CT scans show cigarettes are harder on the lungs than marijuana

Dose, Frequency, and Interpretation of the Study

• Several commenters argue the article and referenced CT study don’t clearly control for frequency or total dose: most people smoke many more cigarettes per day than joints.
• Some suggest the “natural” lower frequency of cannabis use is itself a real-world safety factor that shouldn’t be adjusted away; others say that without dose control you can’t claim cannabis smoke is intrinsically safer.
• There’s mention of past cannabis research often mishandling dose (e.g., extreme animal doses, ignoring user titration, misinterpreting potency increases).

Industrial Processing vs. Plant Smoke Itself

• One line of discussion attributes cigarettes’ greater harm largely to industrial processing: reconstituted “sheet” tobacco, humectants, preservatives, volume enhancers, and fire-safe paper additives.
• In contrast, legal cannabis is said to be heavily tested for pesticides, though commenters note cannabis products are starting to adopt similar industrial techniques (e.g., infused blunts, recovered terpenes, synthetic aromatics).
• Others push back that “any smoke is bad,” and that differences between burning different plants may be smaller than the difference between smoking and not smoking.

Cancer, Lung Damage, and Radioactivity

• One commenter claims cannabis smoke does not increase lung cancer risk even at high use and suggests anti-tumor properties of cannabinoids may counteract tar; others strongly dispute this and insist any smoke promotes cancer, demanding better evidence.
• Another thread highlights tobacco’s accumulation of radioactive metals (e.g., polonium) as a major lung-cancer vector, with the claim that cannabis does not bioaccumulate these to the same extent. Some consider this important; others think radioactivity is minor relative to general smoke toxicity.
• Multiple people stress that the article is about structural lung damage (COPD, emphysema, lung volume) rather than addiction or cancer specifically.

Alternatives: Vaping, Edibles, and Other Delivery Methods

• Broad agreement that non-combustion routes (vaporizing herb, edibles, nicotine gum/patches) are far better for lungs than smoking anything.
• One user notes much of the cannabis market has already shifted toward vaping and edibles. Another wants long‑term vaping data and refuses to “defend loser behavior” around any drugs.
• A cannabis user reports markedly less craving with edibles than with smoking, hypothesizing different reinforcement dynamics; another links this to delayed dopaminergic reward.

Addiction, Nicotine, and Behavioral Effects

• There is a heated sub-thread on whether nicotine itself is strongly addictive or only mildly so without other cigarette components.
• Some report intense withdrawal from e‑cigs and patches and insist nicotine is highly addictive; others cite arguments that pure nicotine is weakly addictive and note that patches rarely create new addictions.
• On cannabis, commenters mention neurogenic, anti-inflammatory effects but also concerns: potential negative impact on adolescent brain development, personality, and motivation (“amotivational syndrome”), though causality is acknowledged as unclear.

Risk Framing, Social Costs, and Policy

• Some participants object that calling cannabis “safer” than cigarettes is a low bar; they emphasize that “less unhealthy” is still unhealthy and that secondhand smoke harms bystanders in ways alcohol doesn’t.
• Others focus on harm reduction: if people will use recreational substances anyway, shifting them from alcohol or cigarettes to cannabis (especially non-smoked forms) may be a net win.
• There’s debate about public health costs: one side resents paying for smoking-related diseases; another notes that heavy tobacco taxes and shorter life expectancy may make smokers fiscally net-positive in some systems.
• For policy, commenters float high taxation and age/strength limits to capture benefits of legalization (e.g., undercutting black markets) while discouraging heavy youth use.

Side Debate: Contraception, Misuse, and Risk Compensation

• An analogy is drawn to contraceptive “effectiveness” metrics that bake in real-world misuse; by analogy, real-world frequency and misuse patterns may belong in how we talk about “safety” of smoking behaviors.
• This spins into a contentious argument about whether widespread contraception increases or decreases unplanned pregnancies. Claims that contraception access increases risk-taking are met with requests for credible sources and accusations of naturalistic and slippery-slope fallacies.
• Several commenters defend contraception as a clear net positive for reducing unwanted pregnancy and STDs, emphasizing bodily autonomy and dismissing ideologically driven sources.