Study Says Marijuana Use Doesn’t Raise Cancer Risk: Will the Media Care?

Posted by Paul Armentano, NORML at 8:28 AM on March 6, 2008.

Smoking pot, even long-term, is not associated with an increased risk of developing cancers of the head and neck, according to the results of a just-published case-control study from New Zealand.

"This population-based study did not find a statistically significant increase in the risk of head and neck cancer in adults [under age 55] from cannabis," authors concluded. "[Even] the risk associated with the highest tertile of cannabis use (defined as one joint per day for more than eight years) was not statistically significant after adjustment for cofounding variables including tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, and level of income."

So for the second month in a row we have researchers from New Zealand telling us that pot smoking has little-to-no association with cancer. But perhaps you missed the first study. That would be understandable because the mainstream media deliberately obscured its findings with alarmist headlines like "Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes" and "Experts Warn of Cannabis Cancer 'Epidemic'" -- headlines that, in fact, were nearly the opposite of what the study actually said.

So now we come to this latest report -- written by the same investigative team and involving almost the same number of subjects. Anyone think that the mainstream press will jump on the "pot isn't linked to cancer" bandwagon? I'm not holding my breath.

Tagged as: drugs, health, marijuana, cancer

Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML