Is smoking marijuana worse than smoking cigarettes?

Answer 1

marijuana is the most commonly uses illegal substance in the United States. it is used by many people, most of which aren't your stereotypical "druggie", with no life agead of them. Many of them hapen to be very successful, good people. Think about it almost if not every person who reads this paper will know (even if they don't realize it) at least one if not several regular users of marijuana. Its often made out to be much more harmful htan it really is, unfortunatly not every one realizes this.

What many people don't realize is marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Yet it's the one of the three that gets a bad rap and is illegal. Marijuana isn't even physicaly addicting. You certanly don't see meetings for marijuana like you do with alcohol and AA. Unfortunatly due to American culture the less harmful of the three is illegal.

The most common reason why marijuana can be harmful is that people can often come across laced marijuana without realizing it. Marijuana can easily be mixed with other more harmful drugs with out the buyer realizing it, until they have already used it. This is a dangerous thing that causes many people to do more harmful, hard core drugs without realizing it. If it were to be legalized the government could provide guide lines, like it does with alchol to insure that people knew what they were putting into their bodies.

Marijuana actually has many helpful benefits toward diseases / sicknesses. Marijuana can reduce nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by AIDS. It can Reduce interlobular pressure, which alleviates the pain and slowing and sometimes even stopping the progress of glaucoma. Common side effects of chemotherapy are nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting, all of which marijuana would help. It can limit muscle pain and relieve tremor nad unsteadiness of gait for multiple sclerosis patients. Marijuana can help prevent epileptic seizures in some patients. It can also alleviate chronic, often debilitating pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries. Each one of these applications have been deemed legitimate by at least one United States court, legislature, and/or government agency.

Due to these reasons and many others many people are going to jail/prison on a daily basis due to simply smoking a little pot These aren't dangerous criminals that would kill or rape someone. Many of them are teachers, lawyers and respected members of their communities. But yet we still pay thousands of dollars of tax payers money to lock up non dangerous "criminals" yearly even though most aren't going to stop after they get out of jail. Don't you think the money spent here is a waste? Couldn't it be going to more useful things such as hospitals, disease research, or better schools? These are the things that would benifit the people of this country. Certanily you would rather benefit the people more than throwing a non violent pot head in jail who was only trying to smoke a joint and relax after a long days work in jail. There is up to forty million regular (note thats just the regular not occasional users) drug users in the United states. If we were to throw all of them in jail it would cost $500,000 per million people, plus the cost and space of building many more prisons. Couldm't that money be spent on building hospitals? There's already about 1.5 million people tax payers are paying to keep in jail over drugs. From 1990 to 2003, nearly 5.9 million people had been arrested for smoking marijuana. Thats a greater number than the entire population of Alaska, Delaware, The District of Columbia, Montania, North and South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. This country simply can't afford to put 40 million more in jail.

Marijuana should be legalized. It has many uses such as helping sick patients. People are going to smoke it no matter what the government sais, and with out govenment guidelines this can be dangerous. Not to mention the fact that we have no way we can afford to throw all those people in jail. Its much less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, which are legal, so doesn't it make sense that it would be also?

Answer 2

Cigarettes kill millions every year, Marijuana kills a total of 400 (all from either mixing it with other drugs or driving under the influence, marijuana alone has never killed a single person since you can't overdose from it) not to mention that Cigarettes cause many of the diseases that Marijuana is used to cure, such as cancer. Cigarettes also contain thousands of dangerous chemicals that are added to it, while marijuana is grown, dried and then sold with no chemicals added to it. You also get more tar from cigarettes since its not uncommon to find cigarette smokers who go through a pack a day (each cigarette containing 1.5 grams of tobacco) while youd have to look long and hard to find a marijuana user that smokes more than a gram a day (unless hes smoking ****) so marijuana users inhale much less tar. And no, Marijuana does not cause cancer, its used to treat cancer which wouldnt be done if it caused it. So theres no doupt that Cigarettes are much more dangerous than Marijuana. Hope that answers your question :)

Answer 3

Legally, of course it is!

Health wise, there are differences and similarities.

You cannot know what kind of pesticides or chemicals have been used on your pot, you can with tobacco.

Pot often contains fungus--too small to see or taste--that can kill you if your immune system is compromised. I've been around organ transplant teams, and they all have stories about someone who got an organ and then died because of pot.

Tobacco is often smoked in cigarettes, and the paper itself contains toxic chemicals when it burns. If the pot is smoked in a pipe, that eliminates that part.

Cigarette smokers who smoke a pack a day take approximately 200 "hits" a day. Pot smokers don't usually use that much, but they hold the hits in much longer.

You don't have to sneak around with drug dealers to buy tobacco.

I'm sure there are many more, but the bottom line is that neither of them is very good for you. I think tobacco may be slightly worse, but not much. Inhaling any smoke is damaging.

Answer 4

I think it's all relative. If you smoked as many joints as cigarettes then probably yes. But, if you are an occassional smoker. I doubt it. It's not worse than going to a club and being forced to inhale some jackasses cigarette smoke.

Answer 5

No. Actually marijuana is being used for medicinal purposes. Smoking it just for a high is too expensive, but definately not as dangerous as cigarettes.

Answer 6

cigarette smoking does not alter the mind, but marijuana alters thoughts in the mind. Definitely smoking marijuana is more harmful than tobacco, mind altering could be hazardous to your health and safety.

Answer 7

N-O, NO!!! #1, you can only smoke so much pot before you're way too stoned to smoke more. (If this is not true for you, then you definitely need to change dealers! LOL) #2, pot is not addictive (although for many compulsive types it can become a bad habit). Nicotine is highly addictive, and many addicts continue to smoke even when they suffer life-threatening fatal illnesses like COPD which is overwhelmingly attributed to smoking tobacco. #3, tobacco products typically contain carcinogenic additives making smokeable tobacco even more deadly.

I could go on for pages on this!!!

Answer 8

first i would like to say that it should be legal take the money they waste prosecuting it and spend it on education and grass wont be a problem. People who smoke weed eventually become so depressing and boring that it makes other people around them want to shoot heroin into there eyeballs. Weed depletes the bodies natural ability to be happy. it replaces natural endorphins with fake ones its just as bad as cigarettes they both are pretty stupid things to do.

Answer 9

Hell no! What, are you frigging brain dead? Cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands each year in the USA, is the cause of the most preventable disease - COPD, and tobacco is the nastiest habit and worst addiction known to man!!!

We'd all be much better off if pot was legal and cigarettes were illegal.

Answer 10

Actually no, it's actually been known to heal the scarring of lung tissue caused by smoking cigarettes.