dizzlekush
Member
In an attempt to make a unit of measurement for how much pot cannabis-users smoke, scientists have come up with the term "Joint Year", which is the equivalent of smoking a joints worth of cannabis, once a day, for a whole year. So lets say you smoke 2 joints in the morning, and you smoke 2 joints at night, and you smoke 2 joints in the afternoon, and you do that for a year. In that year you just added 6 'joint years' to your tally and put three and a half pounds of pot smoke through your lungs (imagine a full 10 gallon trash bag) as well as god knows how many chemicals, wraps or whatever whatnots you might purposefully or accidentally smoke along with your pot.
O.K. lets bring up the fact that no stoner likes to hear. Smoking is bad for you. The act of burning ANY substance creates cancer causing molecules called carcinogens, and passing this carcinogen rich substance through an organ that's designed to absorb molecules as efficiently as possible on a regular basis cannot, by any half intelligent person, be deemed as an act that will have zero health repercussions. Luckily for us stoners, cannabis is probably one of the least damaging substances (if not THE least) on the planet to smoke due to its unique cancer fighter cannabinoids and its unusually high content of also cancer fighting terpenes. That's not to say that these two characteristics cancel each other out though. Almost everyone has an opinion on how good or bad smoking pot is for you but the truth of the matter is the science just hasn't been done to conclusively find out the risks of cannabis smoking in humans, and all of us regular smokers are taking a seemingly small but none-the-less real gamble with our health.
In an attempt to lessen the health risks me and my friends & family are taking by smoking pot, particularly for my aging relatives that use cannabis for their very real medical needs, i've made a short list of rules that i now have myself and my friends & family following to minimize health risks without sacrificing the pleasure of smoking. These are not alternatives to smoking, which are largely well known, they're simply changes in your habits you can take to lessen the possible damage done by smoking cannabis.
1. Know your Product - This will be easier for members of this site than it will be for most. Make sure you know how all of the cannabis you smoke was grown. If conventional fertilization was used, make sure you know that fertilizer wasn't over applied near the end of the plants life and salts weren't stored in the plant tissue you're smoking. If smoking extracts, make sure precautions were made to insure that no contaminants are in it. Make sure that no products that have chemicals that are unfit for consumable crops were applied to your bud. There are many unsafe chemicals that can be found in weed, from Plant Growth Regulators like Paclobutrazol, Daminozide and Chlormequat Chloride, to pesticides like Floramite and Avid, to common adjuvants like 'wetting agents', emulsifiers and plasticizers, to basic packaging tactics for smuggling bales of cannabis across the border. An old friend that was in the business of getting product from Mexico to San Francisco said the 3 most common liquids to wet down weed, before it was compressed into bails to prevent the weed from powdering, were Coca-Cola, Tecate and urine. The list of possible contaminants is staggering and a bit scary.
2. Ignition Source - Lighters are dirty. Don't believe me? If you use a lighter and smoke out of an instrument (as opposed to only using joints, spliffs, blunts etc.) take a look at the resin buildup in your piece. Chances are it's black. If you stop using lighters (and matches for that matter) the resin buildup in your piece will be blondish-brown instead of black. This is due to the fact that the "butane" in lighters is a mix of Butane, Isobutane, Propane, Ethane, Methane, and leftover petroleum contaminants that produces an irregular and impure combustion (flame) that emits portions of non-combusted fuel and contaminants along with the CO2 and H2O that all flames produce. Even highly purified "Butane" will still have amounts of these contaminants and will turn your resin (and possibly your lungs) black.
The best way to burn your bud and extracts is to use a super heated inert substance (like glass, titanium, or ceramic) to ignite the substance, so that the only product that burns is the one you want to smoke! There are several devises that are out there that do this for you.
a. Soldering Pens - The best method for smoking actual buds. Its not just any soldering pen that works though. The Hakko 25w 'Dash' (N454JN-V12) is the unanimous choice iron for smoking when it comes to irons that were actually made for soldering. The things that set this pen at the top of the list is its wattage (heat), the ceramic heating element, ease of accessing the heating element and price. For a little over twice the price there is the "Herb Iron" that has its wattage and design dialed in specifically for smoking and has an on/off button conveniently located on the pen (unlike the Hakko). The downfalls of these products are that it you need to have access to electricity, they're more of a burn/fire hazard than lighters since they can be accidentally left on or forgotten about, and they are in-optimal for smoking certain extracts.
b. "Dabs" - Perfect for smoking extracts. Too many styles to go over them all. Most devices are designed to set into a "Glass on glass" water pipe, and have either a glass or metal element that is super heated with a torch lighter, then the extract is 'dabbed' onto the super heated element and the smoke is drawn through the device and then the water pipe. The downfalls to dabs are that it uses a large amount of fuel and dabs only work well for high quality extracts.
c. Organic hemp wick & natural bees wax - The least healthy and most convenient of the choices. Unlike the previous methods where only the substance you want to smoke is actually burnt, this method uses organic hemp string and bees wax as a flame source. This provides a very high quality flame with very low emissions. Organic Hemp chord is essential since non-organic hemp is likely to contain pesticides.
3. Methods of Filtration - The most obvious way to lessen potential health risks is to filter the smoke you're inhaling. There are several different filtering systems used for smoking. A key characteristic for a filter is that it must be easily and cheaply replaceable. All filters go bad from absorbing the material they're filtering out, so all filters have to be replaced after a certain amount of use.
a. Water filtration - The only common filtration for potheads, since water doesn't filter out significant amounts of the hydrophobic cannabinoids that we potheads do enjoy. A fine start, but not enough for keeping the heavy smokers lungs clean & healthy.
ab. Diffusion of smoke - When smoke bubbles are passing through the water, only the surface area of the bubbles are being filtered. The more the bubbles are divided, the greater the amount of smoke that's touching the water, the more the smoke is being filtered. There are 2 basic ways to achieve this; 1) a specialized downstem or obstruction, called a diffuser or a diffused downstem, in the water pipe that has multiple holes, slits etc. that forces the smoke into a larger amount of smaller bubbles. 2) Fill your water pipe with small, non-buoyant objects like pebbles or beads that cover the downstem and force the bubbles to split further in a similar fashion. These two methods can also be combined to further the effect.
b. Carbon Filtration - Slowly becoming more popular but still often being done incorrectly. I often see irreplaceable carbon filter balls or disks worked into glass downstems or bongs that will go bad after use. Imagine a bong where you could never change the water... The carbon filter must be easily and cheaply replaceable and of high quality carbon.
c. Physical Filtration - Cotton, fiberglass etc. - The only common filter for tobacco smokers but oddly taboo in the pot smoking community. The best physical filter would be cotton, again organic to insure that no pesticides or bleaching/processing agents are in the filter.
Optimally you want to combine all three of these filtration styes into one piece, with the carbon filter before the water (since humidity of the smoke after the water would lessen the ability of the carbon filter) and at least one of these filters before the cotton to insure the cotton cannot be burnt itself. The only piece i have seen that has all three of these filters integrated into the design is the 'McFinn's Triple-Filtered Water Pipe' from SIPipes. A 7 page report by "The Werc Shop", an independent laboratory, studying the filtering capabilities of the three combined filtration methods can be found here:
(PDF) www.sipipes.com/index.php/download_file/view/158/1/
Having gone over the report and actually having smoked out of one of these McFinn's Triple-Filtered Water Pipes i must say im very impressed and completely sold on the triple filtered method for smoking non-concentrates. The smoke is much smoother, no loss in quality or potency can be noticed, and the filtering capabilities are actually visible with the differences in the discoloration of the glass before and after each filter. For concentrates i personally don't like using physical (cotton) filters as they're the only filters where i can notice the loss in amount and/or potency of smoke.
4. Lose the wraps! - Pointless plant material that is often bleached, flavored, sugared, colored forms of rice, hemp or tobacco & glue that has to be smoked. Would you smoke a bud that's been bleached? Then why would you smoke bleached paper? Don't smoke cigarettes, but love a chemically treated tobacco blunt wrap? We should be smoking only high quality buds and extracts to lessen the pointless plant material that must be smoked when smoking pure cannabis, why add even more material by adding a chemically treated wrap that masks the flavors. Its a pointless increase in health risks.
5. Breathe Deeply - I know this sounds a bit "hippy" but this ones actually important as well. In our normal, modern day to day lives of laying down, sitting, standing, driving, walking and talking we don't have to breathe heavily or deeply, therefore we don't, and the bottom portion of our lungs get rather anaerobic. This is especially bad for smokers who tend to do their heaviest, deepest breathing when inhaling smoke, and then like everybody else, don't breathe deeply normally. Aside from healthy exercise, try to remember to breathe deeply (not heavily) 3-5 times in a row, several times an hour. While this might be difficult to remember at first, it quickly becomes second nature. This will help keep the bronchioles and alveoli in the lower portions of your lungs active, clean and healthy instead of allowing them to stay inactive and anaerobic.
6. Cancer prevention - If smoking in less than 3 sessions each day, ingestion of N-Acetyl Cysteine (300+ mg each session), Vitamin C (~500mg each session), Vitamin B1 (25-50mg each session), Vitamin B6 (100-250mg each session) and Alpha-Lipoic Acid (which everyone should take anyways, 300mg each session) before each smoke session will decrease any damage being done by AT LEAST 80%. The n-Acetyl Cysteine, Vitamin C and B1 are more important, while the B6 and alpha Lipoic acid are seemingly less necessary for the damage preventing effects. This is also true for alcohol consumption BTW, a real cure for hangovers. Studies on rats, mice and hamsters using different mix's of the above chemicals has shown to almost completely protect lung cells from all negative effects of FATAL levels of cigarette smoke. Human and animal studies on alcohol consumption, many other toxins and the above listed supplements have shown the same incredible damage-preventing abilities of this cocktail of essential nutrients. Consume vegetables from the Cruciferous and Allium families of vegetables, namely Garlic, Leeks, Onions, Broccoli, Broccoli Sprouts, Kale, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower and Radishes. These plants are very high in antiproliferative, anti-cancer phytochemicals such as organosulfur compunds like isothiocyanates from Cruciferous veggies and allyl sulfur molecules from Allium veggies. Bock Choy seems to be a fairly useless Cruciferous veggie in cancer prevention so dont count it. White Button Mushrooms also are very Antiproliferative to cancer, significantly more so than their more exotic and expensive fungal relatives.
7. The Beef with Vitamin & Mineral Supplements - The science behind how dietary vitamin SUPPLEMENTATION effects people is starting to become clearer and more definitive. There are multiple studies which show an INCREASE IN LUNG CANCER AND ALL-CAUSE MORTALITY in tobacco smokers (16% and 28%) that have taken Vitamin A (Both Retinol and Beta-carotine) supplementation over those who received no supplementation. Alpha-tocopherol (Vitamin E) supplementation has also shown to increase mortality in normal people, same with Folic Acid (but not Folate), Zinc and Iron Supplementation. The science behind this is fairly definitive with dozens of studies now reaffirming these facts. In fact, the only vitamin supplement that has ever shown to decrease mortality in those taking it is Vitamin D3 with Calcium, which is not actually a dietary Vitamin but a hormone that our own body synthesizes in sunlight if enough cholesterol is present. Try to get most of your vitamins from natural sources.
Hope i've helped some people choose a 'healthier' way to enjoy their smoke sessions.
Happy Harvests,
-Dizzlekush
O.K. lets bring up the fact that no stoner likes to hear. Smoking is bad for you. The act of burning ANY substance creates cancer causing molecules called carcinogens, and passing this carcinogen rich substance through an organ that's designed to absorb molecules as efficiently as possible on a regular basis cannot, by any half intelligent person, be deemed as an act that will have zero health repercussions. Luckily for us stoners, cannabis is probably one of the least damaging substances (if not THE least) on the planet to smoke due to its unique cancer fighter cannabinoids and its unusually high content of also cancer fighting terpenes. That's not to say that these two characteristics cancel each other out though. Almost everyone has an opinion on how good or bad smoking pot is for you but the truth of the matter is the science just hasn't been done to conclusively find out the risks of cannabis smoking in humans, and all of us regular smokers are taking a seemingly small but none-the-less real gamble with our health.
In an attempt to lessen the health risks me and my friends & family are taking by smoking pot, particularly for my aging relatives that use cannabis for their very real medical needs, i've made a short list of rules that i now have myself and my friends & family following to minimize health risks without sacrificing the pleasure of smoking. These are not alternatives to smoking, which are largely well known, they're simply changes in your habits you can take to lessen the possible damage done by smoking cannabis.
1. Know your Product - This will be easier for members of this site than it will be for most. Make sure you know how all of the cannabis you smoke was grown. If conventional fertilization was used, make sure you know that fertilizer wasn't over applied near the end of the plants life and salts weren't stored in the plant tissue you're smoking. If smoking extracts, make sure precautions were made to insure that no contaminants are in it. Make sure that no products that have chemicals that are unfit for consumable crops were applied to your bud. There are many unsafe chemicals that can be found in weed, from Plant Growth Regulators like Paclobutrazol, Daminozide and Chlormequat Chloride, to pesticides like Floramite and Avid, to common adjuvants like 'wetting agents', emulsifiers and plasticizers, to basic packaging tactics for smuggling bales of cannabis across the border. An old friend that was in the business of getting product from Mexico to San Francisco said the 3 most common liquids to wet down weed, before it was compressed into bails to prevent the weed from powdering, were Coca-Cola, Tecate and urine. The list of possible contaminants is staggering and a bit scary.
2. Ignition Source - Lighters are dirty. Don't believe me? If you use a lighter and smoke out of an instrument (as opposed to only using joints, spliffs, blunts etc.) take a look at the resin buildup in your piece. Chances are it's black. If you stop using lighters (and matches for that matter) the resin buildup in your piece will be blondish-brown instead of black. This is due to the fact that the "butane" in lighters is a mix of Butane, Isobutane, Propane, Ethane, Methane, and leftover petroleum contaminants that produces an irregular and impure combustion (flame) that emits portions of non-combusted fuel and contaminants along with the CO2 and H2O that all flames produce. Even highly purified "Butane" will still have amounts of these contaminants and will turn your resin (and possibly your lungs) black.
The best way to burn your bud and extracts is to use a super heated inert substance (like glass, titanium, or ceramic) to ignite the substance, so that the only product that burns is the one you want to smoke! There are several devises that are out there that do this for you.
a. Soldering Pens - The best method for smoking actual buds. Its not just any soldering pen that works though. The Hakko 25w 'Dash' (N454JN-V12) is the unanimous choice iron for smoking when it comes to irons that were actually made for soldering. The things that set this pen at the top of the list is its wattage (heat), the ceramic heating element, ease of accessing the heating element and price. For a little over twice the price there is the "Herb Iron" that has its wattage and design dialed in specifically for smoking and has an on/off button conveniently located on the pen (unlike the Hakko). The downfalls of these products are that it you need to have access to electricity, they're more of a burn/fire hazard than lighters since they can be accidentally left on or forgotten about, and they are in-optimal for smoking certain extracts.
b. "Dabs" - Perfect for smoking extracts. Too many styles to go over them all. Most devices are designed to set into a "Glass on glass" water pipe, and have either a glass or metal element that is super heated with a torch lighter, then the extract is 'dabbed' onto the super heated element and the smoke is drawn through the device and then the water pipe. The downfalls to dabs are that it uses a large amount of fuel and dabs only work well for high quality extracts.
c. Organic hemp wick & natural bees wax - The least healthy and most convenient of the choices. Unlike the previous methods where only the substance you want to smoke is actually burnt, this method uses organic hemp string and bees wax as a flame source. This provides a very high quality flame with very low emissions. Organic Hemp chord is essential since non-organic hemp is likely to contain pesticides.
3. Methods of Filtration - The most obvious way to lessen potential health risks is to filter the smoke you're inhaling. There are several different filtering systems used for smoking. A key characteristic for a filter is that it must be easily and cheaply replaceable. All filters go bad from absorbing the material they're filtering out, so all filters have to be replaced after a certain amount of use.
a. Water filtration - The only common filtration for potheads, since water doesn't filter out significant amounts of the hydrophobic cannabinoids that we potheads do enjoy. A fine start, but not enough for keeping the heavy smokers lungs clean & healthy.
ab. Diffusion of smoke - When smoke bubbles are passing through the water, only the surface area of the bubbles are being filtered. The more the bubbles are divided, the greater the amount of smoke that's touching the water, the more the smoke is being filtered. There are 2 basic ways to achieve this; 1) a specialized downstem or obstruction, called a diffuser or a diffused downstem, in the water pipe that has multiple holes, slits etc. that forces the smoke into a larger amount of smaller bubbles. 2) Fill your water pipe with small, non-buoyant objects like pebbles or beads that cover the downstem and force the bubbles to split further in a similar fashion. These two methods can also be combined to further the effect.
b. Carbon Filtration - Slowly becoming more popular but still often being done incorrectly. I often see irreplaceable carbon filter balls or disks worked into glass downstems or bongs that will go bad after use. Imagine a bong where you could never change the water... The carbon filter must be easily and cheaply replaceable and of high quality carbon.
c. Physical Filtration - Cotton, fiberglass etc. - The only common filter for tobacco smokers but oddly taboo in the pot smoking community. The best physical filter would be cotton, again organic to insure that no pesticides or bleaching/processing agents are in the filter.
Optimally you want to combine all three of these filtration styes into one piece, with the carbon filter before the water (since humidity of the smoke after the water would lessen the ability of the carbon filter) and at least one of these filters before the cotton to insure the cotton cannot be burnt itself. The only piece i have seen that has all three of these filters integrated into the design is the 'McFinn's Triple-Filtered Water Pipe' from SIPipes. A 7 page report by "The Werc Shop", an independent laboratory, studying the filtering capabilities of the three combined filtration methods can be found here:
(PDF) www.sipipes.com/index.php/download_file/view/158/1/
Having gone over the report and actually having smoked out of one of these McFinn's Triple-Filtered Water Pipes i must say im very impressed and completely sold on the triple filtered method for smoking non-concentrates. The smoke is much smoother, no loss in quality or potency can be noticed, and the filtering capabilities are actually visible with the differences in the discoloration of the glass before and after each filter. For concentrates i personally don't like using physical (cotton) filters as they're the only filters where i can notice the loss in amount and/or potency of smoke.
4. Lose the wraps! - Pointless plant material that is often bleached, flavored, sugared, colored forms of rice, hemp or tobacco & glue that has to be smoked. Would you smoke a bud that's been bleached? Then why would you smoke bleached paper? Don't smoke cigarettes, but love a chemically treated tobacco blunt wrap? We should be smoking only high quality buds and extracts to lessen the pointless plant material that must be smoked when smoking pure cannabis, why add even more material by adding a chemically treated wrap that masks the flavors. Its a pointless increase in health risks.
5. Breathe Deeply - I know this sounds a bit "hippy" but this ones actually important as well. In our normal, modern day to day lives of laying down, sitting, standing, driving, walking and talking we don't have to breathe heavily or deeply, therefore we don't, and the bottom portion of our lungs get rather anaerobic. This is especially bad for smokers who tend to do their heaviest, deepest breathing when inhaling smoke, and then like everybody else, don't breathe deeply normally. Aside from healthy exercise, try to remember to breathe deeply (not heavily) 3-5 times in a row, several times an hour. While this might be difficult to remember at first, it quickly becomes second nature. This will help keep the bronchioles and alveoli in the lower portions of your lungs active, clean and healthy instead of allowing them to stay inactive and anaerobic.
6. Cancer prevention - If smoking in less than 3 sessions each day, ingestion of N-Acetyl Cysteine (300+ mg each session), Vitamin C (~500mg each session), Vitamin B1 (25-50mg each session), Vitamin B6 (100-250mg each session) and Alpha-Lipoic Acid (which everyone should take anyways, 300mg each session) before each smoke session will decrease any damage being done by AT LEAST 80%. The n-Acetyl Cysteine, Vitamin C and B1 are more important, while the B6 and alpha Lipoic acid are seemingly less necessary for the damage preventing effects. This is also true for alcohol consumption BTW, a real cure for hangovers. Studies on rats, mice and hamsters using different mix's of the above chemicals has shown to almost completely protect lung cells from all negative effects of FATAL levels of cigarette smoke. Human and animal studies on alcohol consumption, many other toxins and the above listed supplements have shown the same incredible damage-preventing abilities of this cocktail of essential nutrients. Consume vegetables from the Cruciferous and Allium families of vegetables, namely Garlic, Leeks, Onions, Broccoli, Broccoli Sprouts, Kale, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower and Radishes. These plants are very high in antiproliferative, anti-cancer phytochemicals such as organosulfur compunds like isothiocyanates from Cruciferous veggies and allyl sulfur molecules from Allium veggies. Bock Choy seems to be a fairly useless Cruciferous veggie in cancer prevention so dont count it. White Button Mushrooms also are very Antiproliferative to cancer, significantly more so than their more exotic and expensive fungal relatives.
7. The Beef with Vitamin & Mineral Supplements - The science behind how dietary vitamin SUPPLEMENTATION effects people is starting to become clearer and more definitive. There are multiple studies which show an INCREASE IN LUNG CANCER AND ALL-CAUSE MORTALITY in tobacco smokers (16% and 28%) that have taken Vitamin A (Both Retinol and Beta-carotine) supplementation over those who received no supplementation. Alpha-tocopherol (Vitamin E) supplementation has also shown to increase mortality in normal people, same with Folic Acid (but not Folate), Zinc and Iron Supplementation. The science behind this is fairly definitive with dozens of studies now reaffirming these facts. In fact, the only vitamin supplement that has ever shown to decrease mortality in those taking it is Vitamin D3 with Calcium, which is not actually a dietary Vitamin but a hormone that our own body synthesizes in sunlight if enough cholesterol is present. Try to get most of your vitamins from natural sources.
Hope i've helped some people choose a 'healthier' way to enjoy their smoke sessions.
Happy Harvests,
-Dizzlekush
