How many chemicals are there in a marijuana joint and in a cigarette?

I know this doesn’t address the chemical part of the question, but as for your last proposal, they do not produce the same effect. Thereby, I don’t think it would be a good substitute. However, I’m not bashing the idea of it being a legal option…

@jfos – I support legalizing cannabis too. But education is key. We need neither scare tactics nor belittlement tactics. Like alcohol or nicotine, cannabis is not chocolate. But most of the time there’s just a discussion about how harmful or addictive tetrahydrocannabinol might be. What about the other X chemicals? And why can’t scientists agree on X?

I think that scientists can’t agree on “X” because uncertainty hinders legalization.

@jfos I think that’s a decent part of it. Some labs are doing work trying to minimize the amount, and so get low answers. Other labs want to find the other side, so they get larger numbers. The other part is that there are no ‘standardized’ joints, so most every one you test will be different, an it depends on their sample size. As for cigarettes, though there are standard ones, there are so many, all with different amounts of various components, that it will vary a lot from that.

Also, replacing cigarettes with cannabis would probably not work, as cigarettes have nicotine, while cannabis has THC, and they affect different parts of the brain. I don’t know about THC, but I know nicotine has a physical component to the addiction, and replacing it with a different addictive substance won’t work, just give you a different addiction. At the very least, you’d still go through some bad withdraw.

Lastly, I don’t think THC has anything to do with cancer (beyond the fact that nearly everything can be shown to give you cancer). The real chemical there is the tar that you inhale when the components burn. This tar is what actually causes cancer, and again will vary a lot depending on how it’s made. And then you have variation as to how carcinogenic the tar is, since it varies wildly from person to person, depending mostly on genetics, but also on current health, diet, age, etc.

How would one ever know about a joint, matt? It depends on what it might be laced with or have added to it. It depends on what chemicals or pesticides the grower used.

And these people we are depending on for that are criminals.

Since there is absolutely no regulation of any of the process how could you know?

@BhacSsylan – No, I didn’t mean for the sake of replacing nicotine with THC. What about the other chemicals. For example: Do joints contain less carcinogens than cigarettes?

@Marina – Come on, for the sake of the lab analyses: let’s take 100 typical joints and 100 typical cigarettes from various regions in the world and work with typical average samples (let’s set pesticides aside for the moment). How many (key) chemicals are there in a marijuana joint and in a cigarette?

Typical means nothing. There is no typical joint. Different strains, growing type and area, even the size of the joint will make a difference. Plus, I don’t think it really matters. As with cigarettes, all the info in the world will not make someone change what they do not want to change.

the amounts vary depending on the interest group doing the study, if they are a proponent for either it will be towards the low end of the spectrum, if they are an oppenent it will be towards the higher end. My guess would be somewhere in the middle is probably right. I am pretty sure though that a joint contains less chemicals than your standard cigarette due to the lack of preservatives and processing that goes into making the cigarette.

From what I remember…

Marijuana does contain more harmful chemicals than a filtered cigarette. But people don’t smoke as much marijuana in general compared to a cigarette smoker.

Like a person that wants to be high for a full day would smoke maybe 2 or 3 joints of mid-quality stuff, depending on tolerance. But a cigarette smoker that wants to feel a nicotine buzz all day would have to smoke at least ten cigarettes a day, depending on tolerance.

I think it is easier to get standard measurements from cigarettes compared to joints; the tobacco companies, as individual companies as well as the industry as a whole, have worked for years to be able to regulate the amount of nicotine in a given cigarette, as well as the ability to market “low tar” products. In many ways the cigarette, given the additives most tobacco companies use, have come to be a “standardized nicotine delivery system”.

Since most cannabis is bought on the black market, there is no quality control to compare. I am sure there are some research studies done using cannabis, but I can’t seem to remember how they standardize dosage, unless the THC is isolated and applied using a different method beside smoking.

object used to smoke said marijuana will also effect how many other chemicals are entering the body as well.

i realize the question is about joints, but most people (at least those i know) dont really smoke joints that often.

@tinyfaery – My question wasn’t about changing people’s behavior. And I’m not convinced that typical means nothing. To me it sounds a little bit like, let’s not find out too much about the other chemicals and everyone knows alcohol does more damage than tetrahydrocannabinol. Let’s be happy. It also seems that if there are research studies it’s about tetrahydrocannabinol and its effect. Other chemicals seem less interesting.

@Other-Comments: Yes, I understand that most cigarette smokers are not social or occasional smokers. They need the regular buzz related to the increasing effects of dopamine. Although nicotine itself does a lot of damage, e.g. to blood vessels, most worries are related to the other chemicals in a cigarette.

What if there is one overlooked chemical in a joint (not present in cigarettes) doing a lot of damage to the occasional cannabis user? Is the attitude of governments, why investigate, it’s illegal anyway? Why bother knowing the average number of chemicals, let alone a comprehensive list. Strange world.

Until marijuana is regulated, categorized, and quantifiable as to what is actually in it, there is no way to know, for all the reasons (and more) I stated above.

For example, I know where my weed comes from: seed, how it’s grown, what it’s grown in and not grown in, and I know strains and their effects. My joint is not the same as the horrible weed I smell at concerts. Plus, I roll ‘em fat. Again, no typical joint.

@tinyfaery – Alright, let’s take one of your joints to the lab and light it up and analyze the smoke. How many and what kind of chemicals can we expect to find apart from THC?

No pesticides. Nutrients from the soil and supplements. And a whole fuck load of THC. I don’t see what else there could be. There might be more carcinogens in the paper than the weed.

Why would the tobacco plant be so different from cannabis sativa when being burnt and inhaled? Or do all the 2000 or whatever chemicals in a cigarette come from its paper?

@mattbrowne your forgetting all the chemicals they add to cigarettes.

Not saying the tobacco plant is great, but smoking straight tobacco im sure is a whole of a hell lot healthier than the processed cigarettes sold in stores.

Pesticides and fillers go into cigarettes, as well. There is very little actual tobacco in a lot of cigarettes.

also worth mentioning, its not the number of chemicals present. Its which chemicals are present. IE Smoking marijuana is relatively harmless. Smoking poison ivy will kill you in seconds.

@uberbatman – You said that smoking marijuana is relatively harmless, but you can’t list the chemicals produced when burning a paper-free, pesticide-free leaf of a marijuana plant. That seems to require a lot of faith. Motto: I don’t know what’s in it, but it must be rather harmless because unlike poison ivy it won’t kill me instantly.

Can we agree that some of the organic molecules in the leaf react with oxygen when the leaf is lit up? So what exactly comes out of it other than tetrahydrocannabinol? Nothing? What about carbon monoxide? What happens to some of the nitrogen atoms which are part of some of the molecules of the cannabis sativa plant. Do all hydrogen atoms end up as water when the leaf is burnt? Gee, are there no chemists on Fluther? Or does the inhalation of tetrahydrocannabinol terminate the desire for scientific inquiry?

@mattbrowne i knew you were going to say something about me saying marijuana was relatively harmless lol. i say relatively harmless because well, how often have you heard of someone dying from smoking it compared to the millions if not billions who use said plant.

This plant has been smoked for thousands of years, you’d think if there was something really dangerous about it, they’d have found it by now, no?

@uberbatman – I’m not talking about something posing an immediate danger like poison ivy. I’m talking about the potential of something like “X in burnt cannabis sativa leaves reduces average human life spans by Y years when consuming more than Z joints per week”. It could also be more complicated for example when certain substances interact with other substances from other sources (drinks, food, medication etc.). I’m just puzzled by the fact that most cannabis users are not interested in the details of the safety of their product. Some people call this living in denial. Let’s rather not find out. No one likes party poopers. On the other hand, someone told me that aspartame is very dangerous. Yes, she read it somewhere on the Internet and now I’m really worried. No more diet coke for me. No, sir! And, yikes, sugar is really bad too. And fat. Come to think of it, all soda is really bad for you too.

Again, my question wasn’t about changing people’s behavior. It’s about knowing what you are doing. Life is a risk. We can’t avoid all risks. But we should have some idea about them and keep things in perspective.

We all do stuff that is harmful, even though we are educated about the dangers. I still fail to see your point. I don’t know how a plane works or what pressure and recycled air might do to my body, but I take planes anyway.

@mattbrowne I don’t think that people need to be concerned about any potential “carcinogenic” effects of cannabis if the claims of Rick Simpson are anything to go by. In fact the opposite might be the case.
Not being a scientist myself, I’m not sure of what could be gained by a comparison of “how many” chemicals are in the two examples that you cite. A greater or lesser number of constituent chemicals is not a reliable indicator of health benefits or detriments is it?
Also, the substance that you refer to as “marijuana” is/was more commonly known as Hemp and it has an amazing history. The term ‘marijuana’ (from the Mexican word for hemp) was apparently promoted to make the plant seem ‘foreign’ to the English speaking world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid

Hemp is very useful indeed. But there’s a difference between using it in textiles, food etc. and burning it, feeding the resulting smoke to our lungs and blood vessels.

The debate was very enlightening. I learned that there’s no agreed comprehensive list of chemicals created when burning cigarettes or joints, let alone a rough idea about the number of chemicals.

No matter how hard I try…I can never make LSD with the burning of the joint. The 70s are gone.

@jazmina88 – How did you find the question? I asked the question on August 24th, 2009. Just curious…