Weed vs. Cigarettes
...for at least four to six hours after smoking a single marijuana cigarette, long after the "high" is gone. If a person drinks alcohol, along with using marijuana, the risk of an accident greatly increases. Marijuana presents a definite danger on the road. Some research studies suggest that the use of marijuana during pregnancy may result in premature babies and in low birth weights. Studies of men and women may have a temporary loss of fertility. These findings suggest that marijuana may be especially harmful during adolescence, a period of rapid physical and sexual development. Marijuana use increases the heart rate as much as 50 percent, depending on the amount of THC. It can cause chest pain in people who have a poor blood supply to the heart - and it produces these effects more rapidly than tobacco smoke does. Scientists believe that marijuana can be especially harmful to the lungs because users often inhale the unfiltered smoke deeply and hold it in their lungs as long as possible. Therefore, the smoke is in contact with lung tissues for long periods of time, which irritates the lungs and damages the way they work. Marijuana smoke contains some of the same ingredients in tobacco smoke that can cause emphysema and cancer. In addition, many marijuana users also smoke cigarettes; the combined effects of smoking these two substances create an increased health risk. Marijuana smoke has been found to contain more cancer-causing agents than is found in tobacco smoke. Examination of human lung tissue that had been exposed to marijuana smoke over a long period of time in a laboratory showed cellular changes called metaplasia that are considered precancerous. In laboratory test, the tars from marijuana smoke have produced tumors when applied to animal skin. These studies suggest that it is likely that marijuana may cause cancer if used for a number of years. When marijuana is smoked, most tissues and organs in the body absorb THC, its active ingredient; however, it is primarily found in fat tissues. The body, in its attempt to rid itself of the foreign chemical, chemically transforms the THC into metabolites. Urine tests can detect THC metabolites for up to a week after people have smoked marijuana. Tests involving radioactively labeled THC have traced these metabolites in animals for up to a month. Cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless and pipe tobacco consist of dried tobacco leaves, as well as ingredients added for flavor and other properties. More than 4,000 individual compounds have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 compounds that are known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents). There are hundreds of substances added by manufacturers to cigarettes to enhance the flavor or to make the smoking experience more pleasant. Some of the compounds found in tobacco smoke include ammonia, tar, and carbon monoxide. Exactly what effects these substances have on the cigarette consumer’s health is unknown, but there is no evidence that lowering the tar content of a cigarette improves the health risk. Manufacturers do not provide the public with information about the precise amount of additives used in cigarettes, so it is difficult to accurately gauge that public health risk. The repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance despite harmful consequences characterizes addiction. Addiction is often accompanied by adverse physical and psychological dependence on the substance. Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. Regular use of tobacco products leads to addiction in a high proportion of users. In 1988, the US Surgeon General concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting. Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. The pharmacological and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Nicotine is found in substantial amounts in all forms of tobacco. It is absorbed readily from tobacco smoke in the lungs and from smokeless tobacco in the mouth or nose and rapidly spreads throughout the body. Tobacco companies are required by law to report nicotine levels in cigarettes to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) but are not required to show the amount of nicotine on the cigarette brand labeling. The actual amount of nicotine available to the smoker in a given brand of cigarettes may be different from the level reported to the FTC. Although 70% of smokers want to quit and 35% attempt to quit each year, fewer than 5% succeed. The low rate of successful quitting and the high rate of relapse are related to the effect of nicotine addiction According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 45.8 million US adults were current smokers in 2002. This is 22.5% of all adults (25.2% of men, 20.0% of women), which is nearly 1 in every 4 people. Alarmingly, the numbers were higher in younger age groups. Almost 29% of those 18 to 24 years old were current smokers. Nationwide, 22.9% of high school students were current smokers in 2002. White and Hispanic students were among the highest in terms of cigarette use. About half of all Americans who continue to smoke will die because of the habit. Each year, a staggering 440,000 people die in the US from tobacco use. Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined. Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths. It is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx (voice box), oral cavity, pharynx, and esophagus, and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, liver, uterine cervix, kidney, stomach, colon and rectum, and some leukemia. About 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, and is one of the most difficult cancers to treat. It is very hard to detect when it is in the earliest, most treatable stage. Fortunately, lung cancer is largely a preventable disease. Groups that promote nonsmoking as part of their religion, such as Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, have much lower rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers. But cancers account for only about half of the deaths related to smoking. Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, aneurysms, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke, and contributes to the severity of pneumonia and asthma. Tobacco has a damaging affect on women's reproductive health. It is associated with reduced fertility and increased risk of miscarriage, early delivery (prematurely), stillbirth, and low birth weight in infants. It has also been linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Smoking has also been linked to a variety of other health problems, including cataracts, hip fractures, and peptic ulcers. Based on data collected from 1995 to 1999, the CDC estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking. But not all of the health problems related to smoking result in deaths. In the year 2000, about 8.6 million people were suffering from at least one chronic disease due to current or former smoking, according to the CDC. Many of these people were suffering from more than one smoking-related condition. The diseases occurring most often were chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. The main purpose of this paper is to lay out on the table all the facts about marijuana and cigarettes and determine which one is worst. The researcher also wanted to show the effect on our economy if marijuana was legalized. The U.S. national debt as of today is $7,451,172,004,465.57. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.61 billion per day since September 30, 2003. The economy is in trouble an something needs to be done. The B.C. marijuana trade cu...