It’s almost as if Dr. Evil called all the villains of P.A.I.N. (Prohibitionists Advance Information Network) to his secret island lair this weekend and said, “What do we do? The photos of Michael Phelps toking a bong have done serious damage to our ‘pot makes you a lazy slacker loser’ propaganda! If we don’t come up with something quick, people will start to think prohibiting marijuana is stupid and counterproductive!”
“Dr. Evil, I have something here,” says Media Man, longtime ally of Dr. Evil, “A study by some Seattle researchers that might show a slight increased risk of testicular cancer by people who smoke tons and tons of weed all the time. It’s preliminary, and not duplicated, and makes a lot of assumptions…”
Dr. Evil smiles and finishes the sentence, “…but that’s never stopped us from pushing a story before! Great work, Media Man! Get this out to CNN and ABC, pronto!”
Internet photos of swimming phenomenon Michael Phelps, 23, possibly indulging in an Olympian lungful of marijuana smoke scandalized many and may have caused him to lose face and the faith of some of his fans — not to mention a lucrative sponsorship from Kellogg.
But according to new research, if Phelps makes a habit of smoking up, he could stand to loose more than a fan base.
For the first time, researchers have linked frequent marijuana use to an increased risk of testicular cancer, according to an article published today in the journal Cancer.
“There’s been very little research done on marijuana use and its association with cancer risk,” said Janet Daling, the senior author of the article and an epidemiologist and member of the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle. “This is the first time this association has been shown.”
Double reefer madness demerits for not proofreading one of my most hated misspellings — “loose” instead of “lose” — on a major news network feed.
And Dr. Daling, there is plenty of research on marijuana use and cancer risk; Paul Armentano has done a fantastic job collecting it all for you. We’ve found that even heavy marijuana use does not lead to increased risk of head, neck, or lung cancers. We find that mothers who smoke marijuana don’t expose their children to any higher risks for leukemia. We even find in the case of gliomas (a type of brain cancer) and some lymphomas that exposure to cannabis therapies may have tumor-reducing properties.
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show this story to my friend who just went into emergency surgery with testicular cancer from smoking pot.
[...] Going to Pot: Weed and Testicular Cancer | NORML Daily Audio Stash Posted by admin in Uncategorized on 02 9th, 2009 | no responses It’s almost as if Dr. Evil called all the villains of PAIN (Prohibitionists Advance Information Network) to his secret island lair this weekend and said, Read more from the original source: Going to Pot: Weed and Testicular Cancer | NORML Daily Audio Stash [...]
If you roll joints, you can wank during…
I have read that masturbation will help to reduce the risk of testicular cancer.
So if you smoke weed then wank afterwords.
Can’t be too careful
Or if you are lucky enough to have a partner, have sex after. That is always good.
A friend of mine was diagnosed w/ cancer,..i did years of reading and research from various scientist on the topic of Marijuana as a medicinal herb,..and the common thread in all these studies was that pot actually had “anti-cancer-enzymes” that would actually prevent people from getting cancer EVEN in the lungs if smoked,..or eaten,..My friend was getting ZERO releif from all the drugs,..(Marinol-being one of them) that were supposed to make the Chemo-treatments easier…He had never tried pot,..but wanted relief,..so he tried it(injested),..and YES he got relief from symtoms,..and after effects of chemo were reduced,..his doctors advised against experimenting w/ supplements..”cuz you don’t know whats in there”..however,the side effects from drugs being given were horrendous,..and the supplements were NIL side effects,…Anyway my point is,..i think this “study” is Dog feces,..How does one get testiclar cancer from a Component that has ANTI-cancer Enzyme components ? can anyone say “Big Pharma”? my 2 Cents…have a Fantatstic day everyone.
There’s about 8,090 testicular cancer diagnoses per year, causing 380 deaths:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_2_1x_How_Many_People_Get_Testicular_Cancer_41.asp
There’s about 108,070 new cases of colon cancer and 40,740 cases of rectal cancer per year, causing 49,960 deaths.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_2_1X_How_Many_People_Get_Colorectal_Cancer.asp?sitearea=
Drinking more than one beer a day or two glasses of spirits was found to more than double a person’s risk of developing rectal cancer.
Drinking a lot of distilled spirits (more than nine drinks a week) on a regular basis (for at least 10 years) can increase the risk of developing colon cancer by more than 300 percent.
If people are going to relax in the evenings, the choice appears obvious.
Can Dr Mitch Earlywine please comment as to this study, it sounds concerning, but perhaps the sample size of the study was small, or perhaps outside factors were not properly controlled for.
Lets just ask Lance A. didn’t he start hangin with Woody and Matthew McConaughey after his cancer?
Well, all 114 articles except for one or two had the scary, “Just say no….or else you get cancer” (ABC’s tag line online).
The lonely CBC.CA Canadian Broadcasting said in theirs, “Weak link found between smoking pot, testicular cancer”.
At the end of the CBC article they pinned the rap for this BS on these a-holes: “The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Hutchinson Center”.
Oh yeah, now it makes sense, NIDA funding! You go CBC! They outed the culprits. Hope the administration change in NIDA happens soon.
Now we have no respect for a guy who brought America 14 gold medals from communist china because he smokes weed. All of a sudden, we have new research by scientists from seattle whom we don’t even know where they’re from or who they are, discovered that marijuana use leads to testicular cancer in men ages 18 – 44. They forgot to mention if they smoke cigarettes, drink alchohal, if the weed they smoke is laced, or do other hard drugs, or were predestined for the disease. If were that much a risk, the scientists advocating it would have discovered this first and put in place cautionary warnings for medical marijuana clinics. The most natural of medicines is what I still trust more than any prescription that can cause a hell of lot more damage to me than weed. I say this is a cheap shot propaganda move than will be debunked just like marijuana causing brain rot did. We remember the commercial from the 90′s, and now we’re getting it again. No educated advocate would be on the side of marijuana if it were to cause serious damage or side effects to users. There is no marijuana abuse, you cannot overdose. The “abuse” if from the individual not knowing how to live RESPONSIBLY.
I don’t blame the scientists for the timing; the “Dr. Evil” reference is purely to set the stage for the skit, not a reference to the scientists in the study, though I can see how it might have been taken that way.
I blame the media for hyping the story, opening it as a reaction to the Phelps story. I blame the lede being “Phelps lost a Kellogg’s sponsorship, but pot smoking could make young men lose their huevos!”, followed by plenty of pot scaremongering on Page 1 (“70% increased risk of testicular cancer!”; “it goes against commonly held beliefs that marijuana is one of the more benign recreational drugs”) and Page 2 (“there is evidence that marijuana does affect parts of both the male and female reproductive systems, including hormones and sperm quality”; “we saw it only in nonseminomas, which indicates it’s not just recall bias”), and Page 3 (“More substantial research on marijuana use being linked to increased risk for lung, head and neck cancers does exist”), but there is no reference to the correlative/causative question, the tentative nature of the study (“first paper amid limited research on marijuana and cancer to show a causal effect” – and even that’s biased!) and the only reference to any contrary point of view, taking the long view that risk of testicular cancer (as you elegantly point out, Tatsuo,) is very rare indeed, is phrased within three grafs that make it seem like young men smoke lots of pot and stand to lose their balls (emphasis mine to give an idea how Joe Q. Public reads it):
That’s two “commons” and a “half”, versus one “rarer”, with a side order of “abuse”. Plus, “8,000 cases” doesn’t sound small like “6-7 per 100,000″ – same fact, but the way media presents it always tilts toward the anti-pot bias.
Your arguments are spot on, though, and very well written (very Armentanesque, I might say). Understand that my take on the Stash is a little more “talk radio / news entertainment”-ish than I would present, say, in a formal debate, while speaking to the unconverted, or during an interview.
This paper was written, peer-reviewed, and accepted long before the Phelps photo surfaced, so don’t blame the scientists for the timing. It’s also not logical to say that because there is a lack of evidence that cannabis use causes other cancers that it couldn’t cause testicular cancer. There can certainly be organ-specific carcinogens or tumor promoters.
The better argument would be this:
1) The authors’ findings are tentative, but deserve follow up because cannabis advocates welcome objective science. If true, cannabis users should be made aware of a real health risk.
2) Testicular cancer is very rare, with incidence of about 6-7 per 100,000 men under 50:
http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2005/results_merged/sect_25_testis.pdf
A seventy percent increase in risk equates to about 10-11 cases per 100,000 men with heavy cannabis exposure. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that cannabis use increases the risk of other cancers. Compared to the cancer burden due to tobacco, alcohol, and even obesity, even if we accept the findings by Daling et al the cancer burden due to cannabis is miniscule.
If they are made of BRASS, then it doesn’t matter anyhow. Toke on dudes!
Yeah, just throw a bunch of bull shit out there and see what happens!
I’ll tell ya, if my balls are going to rot just because of pot I would say it’s high time to have it regulated and taxed for own own safety!
talk about BS fluff/prop, when even the article states none of the research proves anything.