POT SMOKERS RISK LUNG DAMAGE

LONDON - Getting high may not be as harmless as some smokers think it is.

Doctors in Scotland warned Tuesday that a joint or two a day of marijuana
for many years could cause serious lung disease.

"It might be that the psychoactive part of cannabis is harmless," said Dr.
Martin Johnson of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, "but the actual process of
smoking, whatever you are smoking, can do your lungs harm."

He and his colleagues treated four men with a type of emphysema, a lung
disease normally caused by heavy smoking that makes breathing difficult.
They could find no genetic susceptibility or explanation for the illness,
apart from the fact that all of the men were reasonably heavy marijuana
smokers. The cases were reported in the journal Thorax.

"When you smoke tobacco cigarettes they normally have a filter and that
protects you to a certain extent. But when people smoke marijuana they tend
to roll their own or smoke a pipe so they are not protected from some of the
noxious substances," Dr. Johnson said.