So Waylon Brings this little tidbit to my attention in an FB conversation:

 A 20-year, federally funded study conducted jointly by researchers at UCSF and UAB found that smoking marijuana once a week, or even once a day in some instances, did no long-term damage to the lungs.

This from The Daily What – Legalize it of the day. 

The study, published today in the the Journal of the American Medical Association, tracked 5,000 individuals across 20 years, and compared their usage of marijuana and tobacco to their health stats.

Cigarette smokers saw a considerable loss in lung function over time, but participants who smokes marijuana as often as once a day for seven years saw no change.

Additionally, no harmful effects were recorded in individuals who smoked marijuana occasionally for longer.

According to the study’s authors, one possible explanation for the results may be THC — the active ingredient in marijuana. The compound is known to combat inflammation, and may be responsible for offsetting irritants that cause lung problems.

Dr. Stefan Kertesz, the study’s co-author, also posits that an unintended side-effect of marijuana usage is the strengthening lung tissue as a result of breathing deeply during inhalation.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, researchers found that pot smoking might actually improve lung function. “At levels of marijuana exposure commonly seen in Americans, occasional marijuana use was associated with increases in lung air flow rates and increases in lung capacity,” Kertesz said.

He did note that the increase was not enough to “make you feel better,” but, then again, if you’re smoking marijuana, chances are you’re already feeling pretty great.

But see I don’t need any more reasons to believe the ban on marijuana, ganja, cannabis is insane….but Alright you say so what — just because it doesn’t hurt your lungs and might even “gasp” (pun intended) help your lungs that is no reason to legalize it, it is still a psychotropic and does bad things…well how about them apples…

Or how about something like this…

How long do we keep this healing plant out of our hands? How long do we believe the propaganda that it is bad and wrong and evil?

And huh yeah some of this…because it’s really interesting 🙂

Cannabis is indigenous to Central and South Asia.^[77] Evidence of the inhalation of cannabis smoke can be found in the 3rd millennium BC, as indicated by charred cannabis seeds found in a ritual brazier at an ancient burial site in present day Romania.^[7] In 2003, a leather basket filled with cannabis leaf fragments and seeds was found next to a 2,500- to 2,800-year-old mummified shaman in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.^[78][79] Cannabis is also known to have been used by the ancient Hindus of India and Nepal thousands of years ago. The herb was called ganjika in Sanskrit (गांजा/গাঁজা ganja in modern Indic languages).^[80][81] The ancient drug soma, mentioned in the Vedas, was sometimes associated with cannabis.^[82]

ganja
noun   (potent form of cannabis)
Word origin: 19th century: from Hindi gājā, from Sanskrit grñja