The BBC (via Gareth) reports that cannabis is more dangerous than tobacco, and particularly:
clinical studies carried out in the sixties and seventies may well underestimate the ill effects of smoking the drug. This is due to increased amounts of THC - or delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the major active chemical compound - in the cannabis consumed today.
This is, to me, far more interesting that the rest of the article, which, fairly predictably, says "You thought that cannabis was safe, but that's because there hadn't been any decent studies done on it beforehand, because it was illegal and not an acceptable study matter for proper scientists." Why has cannabis become more saturated with THC in recent decades?
I'll note also that so far the major objections have been that, rightly or wrongly, cannabis smokers hold the smoke in their lungs longer than cigarette smokers, and that increases the cancer risk. So what happens if you ingest cannabis rather than inhale it?
