Lung disease induced by drug addiction.

In their editorial on the pulmonary consequences ofillicit drug use (November 1995; 50:1125-7) Benson and Bentley draw attention to barotrauma as a complication of cocaine inhalation. Pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum, and pneumopericardium have also been described, however, in association with the use of marijuana,12 a drug that is more widely used in England and Australia than cocaine. The mechanism of injury is thought to be by coughing while breathholding in inspiration, or by performance of