MARIJUANA DAMAGES LUNGS

This Letter is prompted by the news stories about the idiots who
claim they should be free to raise marijuana for recreational purposes
because it is harmless and they enjoy it.

Before I retired as a family physician, one of my clients was the
nuclear power plant in Covert, and one of my duties was to perform
respiratory capacity determinations on all job applicants. I bought a
very expensive and accurate spirometer and had my office nurses
trained to use it.

I then tested all my patients when they came in for physical exams for
any reason. I discovered several very young people whose respiratory
tests were grossly abnormal-like one liter vital capacity when I would
expect at least 3 liters.

I listened carefully to their breath sounds and x-rayed many of them
and discovered nothing much abnormal.

One of my nurses who had been around the block a few times informed me
that all these unusual cases were very heavy "pot" smokers.

I calculated that two years of 'pot' smoking inflicted about the same
amount of lung damage as four or five years of pack-a-day cigarette
smoking. Of course, most of these people also smoked tobacco.