I'm no doctor, but I hope you still believe me when I say smoking causes cancer. Smoking weed is no different from smoking tobacco.

There are no doctors on the subject only potheads and politicians.

DocBastard, where are you? Answer his question so I can get my lulz fix for the day.

I'm not a doctor, but according to pretty much any study that was ever done on the effects of marijuana(either short or long term), not much, other than the fact that it is illegal, and therefore it is not always grown in the greatest of soil conditions. They have found a small correlation with the onset of schizophrenia in young adulthood, but this seems to affect people who used marijuana chronically as adolescents. There are of course going to be carcinogens that are inhaled if the marijuana is ingested through smoke, but there are other ways of ingesting the matter without burning it. You can create butter out of the leaf material and then eat it, or you can vapourize the leaf and inhale the crystal vapours. If you want more references, or just something interesting to watch in regards to the subject, look for a documentary called "The Union". It's biased of course, but it contains a lot of information and gives you some reference points to do more research on your own.

61, Using weed does not mean you have to smoke it. The effects you're referring to are caused by SMOKE, not the weed itself.

I'm not a doctor, but I had to do a study on this last year. The side effects can include short term memory loss, high blood pressure, and can cause some damage to your lungs if you smoke weed for many years. However, this does not necessarily mean that everyone will experience all of these.

Maybe you're right. Anyways, we're getting off topic a bit. Point is, stick with weed. It's safer and more natural than any other drug with virtually no risk of dependency.

Because marijuana smoke actually hasn't been shown to cause cancer and it actually seems to correlate to lower incidences of lung cancer. Tobacco smoke is much more harmful to the user by many orders of magnitude.

82, Then I suggest reading about it anyway, because these issues come up regardless of whether you yourself ever use drugs or not. Since their use in the US is gaining, it will be beneficial to you in some way or another. If anything, it will help you better understand the people who do them. To answer your question, that would be because cigarettes are filled with over 400 unregulated chemicals undisclosed to the consumer. Weed for the most part tends to be clean, and even if it's contaminated with something, it wouldn't be even close to what is and could be in cigarettes. It also medicinal benefits, the very concept of which is completely absent from cigarettes. Let's not leave out the fact that it's not as addictive. I'm not a stoner myself, but I also don't like seeing all the false statements about it being spread around.

I don't know about health benefits/detriments, but my father on weed would be far more hilarious than my father with a regular tobacco cigarette.

Doc already made a good list of the affects (effects?) of weed on a previous FML. Whether you admit it or not, you all know that marijuana isn't good for you. It doesn't take a doctor to figure that one out.

Actually it would be stupid to legalize it, if you did the government would have so many other laws on it and the price would skyrocket

At least decriminalize it. Too many people who did nothing "wrong" hog the resources and crowd the prison space that would much better be put to use containing actual criminals. The whole prison system is screwed up, anyway.

Couch lock, being hungry, being sleepy, and laughing your ass off at nothing does not count as "losing control". It's a side effect. Anyone who has ever smoked could tell you that. I smoke and I live a great life. I just started a new job, I'm engaged to be married (fiancé DOES NOT smoke), and I'm in the process of buying a house. Don't give me that bullshit about "people who smoke are weak". I'm plenty in control of myself, as well as my life. It's just a matter of buying the cheaper, lower quality weed when that's all you can afford. For instance, if you spend $120 a week for the good stuff when you can pay around $50-60 for MORE of the cheap shit, and you only make $300 a week, you're screwing yourself financially, and that's where people run into problems with weed.

I know right? It's like how alcohol is so expensive now, and there are like so many regulations on it that it's practically impossible to even buy it or brew it yourself. I tell you, it wasn't like that when alcohol was illegal. You could go down to the street alley and buy a 60 of whisky for a penny, and oh boy, you knew you got a good batch when you woke up blind the next morning next to something that sounded an awful lot like an actual coyote. Did you know that nowadays teenagers can't even go to the bar and get a beer if they want? It's OUTRAGEOUS! That's to 105 BTW.