YaHooka Forums - View Single Post - Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection

OldMan&TheWeed · 05-03-2008, 05:03 PM

On Tuesday January 29, 2008 Reuters News Wire published a story under the headline: "Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes." Mainstream media outlets across the globe immediately followed suit. "Smoking One Joint is Equivalent to 20 Cigarettes, Study Says," Fox News declared, while Australia's ABC broadcast network pronounced, "Experts Warn of Cannabis Cancer 'Epidemic.'"

For those who actually bothered to read the study's full text, which appeared in the European Respiratory Journal days after the global feeding frenzy had ended, they would have learned the following:

Among the 79 lung cancer subjects (as opposed to the 65,000 in the Kaiser study) who participated in the trial, 70 of them smoked tobacco. These individuals, not surprisingly, experienced a seven-times greater risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer compared to tobacco-free controls.

As for the subjects in the study who reported having used cannabis, they, on average, experienced no statistically significant increased cancer risk compared to non-using controls.

So how'd the press get the story so wrong?

05-03-2008, 05:03 PM	#12 (permalink)
OldMan&TheWeed The Old Man and the Weed Join Date: May 2006 Location: The West Posts: 1,350 Thanks: 12 Thanked 88 Times in 53 Posts	More Disinformation On Tuesday January 29, 2008 Reuters News Wire published a story under the headline: "Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes." Mainstream media outlets across the globe immediately followed suit. "Smoking One Joint is Equivalent to 20 Cigarettes, Study Says," Fox News declared, while Australia's ABC broadcast network pronounced, "Experts Warn of Cannabis Cancer 'Epidemic.'" For those who actually bothered to read the study's full text, which appeared in the European Respiratory Journal days after the global feeding frenzy had ended, they would have learned the following: Among the 79 lung cancer subjects (as opposed to the 65,000 in the Kaiser study) who participated in the trial, 70 of them smoked tobacco. These individuals, not surprisingly, experienced a seven-times greater risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer compared to tobacco-free controls. As for the subjects in the study who reported having used cannabis, they, on average, experienced no statistically significant increased cancer risk compared to non-using controls. So how'd the press get the story so wrong? __________________ The above story is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Last edited by OldMan&TheWeed; 05-03-2008 at 05:34 PM.