Does Smoking Weed Cause Cancer: Ever wonder if smoking weed is just as bad for you as a cigarette? Unfortunately, smoking weed puts four times more tar in your lungs than a cigarette. Because marijuana users inhale smoke deeply into their lungs and hold it there longer. Tarlate gets absorbed into the lungs, damages lung tissue, causing cells to die prematurely. So why do doctors recommend medical marijuana if smoking cigarettes leads to cancer and chronic diseases?
It turns out the unique chemicals contained in cannabis start a cascade of protective mechanisms in the body. Inhaling hot smoke causes inflammation of the respiratory system, which damages your cells. Nicotine exacerbates this inflammation and weakens cells, while the THC and CBD found in cannabis exhibit an antiinflammatory effect to protect cells, tumors begin forming when damaged cells multiply, so the body uses a process called apoptosis to tell damaged cells to die off instead of trying to live.
The THC in cannabis actually helps the body remove these damaged cells, while cigarette smoke does the opposite. It tells damaged cells to keep living, giving them an opportunity to multiply into a tumor.
In the event a tumor forms from damaged cells, the chemicals in cigarette smoke facilitate the growth of new blood vessels on the tumor, which enables it to receive the nutrients it needs to grow further. THC, on the other hand, prevents the body from developing these new blood vessels and actually work to shrink tumors.
Vaping and eating cannabis can provide all these benefits without introducing carcinogens into the lungs. And while doctors wouldn’t explicitly recommend the act of smoking weed, the presence of THC and CBD appear to mitigate and potentially even outweigh the carcinogenic risk.