While marijuana contains many of the same chemicals as tobacco smoke, researchers at UC San Francisco found that smoking marijuana on an occasional basis does not appear to significantly damage the lungs. The study, reported by the Los Angeles Times and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at 5,115 men and women in four US cities regarding their current and lifetime exposure to tobacco smoke and marijuana smoke and their lung function.

The study showed that lung function declined with increased exposure to tobacco smoke, but the same pattern was not seen with marijuana smoke. There was no evidence of lung function damage with smoking one joint a day for seven years, however, after 10 years, there was some decline in lung function as measured by the speed at which a person can blow out air.

Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with an addiction to marijuana or other drugs, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

While the health effects of hookahs, or water pipes, haven’t been studied as rigorously as cigarettes, the risks are becoming clearer as the pipes grow in popularity in the US. A major concern is that they can cause carbon monoxide poisoning, according to health officials.

Drawing the attention of young users, hookahs are viewed as a less dangerous way of using tobacco. Hookah bars, where many go to indulge, feature water pipes that are used to smoke a blend of tobacco, molasses and fruit called shisha. But researchers are finding that the water in the pipe does not filter all the harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke. In fact, the smoke inhaled in a typical one-hour hookah session can equal 100 cigarettes or more, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Even after it has been passed through water, the tobacco smoke in a hookah pipe contains high levels of cancer-causing chemicals.

Poison Centers are reporting seeing hookah users with significant carbon monoxide poisoning, and regular hookah users may develop long-term health problems from increased carbon monoxide levels, including neurological damage. In severe cases, carbon monoxide poisoning can lead to a coma or death.

Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction or drug abuse, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about addiction treatment, financing or insurance.

When keeping kids away from nicotine, the focus of the teens-and-smoking groups has always been on curbing cigarette smoking. But now there’s a new way to take in tobacco: the hookah. Actually, the hookah has a long history, originating in India and finding popularity in the Middle East. Today, it’s gaining a following among teens and young adults, with college kids really taking to the trend.

For those not in the know, a hookah is essentially a water pipe, resembling an ancient form of the bong — with a few differences.

A Study on Hookah Use

A recent Canadian study by the University of Montreal showed that hookahs are extremely popular with 18- to 20-year-old men living away from their parents and with a higher household income than non-users. The report also found that water-pipe smokers are also more likely to use other psychoactive drugs, such as marijuana. Finally, the study showed that rates of hookah use among this age group was three times higher than the year before.

In addition to home use, hookah bars are springing up across the US and in Canada, particularly in larger cities and college towns. These public places to get hooked on hookah may be at least part of the reason for the continued growth in popularity (not to mention the flavored tobaccos mask the nicotine taste). A US study recently published in the American Journal of Health Behavior estimated that 10 to 20 percent of some young adult populations in the United States are water-pipe users.

Is Hookah Safer than Cigarettes?

Another reason hookahs may be growing in popularity is because many of those who are partaking see the habit as healthier than cigarettes because the nicotine passes through water before being inhaled. But recent studies show that water-pipe smoking is no safer than cigarettes. In fact, one study asserted that water-pipe smokers inhale approximately 48 times more smoke than they would through a cigarette. There’s also a carbon monoxide issue.

From Hookahs to Illegal Drugs

The habit may not come with the same risks and dangers of illegal drug use, but there are dangers and hookah use does seem to have some correlation to harder drug use. For those reasons, it’s not something that can be dismissed in treatment and recovery circles – or by parents and loved ones of teens and young adults.

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

While there’s been a crackdown on advertising and promotion of smoking in the U.S., tobacco addiction is still a problem worldwide, especially in developing countries. According to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey organized jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control (CDC), tobacco use and addiction constitute major impediments to development in poor countries.

“Tobacco use and addiction seriously threatens sustainable development by causing disability, premature deaths, economic loss at national and individual level as well as damage to the environment,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo.

The number of smokers worldwide has reached the 1 billion-mark. If this trend continues, deaths due to tobacco addiction will increase from 5 million to 10 million by the year 2020, with 70 percent of those deaths occurring in developing countries, the experts warn.

Addiction Treatment

If you or a family member is struggling with a drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Individuals in treatment or recovery may turn to legal substances to help them stay clean, with caffeine and nicotine being the most popular choices. Others try to kick the habit during or shortly after the rehab process, swearing off coffee and cigarettes.

For those who depend on electronic cigarettes or “e-cigarettes” as they’re known, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced that “a laboratory analysis of electronic cigarette samples found that they contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.”

How E-cigarettes Work

Electronic cigarettes are battery-operated devices that generally contain cartridges filled with nicotine, flavor and other chemicals. They turn nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user. But unlike regular cigarettes, the product doesn’t contain a health warning.

“The FDA is concerned about the safety of these products and how they are marketed to the public,” said Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., commissioner of food and drugs.
An FDA release added, “Because these products have not been submitted to the FDA for evaluation or approval, at this time the agency has no way of knowing, except for the limited testing it has performed, the levels of nicotine or the amounts or kinds of other chemicals that the various brands of these products deliver to the user.”

Tests performed at the direction of the FDA indicate that these products contained detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users could potentially be exposed.

Addiction Help

If you or a family member is struggling with an addiction, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

We’ve all heard the dangers, seen the commercials and read the Surgeon General’s ominous warning on the sides of cigarette packages. We get it: Smoking is hazardous to your health. But could this nasty nicotine habit show you’re more likely to become a substance abuser as well?

Rates of smoking in people with substance use disorders are consistently three to four times higher than in the general population, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Heavier smoking is also linked to increased drug or alcohol use. As if that weren’t enough, more than two-thirds of the people who abuse drugs also smoke tobacco regularly, a rate that is double that of the general population.

Up to 90 percent of active alcoholics are also cigarette smokers, with heavy smoking almost intrinsically linked to heavy drinking. Users of illicit drugs have smoking rates that are nearly as high, with nearly 90 percent of outpatient substance abuse clients being smokers.

Smoking Detox

Despite the problems smoking causes, there is still some debate over when is the best time for someone with a substance abuse problem to quit. Some experts recommend detoxing from nicotine at the same time as alcohol or illegal drugs. Others suggest waiting until an individual has six months of sobriety under their belt before tackling tobacco use. Studies show that both groups that undergo smoking cessation programs at different times have about the same rate of success, 18 percent, which matches the success rate of the general population of cigarette smokers who try to kick the habit.

If you or someone you know is in need of treatment for drug or alcohol addiction, contact La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have.

Are some kids just born bad? Not necessarily, but researchers have found links that contribute to the development of disruptive children and rebellious teens.

“That prenatal exposure to smoking combined with a specific genetic variant places children at greatest risk for behavioral problems,” according to a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Quoting a NIDA press release on March 4, 2009: “These findings illuminate how the interaction between genes and the environment can mold behavioral patterns very early in development,” says NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow. “This research provides a foundation for studies of the impact of these interactions on brain development during pregnancy.”

For both boys and girls, the more their mothers smoked during pregnancy, the higher the risk of disruptive behavior.

While the dangers of smoking during pregnancy have been made known for decades, pregnant women continue to smoke. “According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2006-2007 slightly more than 16 percent of pregnant women aged 15-44 (426,000) were current cigarette smokers,” NIDA says.