Maoris have the world’s highest lung-cancer rate, and heavy marijuana use could be a culprit, the New Zealand Herald reported Oct. 10.
About one in five New Zealanders are regular users of marijuana. Researcher Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute in Wellington, New Zealand, is working on a study that compares cancer rates between marijuana smokers, tobacco smokers, and nonusers. He recently released a research review concluding that marijuana smoking is more cancerous than tobacco smoking.
Beasley performed the research review for a Wellington coroner who has called for a tougher approach than harm reduction to marijuana use in New Zealand.

Source: New Zealand Herald Oct.l7 2005

Cannabis smoking may cause 5 per cent of lung cancer cases in people up to middle age, according to a New Zealand study which challenges international thinking on the drug.  Around 15 per cent of New Zealand adults under 46 use cannabis, drug-use surveys have found.
 
Researcher Dr Sarah Aldington, of the Medical Research Institute in Wellington, presented the new case-control study to the Thoracic Society conference in Auckland yesterday.
 
Cannabis users may have thought they were safe from lung cancer after a Californian study of more than 1600 people last year found no link between the disease and smoking the drug.  Dr Aldington said the evidence on cannabis and the risk of lung cancer was limited and conflicting. Her study found the risk rose more than five-fold among the third of users smoking the most cannabis.
 
“In conclusion there is a relationship between cannabis smoking and lung cancer in this study,” she said. “Approximately 5 per cent of lung cancer cases in those aged 55 and under may be attributable to cannabis…”   This equates to about 15 new cases a year – in 2002, 306 people aged 18-55 were diagnosed with lung cancer in New Zealand.  The study questioned about 60 people with lung cancer from eight health districts between Waikato and Canterbury and more than 200 “controls” – people randomly selected from electoral rolls in the same areas.
 
They were asked about risk factors, including cannabis and tobacco use.   The researchers calculated that the risk of developing lung cancer increased by about 8 per cent a year for people whose cumulative exposure equated to smoking one joint a day. This was about the same as the increase for someone with a one-pack-a-day tobacco habit.   The younger someone started smoking cannabis, the higher their risk of lung cancer.
 
“Long-term cannabis use increases the risk of lung cancer in young adults, particularly in those who start smoking cannabis at a young age,” the researchers conclude.
 
Dr Aldington said cannabis was the most commonly used recreational drug in the world, used by 161 million people, and its use was increasing in many countries. She said cannabis contained 50 per cent more cancer-causing chemicals than tobacco.  The study has found what the University of California researchers had expected to find but didn’t.   A researcher from that study, Dr Donald Tashkin, said in the Washington Post his group had thought cannabis smokers’ deeper inhalation and tendency to hold smoke in their lungs for longer than tobacco users would contribute to an increased cancer risk.
 
He said earlier work had shown cannabis contained cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco. But cannabis also contained the chemical THC, which might kill ageing cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.
 
Middlemore Hospital clinical director of medicine Associate Professor Jeff Garrett, a leader of the Thoracic Society, said the Aldington study was “a good pilot study. It’s early work, it’s interesting, but there needs to be more work done.”

Source:  New Zealand Herald
Tuesday March 27, 2007

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A study has found that heavy cannabis smoking is a major cause of gum disease.

The investigation, which tracked a group of 1000 people born in Dunedin in 1972-73, found heavy cannabis use was responsible for more than one-third of the new cases of gum disease by age 32.

The study involved researchers from the University of Otago, King’s College in London, Duke University and the University of North Carolina in the United States. Professor Murray Thomson from University of Otago School of Dentistry said toxins in cannabis smoke were detrimental to periodontal health. “The problem is not the smoke itself – it’s what’s in the smoke,” he said. “In the mouth, there is a fine balance between tissue destruction and tissue healing and the various toxins in cannabis smoke disrupt that.”

Professor Thomson said gum disease was one of the most common diseases of adulthood, and caused problems such as the loss of support for the teeth. There was also emerging evidence it could be a risk factor for heart disease, stroke and pre-term birth.

Heavy cannabis users are those who smoke cannabis 41 times or more per year between the ages of 18 and 32.

The study is the first to have investigated whether smoking anything other than tobacco is detrimental for the gums. The evidence has been published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

Source: New Zealand Herald.6 Feb 2008

On a day when the government is meeting to discuss drivers of crime it is worth looking beneath the veneer of the Police offence statistics for the past 10 years to understand just how endemic the violence caused by methamphetamine and drug abuse has become in New Zealand and the need for strategies to address this according to MethCon Group director Mike Sabin.

“Again through 2008 violent offences continued to increase unabated but when you look at the past 10 years you get a far better feel for the way our communities have been held to ransom by failed drug policy”, said Mr. Sabin
“Violent offences and serious assaults increased by 51 percent and 59 percent respectively. Robbery has increased by 57 percent, while intimidation and threats have increased by 73 percent with offences involving grievous harm increasing by a staggering 105 percent, up from 92 percent last year” said Mr. Sabin

“During the same 10 year period there has also been dramatic increases in offences related to methamphetamine including 169 percent increase in supply offences, 208 percent increase in possession for supply, 400 percent increase in importation, while importation of pseudoephedrine to manufacture the drug has increased by well over 10,000 percent with methamphetamine manufacture increasing by over 9500 percent since 1998”, claimed Mr. Sabin “On the back of that we have also become some of the highest recorded use rates of cannabis in the world with 80 percent of those aged 25 in this country now saying they have used the drug”, said Mr. Sabin

“My point is that there is a clear nexus between increased drug abuse in this country, particularly with regard to methamphetamine, and violent crime. While alcohol is a lead contributor to violence, what are we doing to actually identify and respond to poly drug abuse, which is far more common than any other form of drug abuse?”

“For example, as much as 89 percent of our prison population are drug users and yet too often we hear that alcohol is the driver of violent crime and disorder. Drugged driving is more frequently a contributor to fatal vehicle accidents than alcohol use alone, but what do we do to identify drugged drivers on our roads?” said Mr. Sabin.

“Beyond this, why has New Zealand become the highest recorded users of methamphetamine and cannabis in the world over the past 10 years? The answer is quite simple; since 1998 our national drug policy has focused centred on ‘harm minimisation’. Rather than focusing on prevention of drug use and healing drug abusers to a point of abstinence, our national drug policy has focused on accepting drug use as an inevitability and finding ‘safe ways’ to use, while treatment has been more about methadone maintenance programmes and giving addicted users clean needles”, said Mr. Sabin

Justice Minister Simon Power signalled their clear intentions to look at new approaches to address the drivers of crime and I commend the government for having a forum to begin this process as it goes to the heart of solving the cause of the problems rather than tinkering with the symptoms. The role of drug abuse as a driver cannot be underestimated and I would encourage efforts to arrive at strategies which reflect this”, said Mr. Sabin

Source: www.methcon.co.nz. (NZ’s specialist methamphetamine education providers and policy consultants). 3rd April 2009

Study finds cannabis and tobacco equally bad

 Smoking cannabis is as bad for your lungs as smoking cigarettes.
Smoking both cannabis and tobacco narrowed people’s airways even more than smoking only one of the substances. The study involved examining how much breath about 900 people aged 18 to 26 could expel forcefully from their lungs. People who smoked cannabis and tobacco expelled less air in a second than non-smokers and took longer to expel all the air from their lungs because their airways had narrowed slightly.
Airflows decreased even more when people smoked both cannabis and tobacco. Smokers breathing and airways were effected by the tar in tobacco. Cannabis had similar levels. The study group members were examined three times in eight years. While all were healthy and differences in their airflows subtle, the figures highlighted a trend , professor Taylor said.
The researchers interest was sparked by cannabis use increasing significantly in most developed countries in the past three decades and people increasingly questioning if it was worse than smoking tobacco.
Professor Taylor said the study was complex because group members lung development was at different stages. Lungs grew and became more efficient during childhood and adolescence , then efficiency started naturally declining in the mid 20s.
The study would continue when the people were aged 32-37.

Source: Professor Robin Taylor, Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development
study reported in New Zealand Herald Aug 2002

Cannabis dependence assessed at age 18 and 21 increased from 6.6% for 18 to 9.6% at 21. unemployment or violent behavior more frequent with cannabis use at 21 years.

All disposable cigarette lighten should be child-proof, says Alliance MP Grant Gillon, a former firefighter. The fire that killed 3-year-old Kane Julius in Wainuiomata on April 6 may have been caused by the boy or another child playing with a cigarette lighter Media reports had only focussed on the combustible building materials, he said, “On average two people each year died as a result of fires caused by lighters, and most of these were started by children”, he said. “Australia has banned the sale of any disposable cigarette lighters which are not child safe, yet New Zealand has no such laws.” The Australian standard meant that at least two hand movements were needed to ignite a lighter. A further fire in Auckland over Easter that killed two 3 year old twins, was also attributed to non-child-proof cigarette lighters. In response Consumer Affairs Minister Robyn Macdonald has promised to investigate what can be done.

Source: NZ HeraId 9/4/98 pA5