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Spliffs Are Poison, Destroy Lungs

Doctors Say Spliffs Are Poison

Health

Spliffs Are Poison, Destroy Lungs

Some stoners like rolling their herb into spliffs—traditionally defined as a joint that uses a combination of tobacco and marijuana. Either way, doctors are now reporting spliffs are poison.

Some like the taste. Some say it provides a slower, smoother, better burn. Some say it helps you stretch your pot so you can get the most out of your stash.

Whatever your reason for liking the tobacco-marijuana mix (spliffs), doctors in the Caribbean are now saying that this can be a particularly dangerous combination.

“The result is that it’s a toxin, it’s poison,” Martin Didier, a consultant physician at Victoria Hospital in St. Lucia, explained.

“Tobacco contains over 4,000 toxic substances which destroy the lungs. Marijuana for all we know is less toxic, probably containing up to 400, but the combination of smoking marijuana and tobacco they interact and it changes the whole thing into a poison—a poison which destroys the structure and function of the lungs with a lot of consequences.”

Didier and other doctors said that the most dangerous, and increasingly the most widespread, the effect of smoking tobacco and marijuana together is the development of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

The COPD Foundation defines COPD as “an umbrella term used to describe progressive lung diseases including emphysema, chronic bronchitis, refractory (non-reversible) asthma, and some forms of bronchiectasis.”

The Pan American Health Organization reported that COPD “is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Americas, representing an important public health challenge that is both preventable and treatable.”

And if Didier is right, the spliffs combination of tobacco and cannabis smoke is directly contributing to a growing epidemic of the disease.

The good news is that all this seems pretty easily avoidable—just take the tobacco away and smoke pure sticky.

As Green Rush Daily‘s own Drew Jameson recently reported, cannabis smoke has proven to be significantly less carcinogenic than tobacco smoke, as well as much easier on your respiratory system as a whole.

Of course, you could also vape. Or eat. You’ve got options besides spliffs.

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