By "Radical" Russ Belville
Seriously, American Cancer Society, you’re publishing this Reefer Madness on your “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” data sheet in medical marijuana?
Many researchers agree that marijuana contains known carcinogens, or chemicals that can cause cancer.
All researchers agree that water contains a known explosive, hydrogen, a volatile element that can ignite with as little as a static electricity spark. That doesn’t mean water can cause explosions. Chemistry matters. Yes, cannabis smoke — all smoke — contains carcinogens. But cannabis smoke also contains THC, which has been shown to have anti-tumoral effects and inhibits cancer cell growth through apoptosis (cell “suicide”).
Results of epidemiologic studies of marijuana and cancer risk have been inconsistent, and most recent epidemiologic studies have not found a substantial effect on cancer risk. However, some researchers caution that these studies are difficult to conduct, as some people may not be truthful about illegal habits such as smoking marijuana, and that these negative results should not be interpreted as convincing evidence of safety.
Uh… what? We do studies that can’t distinguish an increased risk of cancer from pot smoking, but folks lie about pot, so we can’t trust the studies? Well, that would mean the either the people who don’t get cancer are lying about smoking pot, or people who do get cancer are lying about not smoking pot. The former doesn’t make much sense, so the author must assume there are a whole bunch of pot smokers in cancer wards who are lying about it and blaming it on something else.
Seems quite a stretch to me, especially when Dr. Tashkin studied thousands of pot smokers for 30 years, concluding “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”
They caution that smoking marijuana may decrease reproductive function,…
Willie Nelson has seven kids. Snoop Dogg has three kids. Tommy Chong has five kids. Bob Marley has eleven kids. Just sayin’ those reproductive scares have been studied, too, and they’re bunk.
…cause lung disease, and increase the risk of cancer of the lungs, mouth, and tongue. It may also suppress the body’s immune system…
Sure, right, that’s why doctors recommend it for AIDS patients who have the most compromised immune systems of any patient. That’s why I rarely get colds and never get the flu, despite passing joints and pipes from the lips of many other pot smokers to mine own. This immune system scare is bunk, too.
…and increase the risk of leukemia in children whose mothers smoke marijuana during pregnancy. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should not use marijuana.
Pregnancy is always a critical time for wise healthcare and women should be cautious about their use of any substances while pregnant. However, cannabis can be much safer for pregnancy-related health issues than many prescriptions commonly given to expectant mothers.
The symptoms of a marijuana overdose include nausea, vomiting, hacking cough, disturbances to heart rhythms, and numbness in the limbs.
“Marijuana overdose”? Then you admit that there is a “dose” of marijuana that would be medically acceptable? What they are describing here are the immediate effects of taking a huge bong hit, effects that diminish very rapidly.
Chronic use can also lead to laryngitis, bronchitis, and general apathy.
Yes, chronic inhalation of hot smoke of any kind can lead to laryngitis and bronchitis. But the “amotivational syndrome” – the apathy – has been long since debunked (see above Nelson, Dogg, Chong, & Marley as examples, then add in Michael Phelps, Carl Sagan, Sir Richard Branson…)
With chronic use, the ability to learn and remember new information may become impaired.
Really? I just learned and memorized bass lines and lyrics to ten new songs for my band. This month I’ve been learning the new Joomla back-end of the NORML website. Every year I am analyzing changing data and from memory can tell you last year there were 853,000 arrests for marijuana comprising 52% of all drug arrests, 15.8 million adults using marijuana monthly, and the highest recorded potency of seized marijuana came in at 37.2% in a sample taken by cops in San Jose in 2007. If I couldn’t learn and remember new information on a daily basis, I would have been unable to produce 810 daily talk radio shows.
Although it is rare, severe shutdown of blood circulation to the arms or legs has been reported in young people who smoked marijuana. In some cases, it was so severe that amputation was required.
In all my years beating back reefer madness, this is a first. I have never heard a story of someone’s marijuana use leading to amputation. I have covered stories of people who use marijuana for their already-existing amputation, since it is a superior medication for “phantom” pain, and I’ve covered one double-amputee diabetic’s eviction for her medical marijuana use, though.
Marijuana may also serve as a trigger for a heart attack on rare occasions, usually within an hour after smoking.
If you are a person with a weak heart, your risk of heart attack due to the increase of heart rate associated with marijuana smoking does increase. It increases by about the same factor as if you and your weak heart climb a flight of stairs or engage in sex. It’s like noting that your risk of being eaten by a shark greatly increases if you live in California rather than Iowa. It’s true, but it’s misleading.
Allergic reactions, some severe, have been reported.
Like peanuts or latex or bee stings? Sure, so if you find you’re allergic to those or cannabis, don’t subject yourself to them.
It is so frustrating to see the American Cancer Society in such opposition to the plant that shows the greatest promise in treating and curing cancer.
This controversy is demonstrating why the schedule 1 ban on marijuana should be lifted at least temporarily so that real research can be done identifying the specific medical benefits of marijuana, including doses, active chemicals, side effects, etc. Everything provided today is anecdotal, inferred from surveys, etc. This research has been done on coca and poppies, and the medicinal properties of these plants and their derivatives are well known. The bias against pot is cultural and not scientific. This being said, the idea the pot is a wonder drug is equally bogus and unsubstantiated. We need real data and controlled studies.
Until the older generations die out, (not something I am looking for, its just life), the reefer madness lines will still be included. Most of the horror stories on file probably came during the reefer madness time, but because they were published into the medical journal, are going to be continually put into publications. We should be happy that they have removed their old marijuana fact sheet because it was found invalid. Now as they progress forward, making more studies, they will eventually completely debunk those entries and have them removed. Lets accept this as a good step forward (being accepted as an alternative medicine) and continue with our efforts for more legislation allowing for more studies.
As a cancer patient, I find this publication by the American Cancer Society reprehensible.
All of these arguments are idiotic all by themselves but even if they were true it makes you wonder why, if they use these arguments to make pot illegal, they don't use them to make other things illegal. ------- Yes, when you suck smoke into your lungs you're sucking carcinogens. If you want to make it illegal to suck carcinogens in then you have to make cigarettes, BBQ grills, campfires, cars, coal fired power plants and so much more illegal. ------ "With chronic use, the ability to learn and remember new information may become impaired" like alcohol, morphine, and countless other legal painkillers. --------- "Allergic reactions, some severe, have been reported." I've never heard of this but are we going to make all potential allergens illegal? ------ In other words, the arguments are weak at best but even if you believe them does that mean they justify prohibition? If they did then everything would be prohibited.
Whenever I read that cannabis has caused a severe allergic reaction I always wonder why, in the nearly 34 1/2 years I've been enjoying cannabis or in the more than 20 years I've been an active cannabis law reform advocate that I've never come across any evidence of such thing beyond reports that it's happened. It's not that I doubt it to be possible but I do think it must be as rare as hen's teeth. Gosh, I've actually met a summer camp full of children that are allergic to sunshine. No fooling, Camp Sundown, which is for children with Xeroderma Pigmentosum. The camp's schedule runs all night because these children literally can't go out in the sunshine.
Oh well, perhaps someday I'll get used to cannabis being the Rodney Dangerfield of the world of substances on the naughty list. No respect I tell you. No respect at all.