as heavily correlated with certain demographics, behaviours and attitudes as cannabis.

> There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for example.

We know that cannabis smoke contains a bunch of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke. But tobacco smokers smoke a lot more than cannabis smokers; and you don't have to smoke cannabis.

Do we really know that? I mean, it stands to reason that combustion produces carcinogens, but cannabis is not tobacco. I think this is one of the basic assertions that must be validated by quantitative analysis.

Cannabis is thought to have an anti-carcinogenic effect, which is neat, but you'd still be at risk for emphysema and other kinds of lung diseases just from the physical impact of the smoke. Edible cannabis seems a lot safer in that respect but of course it's harder to gauge the dose, it's longer-lasting due to the different metabolic pathway, and it doesn't have the instant gratification of smoking. On the up side you won't have to worry about toting an oxygen cylinder around.

Vaporization.

I was going to include that but I don't really know whether or not it's safer - inhaling cleaner but hotter vapor also strikes me as potentially problematic.

It is safer. When you vaporize, you (hopefully) only vaporize the molecules that you want. The machine should be set at a temperature that is low enough to vaporize only the THC and CBD. No carbon, no icky tar, no lighter fluid. It is even better if you can vaporize an extract.

You begin with the plant, extract the molecules that you want, and then vaporize said extract. Filter this vaporization through water since the molecules that you want aren't water soluble. This also cools down the vapours.

It is a lot safer than blindly setting a plant on fire.

The downside is that you will pay a premium in order to get quality medicinal extracts and you will need to invest money ($500+) in order to get a decent vaporizer.

Source: I am no expert, but I have family members that use cannabis as a legal medication.

You make it sound like noone has analyzed cannabis smoke. Do you really believe that? Obviously they have. Here's an easy read summary.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?question...

The interesting one is:

> Dale Gieringer, PhD, State Coordinator of the California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), stated in his 2004 article "Cannabis Vaporizer Combines Efficient Delivery of THC with Effective Suppression of Pyrolytic Compounds," published in the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, where he compared the chemical constituents of marijuana smoke (from a glass pipe) with marijuana vapor (from a vaporizer machine):

[...]

> Comparison runs using combusted [burned] cannabis presented a strikingly different picture... Review data from the gaseous headspace detected 111 tentatively identified compounds, including THC and CBN. Included were five known PAHs [polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons]. Cannabinoids represented only 12% of the inferred recovered mass; the remaining 88% consisted of extraneous products of combustion."

And that is followed by a different study:

> Donald P. Tashkin, MD, Director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratories at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated in his article "Effects of Marijuana on the Lung and its Immune Defenses," published in the Mar. 1997 "Secretary's Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Initiative: Resource Papers" by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention:

> With regard to the carcinogenic potential of marijuana, it is noteworthy that the tar phase of marijuana smoke contains many of the same carcinogenic compounds contained in tobacco smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, which was recently identified as a key factor promoting human lung cancer... Preliminary findings suggest that marijuana smoke activates cytochrome P4501A1, the enzyme that converts polycyclic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, into active carcinogens."

> You make it sound like noone has analyzed cannabis smoke.

That's your interpretation, but it's not my assertion.

I've long wondered where the measurable health impact of marijuana smokers is. At the rates Americans consume it, shouldn't we be able to measure it the way we measure effects of tobacco and alcohol? Or is that more opportunity lost to prohibition?

What was your assertion, then? Because I made the same interpretation.

I think the answer to "do we know that?" was "yes, we know that."

Soot from bits of stalk in a spliff is going to be little different from breathing in soot from any other bit of dry burning wood.

Could you reference a study that makes that claim? I've never heard that before.

There are a couple listed here; some are from pro-cannabis campaigners.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?question...

Erowid has a nice chart. See benzene. https://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_info3.shtml

The british pro-drug site has a summary of some research: http://www.ukcia.org/research/smoke-contents.php

This UK National health service "behind the headlines" report looks at one study and how it was reported. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/06june/Pages/cannabis-lung-healt...

> The report says that the constituents of cannabis smoke are similar to those of tobacco smoke apart from the presence of THC (which is only in cannabis) or nicotine (which is only in tobacco). This means that cannabis smoke has the same carcinogens (substances that cause cancer) as tobacco smoke, although concentrations of these may be up to 50% higher. Like tobacco, cannabis also contains toxic carbon monoxide.

> It also points out that although people generally smoke cannabis less often than tobacco cigarettes, the way they inhale means the amount of smoke reaching the lungs is greater. The respiratory tract and the rest of the body may also retain far more of the products of cannabis smoke than when smoking a similar quantity of tobacco. Given the similarities in their constituents, there is concern that regularly smoking cannabis could have similar health risks as regular tobacco smoking, says the BLF.

> Also, people often mix cannabis with tobacco. There is strong evidence that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer and chronic lung disease. This makes it difficult to isolate whether health problems are specifically caused by cannabis or tobacco, says the report.

Thanks!

and you can use a vaporizer - which further reduces those carcinogenic qualities - most people i know that smoke cigarettes do not smoke e-cigs

Out of the zillions and zillions of weed smokers over the past 100 years, there has never once been a reported case of someone dying due to carcinogenic responses to the smoke. Granted, there has never been a formal study, but there have been adjacent studies and by all intents and purposes it appears to be safe.

Google around: https://www.google.com/search?q=marijuana+lung+cancer

That's a nice, made-up anecdote you have there.

Fair enough. I suppose you are sitting on the evidence belying it?

An assertion on either side needs evidence, right?

He simply pointed out that it's an anecdote.

Today we have have vastly stronger, concentrated wax/oil that can be up to 99+% THC enabling much faster and bigger consumption. Weed consumption and delivery will continue to be refined, a fatal dose is "impossible" only until it is not.

A "lethal" dosage of THC would require a blood transfusion - literally replacing your blood with THC until you asphyxiated. I've heard the LD50 (the lethal dosage that would kill 50% of the population) of cannabis described as "50 pounds dropped on your head from 50 feet."

That is true with today's weed and today's consumption technology. But that is also very shortsighted.

We know that technology, along with research, have proven very beneficial for devising better drugs, better ways to consume drugs, and better ways to produce drugs.

We know that already the concept of rolling up dead flowers to smoke has been superseded by vaporizers delivering 5 - 10 times more potency without all the smoke.

We know that weed has been excluded from even basic studies, leaving much to be explored and much to learn. Alongside the studies that have not been done lies innovations and technological and scientific enhancements that have not been invented yet.

There is no reason to assume we can only ever consume very tiny volumes of weed with fire, like our ancestors 700 generations ago.

I think labelling me as "very short-sighted" because we might one day, in the future, hypothetically reach THC intake levels that are considered lethal is a bit much. We aren't there yet, and even with the technologies you mentioned, we aren't even close. You would need to ingest a third your bodyweight (conservatively) all at once to kill yourself[1].

Physiologically, you would lose motor function long before you were able to kill yourself. So maybe in 2056 if somebody produces a machine that lets you take in 50kg of THC in a single hit, don't use it.

[1]: http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mj_overdose.htm

Consuming anything with a sort of deadly, self-destructive intent can lead to death, one way or another. But I'm sorry, if you're going for an LD50 experience with weed, you're not going to get there --ever. Its just not possible unless you've created a medical experiment designed to kill the subject, and to get to that place I'm quite certain additional drugs would be required.

Another fruitful Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=ld50+marijuana

Innovators and inventors are being empowered by new and changing laws. Someone will invent something more potent than vaporizers until it too is replaced by something more potent. The only reason it hasn't already happened to weed is laws inhibited serious efforts and it came in a naturally consumable form that was good enough.

> more potent than vaporizers

It's not the method, it's the toxicity of the chemical itself. As others have mentioned, regardless of the method of extraction, purification, or intake, this does not change the ridiculous amount that would have to be pumped into the blood in order to kill someone.

Cannabinoids do not affect the brain stem, the primitive part of the brain that controls respiration and the heart. Many other drug overdoses are affected through this avenue. Cannabis does not and cannot.

You would have to adulterate it with another drug, in which case, it is a different discussion.

> it is a different discussion.

This isn't a discussion about how far "pure weed" can get you, it's about what's going to happen now that the laws don't deter people from applying technology and science to weed, and whether a 'fatal dose' is just a limitation of the literally stone-age techniques we currently use to consume stone-age quantities of weed in its basic plant form.

Not to sound like an ass (seriously, excuse me), but you apparently are not familiar with the effects of marijuana on the body and do not understand what you're talking about. You cannot get to that place, period. One super high dose of hash oil would knock you completely out, and we all know the story of that poor soul who ate the dense weed brownie unknowingly. You cannot just keep consuming THC in a recreational way that would kill you directly.

We still work directly or in the case of wax just one short step from actual flowers cut fairly fresh from a plant. This is not as good as weed can be, it's just a starting state that was artificially enforced by laws.

Technology and science enhances everything by default. The exceptions are rare, and weed will not be one.

The thing is though that with something like opium, making heroin is more potent but provides an even better feeling.

With THC, you'll be more likely to reach a threshold of total discomfort and/or unconsciousness before you reach the fatal dose.

It's self correcting like Mushrooms. You can take an insane amount, but there is a good chance you'll be transported to the center of hell for several hours and never ever want to go back.

That's what I am wondering. I believe that Marijuana is safer in terms of unconditional risk of death. But suppose, I am a responsible adult choosing to consume a recreational dose of either alcohol, meth or marijuana, not planning on driving or doing anything irresponsible while under influence. Does the same still apply? For example, there has been research into negative effects of marijuana on cognition. I do support legalisation, but just wondering how applicable this research is to most people

Did you bother reading the rest of the article?

That line immediately made me feel the same way - then I finished the article saw that the author did a good job at explaining the other risks.

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