Cannabis: the next villain on the lung cancer battlefield?

L ung cancer epidemics arose and spread in western countries when the tobacco industry created the manufactured cigarette and realised that nicotine addiction was the most adaptable way to increase and secure long-term sales [1]. In spite of well-known toxicity of tobacco smoke [2] and the proven relationship of tobacco smoking with lung cancer incidence [3], the tobacco industry took advantage of the lack of response by western governments, concerning the alarms raised by physicians and citizen associations, and set up a very powerful marketing process directed at smokers, adult males and nonsmokers, females and adolescents with devastating effects. In all western countries the percentage of smokers increased, and the age at which the first cigarette was smoked decreased. Since susceptibility of females to tobacco carcinogens is higher, lung cancer in females equalled or exceeded lung cancer in males in different countries [4], even in females with a lower, but regular, cigarette consumption. The age of lung cancer occurrence followed the age that people started smoking. In the 1950s, the average ages for the first cigarette smoked and for lung cancer onset were 20–30 yrs and o60 yrs, respectively, but at the turn of the 20th century these were ,12 yrs and o40 yrs, respectively. The electroshock was the revelation of the tobacco industry's villainies and was associated with a strong consumer pressure on the western governments, at least to ban tobacco from advertisements, schools and public housing. The most powerful action was probably the individual realisation that tobacco smoking is a killer. However, the story of tobacco epidemics is not over as the tobacco industry has focused on non-western countries, with the help of governments who were happy to receive the tax bonanza or become competitors with national production, such as in China. Nonetheless, tobacco cessation is now gaining ground and the incidence of lung cancer has peaked in the USA. Cancer incidence first decreased in males and apparently has now also decreased in females [5] and is becoming more and more a cancer of ex-smokers. Tobacco smoking prevention, as well as early detection of lung cancer, remains the driving force of the respiratory community for the forthcoming years. If the respiratory community wants to continue this trend in countries where tobacco regulations are enforced, should it raise the alarm against the arrival of a new villain on the lung cancer battlefield? The study by ALDINGTON et al. [6], …