THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA

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In 1976 Tom Ferguson, then a fourth-year medical student at Yale, launched a magazine called Medical Self-Care . . . which—he hoped—would serve as "a Whole Earth Catalog of the best medical books, tools, and resources".

Tom spoke of his plans for the publication and of his conviction that self-care could raise the general level of health in this country and lower our inflated levels of medical spending—in the Plowboy Interview in MOTHER NO. 51 . . . and left no doubt that he would work toward making those "dreams" come true.

Well, Tom Ferguson is Doctor Ferguson now, and the medical self-care "movement"—as well as Tom's magazine—has flourished. People are beginning to assume more responsibility for their own well-being and are eager for information that will help them take better care of their bodies.

So—in an effort to provide just such very necessary data—THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS offers as a regular feature a piece by Tom Ferguson, M.D., entitled (what else?) "Medical SelfCare".

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This issue's column is by Michael Castleman, managing editor of Medical Self-Care.]

Two years ago, investigators at the UCLA Pulmonary Research Laboratory published the abstract of a study on the respiratory effects of heavy marijuana smoking among 75 young men who consumed an average of five marijuana cigarettes, or joints, a day for two months. Among other less dramatic findings, this "Tashkin Report" suggested: "Smoking four joints a week may cause more respiratory impairment than smoking 16 cigarettes a day."

The wire service that picked up the story dropped the word "may" . . . and the nation learned that the lung damage caused by four joints equaled that caused by 112 cigarettes.

Later that year, Peter Bensinger (a director of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency) told a graduating class at the FBI Academy that smoking five joints a week introduced more carcinogens into the lungs than smoking a pack of unfiltered cigarettes a day. His remarks were also picked up by the wire services.