Tobacco VS Marijuana

Our national leadership as well as the public is inflamed over recent reports of the tobacco industry increasing nicotine content in cigarettes, suppressing information about fire resistant cigarettes, and just generally being bad actors. Strangely, neither the public nor some members of Congress
recognize the parallels to marijuana.

Tobacco is responsible for over 400,000 deaths every year from cancers, lung, heart and other vascular diseases. Marijuana has been linked to over 30% of vehicular trauma cases and is the most commonly abused illegal drug. It contains higher concentrations of cancer causing agents than tobacco.

Marijuana and tobacco cause at least the same amount of injury to the airways, pulmonary function, and lung immunity. Recent studies have demonstrated increased health care utilization among heavy marijuana smokers for respiratory problems.

Tobacco is addictive. Many physicians, including this writer, consider tobacco one of the hardest drugs to quit using. Marijuana is addictive, and is also one of the hardest drugs for addicts to quit. They often return to marijuana first if they relapse. The nicotine content of cigarettes varies. The major addictive ingredient in marijuana, THC, varies from 3%-29%.

Tobacco is associated with birth abnormalities. Marijuana is associated with decreased birth weight, length and shorter duration of pregnancy. Recent studies have demonstrated that young children exposed to marijuana during pregnancy have a ten-fold higher risk of developing acute non-lymphoblastic leukemia.

Patients frequently refuse to quit tobacco because it helps some of them lose weight and manage anxiety despite severe health consequences. A strong movement is supporting the use and legalization of smoked marijuana as medicine despite severe health consequences, toxicity, and the availability
of safer more effective medications for the various medical problems. No major medical organization would ever support tobacco as medicine. No major medical organization supports the use of smoked marijuana as medicine.

The tobacco lobby is a powerful, well financed and aggressive group that has successfully fought efforts to regulate, tax, or otherwise control it. The marijuana lobby is also well financed and organized. It continually floods the media and public with misinformation suggesting that marijuana is harmless and should be available medically and for general use via
legalization of the drug. The drug culture "experts" downplay recent massive research showing health problems with marijuana. The tobacco "experts" deny the link of tobacco to cancer and other health problems.

Recently Rep Henry Waxman (D-CA) gave this admonition to the public: ``I wouldn't trust these so-called independent experts the tobacco industry has paraded out to the public and the Congress over the years to tell us things like tobacco smoking is really good for you because it relaxes you, or there is no connection between cigarette smoking and addiction, and of course their latest one that they don't manipulate the nicotine levels."

Congressman Waxman's admonition also applies to the current social atmosphere surrounding marijuana. We need to learn from the mistakes surrounding tobacco and not extend these mistakes to marijuana and other drugs. The one major reason that the health impact of marijuana and other illegal drugs is still less than tobacco is that the other drugs are still illegal. The drug culture and its lobbyists are every bit as insincere, manipulative, and self-serving as the tobacco lobby. Urge your local press and governmental leaders not to fall into another trap.

Eric A. Voth, M.D. FACP
Chairman, The International Drug Strategy Institute
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Kansas,
School of Medicine