this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
84 points (88.9% liked)

News

22876 readers
5318 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Some marijuana users may have elevated levels of lead and cadmium — two heavy metals linked to long-term health issues — in their blood and urine, a new study shows.

Among a group of more than 7,200 adults, the 358 who reported using marijuana within the past 30 days were found to have 27% higher blood lead levels than those who said they didn’t use either marijuana or tobacco.

The marijuana users also had 22% higher levels of cadmium in their blood, according to the research, which was published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Urine samples showed similar results.

The researchers, a team at Columbia University, knew going in that cannabis plants can absorb heavy metals from soil and, in fact, are particularly good at doing so. The contaminants travel through the stalk of the plant into the leaves and flowers.

But the new findings demonstrate that heavy metals in cannabis plants can also wind up in the human body.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So does that mean we could use hemp as a fiber replacement in places with contaminated soil?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes.

It's called phytoremediation. Hemp is an insanely cool plant. The issues with phytoremediation are:

  • time consuming; you got to wait for the plants to grow

  • generally only a few metals are taken up by a given spp., so application is limited and depends on metals present and plants growing conditions and the metals they uptake intersecting

  • you then have to harvest the plants and dispose of them in a landfill, which means you have to truck them.

Generally, during soil remediation projects they just excavate the soil and landfill it. They then bring in clean soil or use organic amendments to improve the subsoil horizons to the point they can support plants

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why would you need to send it to a landfill, and release the chemicals there as the plant decays, when you could just make stuff out of it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Because the chemicals and metals are not biostable, and you would be creating further contamination pathways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Landfills are designed to not release anything into the environment.

That may or may not happen in reality, but there is an attempt.