Vaping 'can damage vital immune system cells'

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August 2018

Vaping can damage vital immune system cells and may be more harmful than previously thought, a study suggests.

Researchers found e-cigarette vapour disabled important immune cells in the lung and boosted inflammation. The researchers "caution against the widely held opinion that e-cigarettes are safe".

However, Public Health England advises they are much less harmful than smoking and people should not hesitate to use them as an aid to giving up cigarettes. The small experimental study, led by Prof David Thickett, at the University of Birmingham, is published online in the journal Thorax.

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Life or Death After a Non-Fatal Drug Overdose

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Research studies (see Stoové et al, 2009) have long associated surviving a drug overdose with the increased likelihood of a future non-fatal or fatal drug overdose. In a 2017 Massachusetts study of opioid overdoses, 10% of those who survived died within the next year from a drug overdose or other causes. In one of the most rigorous U.S. follow-up studies, Dr. Mark Olfson and colleagues compared the mortality rates of people who had survived a non-fatal opioid overdose to demographically matched members of the general U.S. population. They found that those who survived an opioid overdose died in the next year at 24 times the mortality rate of those in the general population, with most deaths attributed to drug-related diseases, subsequent overdose, circulatory disease, respiratory disease, cancer, HIV, viral hepatitis, and suicide. In another study that might be christened an investigation into lost opportunities, Dr. Linn Gjersing and colleagues found in a retrospective analysis of people who died of a drug overdose that 61% had previously sought emergency medical care and that 18% were frequent users of emergency medical services. The reasons for seeking past emergency care included somatic complaints (48%), injury (44%), alcohol and other drug-related medical problems (32%), and drug overdose (26%).

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This is just one of the reasons why it is vital to divert drug users into recovery programs, not simply enable and equip them to continue self-harming with substances – These drug use endorsing mechanisms only increase the risk of harm that the same so-called ‘harm reduction’ strategies are supposed to lessen! (D.I. Comment)

DACA - Drug Education for Families

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Real Caution Needed: Known Cannabis Teratogenicity Needs to be Carefully Considered

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Medical research has confirmed that the body’s endocannabinoid system is a finely regulated and highly complex system which is involved in the detailed regulation of essentially all body systems including the brain and cardiovascular systems and stem cell niches.  

Studies have shown that the rate of use of cannabis by expecting mothers closely parallels that in the wider community.  In fact given the long half-life of cannabis in tissues even were a maternal habitual smoker to stop when she discovered her pregnancy, her infant would continue to be exposed to her on-board cannabinoid load for several months afterwards during critical periods of organogenesis.  And other studies show that the father’s cannabis use is even more damaging than the mothers’.

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