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I would love for you to find that information where marijuana does not pose more of a cancer risk than cigarrettes.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o
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This (and similar remarks) is disingenuous.
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Whatever side of the issue one is on, it is never helpful (or respectful toward others) to present one?s points dishonestly in an effort to ?win.?
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The fallacy is in the subtle move from the claim that marijuana has more cancer causing agents than cigarettes, to the claim that smoking marijuana puts one at greater risk of developing cancer than does smoking cigarettes.
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The conclusion does not follow from the premise.
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It?s entirely possible for a substance to contain more known or possible carcinogens and yet to be less of a cancer risk, for a number of reasons.
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1. The degree to which things are carcinogens can vary. If X gives one person in a million cancer, and Y gives one person in a million cancer, and Z gives one person in ten cancer, then a substance that contains X and Y has more carcinogens than a substance that contains Z, yet the second substance is much more of a cancer hazard.
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2. The amount of a given carcinogen that things have can vary. If two substances contain the carcinogen X, it could be the case that one contains it in mass quantities and the other in barely measurable traces.
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3. Different things are used in different amounts by people. Even if two substances had the same carcinogens in the same quantities, it still might be the case that one is a substance users typically consume all day, and the other is a substance users typically consume much less frequently. If beer and whiskey contained the identical amount of some carcinogen, for instance, it would be more of a concern with beer, because beer drinkers tend to consume a great deal more ounces of beer than whiskey drinkers consume of whiskey.
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4. Different combinations of ingredients react differently chemically. The sum cancer risk can be more, or less, than the apparent cancer risk of its parts. For instance, carcinogens A + B + C might be no worse in combination than separately, whereas D + E might be much worse in combination than separately. Or a substance may contain ingredients that partly counteract some of its carcinogens, while another substance?s carcinogens may have no such impediment present.
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5. Different things cause cancer at different rates. Let?s say X would cause cancer in one in a hundred people who use it, and Y would cause cancer in one in a hundred people who use it (or even one in fifty), but X users on average get cancer in two years and Y users on average get cancer in sixty years. Cancer is a lot less of a concern with Y, because it takes so long to develop most people will be dead of other things before it has a chance to, and even if they do last long enough to get cancer, they?ll lose a lot fewer years of their life to cancer on average than X users will.
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6. Some cancers are worse than others. What if X and Y both cause cancer, but X causes an invariably fatal cancer that causes a particularly horrible death filled with much suffering, while Y causes a type of cancer that nowadays is easily curable in most cases?
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So until you?ve investigated these, and other, matters, you cannot simply count up the number of carcinogens in a substance and draw conclusions about the risk its use poses to people.
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In point of fact, when we apply these considerations to marijuana and cigarettes specifically, we find that not only is it
possible for a substance with more carcinogens to pose less of a cancer risk, but in this case it?s in all likelihood
factual.
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At least some studies have indicated that marijuana contains more known and possible carcinogens than cigarettes; one I recall gave a figure of marijuana containing 150% the number of carcinogens as cigarettes. However, studies consistently show cigarette use leading to cancer vastly more often than marijuana use leads to cancer. In fact, the debate seems to be whether marijuana use increases the cancer rate marginally or not at all.
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Why? It?s speculative, but one theory is that the THC or some other ingredient in marijuana somehow counteracts the carcinogens in marijuana.
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In any case, cigarette smokers drop dead of cancer in great numbers. Marijuana smokers do not.
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That doesn?t mean there aren?t other health risks with marijuana, such as various respiratory ailments caused by holding smoke in one?s lungs.
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It?s also important to keep in mind the earlier point that substances in combination do not always have the same cancer risk as the same substances separately. Specifically, there is evidence that cigarette and marijuana use combined has a greater cancer risk than what it would be if you simply added the risks of using them separately. That is to say, the differential in cancer risk between smoking only cigarettes versus smoking cigarettes plus marijuana, appears to be substantially greater than the (near zero) differential between smoking neither versus smoking only marijuana.
