Any risks smoking pot and taking the pill?
Strictly speaking, your generalization is wrong. Just because your body doesn’t “clear” something doesn’t mean it has the potential to the cause intracellular events at the nuclear/DNA level that would lead to the aberrant cell division which is a hallmark of dysplasia and cancer. Many chemicals have the potential to be either inert to begin with or appropriately sequestered but not “cleared” per se by the body’s defenses. OK, well, maybe it was a bit of a wide generalization based on something someone told me about why we weren’t going to be working on inhalables. I do, however, find literature suggesting higher incidences of lung cancer with exposure to wood smoke (Delgado et al, Lung Cancer Pathogenesis Associated With Wood Smoke Exposure, Chest. 2005;128:124-131) and coal smoke (Mumford et al, Human exposure and dosimetry of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine from Xuan Wei, China with high lung cancer mortality associated with exposure to unvented coal smoke, Carcinogenesis,
Well … the full abstract of the Aldington et al paper referenced above actually says: ABSTRACT: The aim of the present study was to determine the risk of lung cancer associated with cannabis smoking. A case–control study of lung cancer in adults f55 yrs of age was conducted in eight district health boards in New Zealand. Cases were identified from the New Zealand Cancer Registry and hospital databases. Controls were randomly selected from the electoral roll, with frequency matching to cases in 5-yr age groups and district health boards. Interviewer-administered questionnaires were used to assess possible risk factors, including cannabis use. The relative risk of lung cancer associated with cannabis smoking was estimated by logistic regression. In total, 79 cases of lung cancer and 324 controls were included in the study. The risk of lung cancer increased 8% (95% confidence interval (CI) 2–15) for each joint-yr of cannabis smoking, after adjustment for confounding variables including
