Smoking pot hard on health

Prince George Citizen

On a flight home last week, I was having a conversation about the introduction of Bill C-45 or the "Cannabis Act."

The person I was talking to is working with local governments to sort out the multitude of bylaws and regulations which will be necessitated by the legislation. Different municipalities are taking varying approaches and have disparate points of view on the whole issue. After all, not everyone is in favour of legalizing marijuana nor sure what exactly that means.

From the federal government's perspective, the bill restricts sales to people age 18 and older (while allowing provinces to set a higher threshold) with adults allowed to publicly possess up to 30 grams of dried cannabis or its equivalent in a non-dried form (i.e. a plant).

It allows adults to grow up to four plants for each residence provided the plants are less than one metre in height. They may be used for legal cannabis products such as food or drink but only for personal use at home. And the bill regulates the amount of THC in a driver's blood stream, allowing saliva tests to determine impairment.

That is the short version of the law but there are many questions left unanswered. Can marijuana be sold within the proximity of a school, for example? The present laws for medical marijuana dispensaries require a buffer zone. But how will a buffer zone work when adults are allowed to grow their own plants in a house across the street?

Sales by mail or courier through a federally licensed producer would be allowed in provinces lacking a regulated system but how will age verification fit into such a system? And how will a municipality deal with tenants growing or smoking cannabis when the odours permeate a building or a neighbourhood?

Over the course of the next seven months, provincial and municipal politicians will need to pass the necessary regulations. Indeed, they have been working on regulations since well before Bill C-45 as it has been apparent marijuana would be legalized at some point.

Is it a good thing?

I would answer yes as it simply recognizes the reality of the present situation. Anyone can buy marijuana right now. It is not hard to find. Or so I am told. It is a commercial product with a vast distribution service.

The law will allow government to control marijuana in all its forms and restrict access for minors in much the same way as laws regarding alcohol have done. A free market will provide a disincentive to the criminal element involved in its present production. Further, it will allow for controls on quality and quantity.

But I do worry about the long-term health impacts of smoking marijuana. Smoking a joint is not equivalent to smoking a single cigarette. Its health impact is closer to smoking half a pack.

There are roughly 1,300 known chemical compounds found within cigarette smoke. These range from the simple products of combustion such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide to complex polyaromatic hydrocarbons. These compounds are also found in the smoke from burning marijuana.

For example, the ammonia content of the smoke for a single joint versus a single cigarette is 228 micrograms vs 178 micrograms. For hydrogen cyanide, it is 532 micrograms vs 498 micrograms. For benzene, 76 micrograms vs 67 micrograms. Both types of smoke contain pretty much the same compounds.

But perhaps more important is the particulate matter and tars as these are the largest source of cancer-causing chemicals. For example benzo-anthracene is 75 nanograms vs 43 nanograms for a joint vs a cigarette. For benzo-pyrene, it is 31 nanograms vs 22.1 nanograms.

When you consider these numbers, it is not hard to realize the smoke from marijuana has just as many harmful chemical constituents as smoke from tobacco. Most people, when confronted with this data, point out that no one smokes as many joints in a day as they do cigarettes.

True, but cigarettes have filters which remove much of the tar and particulate matter preventing it from entering the lungs of the smoker. (This is also why secondhand smoke is more deadly - it is unfiltered.) Further, the process of smoking marijuana tends to result in holding the smoke in the lungs for as long as possible thereby increasing the dose.

The legalization of marijuana will have health impacts on the population but they will not be realized for another 20 years. I would suggest rather than arguing over revenue sharing formulas for the taxes which will be collected with its sales, all governments should be setting the money aside for dealing with the impending health issues.

After all, if the money from tobacco sales had been earmarked into a health savings account all along, our health care system would have the funds to deal with the consequences.