Busting the Three Myths about Marijuana

Reporters have been recently fear-mongering about marijuana, again.

It makes you go mad, causes lung disease and skin cancer, they cry, but use bad science to exploit fear in people.

Marijuana Increases the Risk of Psychosis by 40%: This one turned out to be totally wrong. Apparently a correlation between marijuana use and psychosis doesn't necessarily mean that marijuana caused the psychosis. Many of the researchers made this clear in their findings, but reporters left it out. Furthermore, none of the stories on this topic explained that the risk of psychosis is small, so a 40% increase isn't that significant to begin with. Reporters also failed to observe that massive increases in marijuana use over the past century have not corresponded with increased rates of psychosis.

Comment: in that study, scientists discovered that if you've been using marijuana since you were 12, you stand a 40 percent chance of developing a psychosis. However, few studies have found that if a person aged 40 starts smoking marijuana would develop a psychosis.

If anything, anxiety would be reduced. With psychosis being a possible side effect of unrelieved anxiety, I think any scientist investigating psychosis is being bought off by pharmaceutical companies with vested interest in their anti-psychotic medications.

Smoking a Joint is as Bad For Your Lungs as 5 Cigarettes: This report also turned out to be almost entirely bogus. Shockingly, "air flow" was the only category (of several) in which marijuana was determined to be more harmful. Researchers stated that marijuana was 2.5 to 5 times more harmful than tobacco in this category, which reporters simply rounded up to 5 for the headline (behold the lofty journalistic standards of Reuters). Reporters also failed to mention conclusive research proving that marijuana does not cause lung cancer; a notable omission since "bad for your lungs" likely implies cancer for many readers. Finally, media reports failed to explain that marijuana users consume far less per day, and do not continue using for nearly as many years as tobacco smokers.

Comment: bad science is the leading cause of anxiety, and journalist are the biggest cause of it.

Marijuana May Cause Skin Cancer: I don't know anything about skin cancer, so I won't attempt to refute the findings of this Harvard study. The manner in which it was reported, however, leaves much to be desired. The FOX News headline reads "Study: Marijuana Use May Cause Skin Cancer." Only upon reading the article does the reader discover that only one extremely rare form of skin cancer has been associated with marijuana, and that the researchers claim that more research is needed. Furthermore, only people with weakened immune systems are even susceptible to this infection. A more appropriate headline would have been "Study: Marijuana May Cause Skin Cancer Under Very Rare Circumstances."

In short, anti-pot propaganda is based on bad science.

It makes me wonder why they fear the most harmless plant in the world.

Could it be because without control the anti-pot fanatic feel powerless? I think so.