News
MAPS vaporizer study gets support from scientists
November 18, 2008 - For more than five years the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which has developed a scientific protocol to test the effectiveness of the Volcano Vaporizer, has been trying to buy 10 grams of government-grown cannabis for their research, without success.
November 6 however Chemic Labs submitted a response to a June 16, 2008, critique of MAPS' vaporizer protocol (PDF) by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Public Health Service (PHS).
MAPS submitted the protocol to NIDA/PHS on January 16, 2008, along with three letters of support from peer reviewers.
Now that Chemic Labs' response has been submitted, MAPS is hopeful that NIDA will grant them permission to purchase government-grown cannabis for use in their vaporizer protocol. Unfortunately, they may need to wait another 6 months or so for NIDA/PHS to reply to MAPS' response to their critiques. There is no regulatory time limit governing the NIDA/PHS response. MAPS had already been waiting about three years for a NIDA/PHS response to MAPS' reply to the critique of an earlier protocol.
Read the original article here: www.maps.org
Practical experiment to show how clean and efficient a vaporizer really is
September 28, 2008 - In the following video the friendly vaporizer enthusiast Kads shows how effectively the Vapor Brothers Vaporizer eliminates harmful byproducts created by combustion, and how much more efficient vaporization really is. The experiment can be repeated by everyone, using any good quality vaporizer.
Vapor Brothers Vaporizer vs Smoking: A Healthy Alternative
Incense linked to airway cancers
August 26, 2008 - People who breathe burning incense over long periods have an increased risk of developing mouth, tongue, and certain lung cancers, even if they don't smoke cigarettes, a new study shows. The risk was seen in smokers and nonsmokers, suggesting that exposure to burning incense is an independent risk factor for certain cancers of the respiratory tract, says lead researcher Jeppe T. Friborg, MD, PhD, of Copenhagen's Statens Serum Institut.
"The findings from this study and the experimental research are sufficient to recommend that people avoid prolonged use of incense in areas where they spend a lot of time, like living rooms," Friborg says.
Used since biblical times, incense is still an integral part of daily life in large parts of Asia and India. And many people in the U.S. and other Western countries also burn incense on a daily basis. A wide variety of plants and oils are used to make incense. When burned, many of these mixtures have been shown to produce some of the same carcinogens that are found in cigarette smoke. Because of this, a number of studies have examined a possible link between incense inhaled into the lungs and lung cancer, but the findings have not been conclusive. The newly published study is the first to follow healthy people over time in an effort to understand the impact of long-term exposure to burning incense on cancer risk. More than 60,000 Chinese residents of Singapore who were participants in a larger health study were followed from enrollment (which occurred between 1993 and 1998) and 2005. None of the study participants had cancer at enrollment, and all were interviewed in detail about their dietary and lifestyle habits, including their exposure to incense. Roughly three-quarters of the men and women reported being current incense users.
Over the course of the study, 325 upper respiratory tract cancers and 821 lung cancers were reported. Long-term and frequent exposure to incense fumes was associated with a significant increase in the risk of squamous cell cancers of the upper respiratory tract.
Daily exposure to burning incense is common in Asia, but it is not limited to the East. To illustrate the point, Friborg and colleagues cite a 2004 study involving non-Asian minority women living in New York City. More than a quarter of the women (28%) reported burning incense during pregnancy, and incense exposure was identified as a significant source of exposure to a commonly inhaled carcinogen.
American Cancer Society Deputy Chief Medical Officer Len Lichtenfeld, MD, tells WebMD that the study should not alarm casual incense users who do not appear to be at significant risk. But he adds that people who breathe burning incense on a daily basis need to understand the risk. "Daily exposure is associated with an increase in upper airway cancer," he says. "This a real risk that should not be ignored."
Long-term exposure to incense fumes was associated with an increased risk for most upper respiratory cancers, as well as squamous cell lung cancer, the study shows. Squamous cell lung canceris most common type of lung cancer in smokers.
Source: WebMD
NIDA delays vaporizer research and averts MAPS lawsuit
July 17, 2008 - The MAPS Newsletter reports: On June 18th, after a five month review process, the National Institute of Drug Abuse - Public Health Service (NIDA-PHS) finally responded to our revised vaporizer research protocol, submitted for review January 16, 2008. The submission included three supportive letters from peer-reviewers, confirming the scientific merit of the study and urging NIDA-PHS to approve it. By responding, NIDA/PHS avoided MAPS filing another lawsuit for unreasonable delay, which we had intended to file in the middle of August.
MAPS has still been waiting two years and nine months for NIDA/PHS to respond to our September 2005 reply (PDF) to their rejection of our previous vaporizer protocol (PDF), which we initially submitted in June 2003, after which it took them more than two years to evaluate! We submitted the revised protocol in January 2008 to see if that might motivate NIDA to respond, which it has.
According to Rick, The review is filled with issues designed to delay and exhaust us, that have little importance to the safety or relevance of the intended research, but I don't think it will deter us for too long. We'll respond thoroughly and quickly before the end of July, and then wait yet again for a reply. Now that NIDA/PHS are familiar with the issues and have articulated their concerns, their response to our comments should be faster. We're already making progress in that the strategy of delay has been overcome and a review was issued.
If this situation werent so genuinely tragic for all the sick people who might benefit from this research, then it would simply appear ridiculous. All MAPS is requesting to do is purchase ten grams of marijuana--something virtually any high school student in the US could obtain--so that we can move forward with a study of a non-smoking delivery system for marijuana that might benefit people suffering from a wide range of debilitating, difficult-to-treat illnesses.
The FDA has thirty days to review complicated human protocols. With NIDA/PHSs dysfunctional review process, they have provided us with powerful evidence for why we need to break the NIDA monopoly on the supply of marijuana that can be used in research, said Doblin.
MAPS has been waiting since February 12, 2007 for the DEA to issue a final ruling in response to DEA Administrative Law Judge Bittners recommendation (PDF) that the NIDA monopoly on the production of marijuana legal for research be ended, and that Professor Lyle Craker be issued a DEA license for a MAPS-sponsored medical marijuana production facility.
Smoking ban encourages vaporizer use in Dutch coffeeshops
July 11, 2008 - As of July 1st, the Dutch have imposed a nationwide ban on smoking tobacco in cafes, bars, clubs and restaurants.
The coffeeshops, famous as comfortable places where marijuana and non-alcoholic drinks are sold, fought the ban but to no avail. Strictly speaking, marijuana is illegal too - but it is tolerated. This resulted in a paradoxical situation where coffeeshops are the only public places where smoking is allowed, as long as the joints do not contain tobacco.
For many users this seems to be a problem as they only smoke cannabis joints cut with tobacco, and they used to to this in places designed for it; coffeeshops. Musician Gani, for one, isn't happy about the changes. He says he can't smoke at home because his mother would hit him "over the head with a pan".
Vaporizers
Coffeeshops like Greenhouse present a variety of alternatives such as bongs (water pipes), tobacco-free smoking mixtures, and eye-catching medical vaporizers. This device heats the cannabis to 180 degrees Celsius, filling a plastic balloon vapor that contains pure THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The vaporizer is claimed to be the mildest way to consume pure cannabis. Greenhouse owner and spokesman for the Dutch Cannabis Retailers Association, Arjan Roskam, is not worried about the impact of the new law. "It's much healthier to smoke cannabis than tobacco so actually it's a very normal law," he says. "Slowly, everyone's realizing that tobacco is not the way to go. Most people smoke pure cannabis. And cannabis of course has much less health risks than tobacco, as we all know."
Evert, inventor of the Verdamper (Vaporizer) is now doing a roaring trade, his device is considered the best smoking alternative among drug users. "The better coffeeshops already have one, many others have ordered, and you can even find one at the bar of some regular cafes."
>Sources:
BBC
Bloomberg
Essensie
Vaporizer Info online
June 7, 2008 - Our website www.vaporizer-info.com has gone online! Our goal is to maintain a comprehensive non-commercial website with scientific but easy-to-read information about vaporizing.