Is Marijuana Safer To Use Than Tobacco?

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Is Marijuana Safer To Use Than Tobacco?
Cannabis in Costa Rica
A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use.
Institute of Human Issues
“Users in our matched-pair sample smoked marijuana in addition to as many tobacco cigarettes as did their matched non-using pairs. Yet their small airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. We must tentatively conclude either that marijuana has no harmful effect on such passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against harmful effects of tobacco smoke.”

There have been many views and arguments on whether or not marijuana should be legalized and if tobacco should be made illegal. The reasons for marijuana not being legalized are similar to the reasons people want tobacco to become illegal. Only the effects of tobacco are more severe than the dangers of marijuana.
Marijuana’s short-term effects include temporary problem with memory and learning. It also causes temporary distorted perception, and trouble thinking and solving problems. For some people smoking marijuana causes loss of motor coordination.
Tobacco’s short-term effects are a lot more serious health wise. When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes arteries to narrow. Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This all causes a greater demand for oxygen by cells and lowers the amount of oxygen the blood is able to supply.
The comparison of short-term effects of both drugs obviously shows that tobacco is more dangerous since tobacco has a sudden effect on the heart and blood.
The long-term effect of marijuana is that marijuana smoke contains some of the same cancer causing compounds as tobacco. Tobacco has more cancer causing compounds than marijuana so tobacco is more dangerous.
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