Smoking Pot All Day, Every Day Might Not Be Good For You
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Ever wonder why the studies purporting to ‘prove’ marijuana’s health risks only recruit subjects who smoke pot 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
The answer: If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any purported risks left to write about.
Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts
via Reuters
Brain scans showed the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to nonusers. … The men had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average 20 years.
So here we go again. Three-hundred and fifty joints per week?! Who are these people? And what’s with the caveat at the end of the story? If the purpose of the study is to assess whether there might be a link between ridiculously heavy pot use and heart disease, then why not, you know, look to see whether the subjects actually suffered from heart disease? (Likely answer: Aside from the abnormal protein level, the patients were probably otherwise healthy.)
Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk
via Reuters
Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person’s risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday. …The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week.
The study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease.
See more stories tagged with: media, marijuana use
Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.
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