Two influential websites — The Hill.com’s Congress blog and the Huffington Post — have provided me with a platform to report on the contrasting impact of alcohol and cannabis on cancer.
If Pot Prevented Cancer You Would Have Read About It, Right?
via TheHill.com
Two just published studies assessing adults’ risk of cancer have reported wildly divergent, and fairly extraordinary, outcomes. One study you may have read about. The other has been ignored entirely by the mainstream media.
… First, the study you may have heard of. Writing August 3 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, investigators at McGill University in Montreal reported that moderate alcohol consumption–defined as six drinks or less per week–by adults is positively associated with an elevated risk of various cancers including stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and bladder cancer.
And now for the study you haven’t heard of. Writing in the August issue of the journal Cancer Prevention Research, investigators from Rhode Island’s Brown University along with researchers at Boston University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Minnesota reported that that lifetime marijuana use is associated with a “significantly reduced risk” of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
As I’ve written previously, both on this blog and elsewhere, for 35 years the federal government has been well aware –- yet publicly denied –- that cannabis possesses potent anti-cancer and anti-tumor properties. Even under the Obama administration, which promised to “base [their] public policies on the soundest of science,” the myth that pot promotes cancer persists. In fact, the White House’s website, whitehousedrugpolicy.gov, presently warns, “Marijuana has the potential to promote cancer of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory tract.”
Of course, this myth persists in large part because the mainstream media rarely if ever pays attention to studies that could be seen as in any way undermining criminal prohibition. (In some cases, the MSM even goes so far as to erroneously report about those that do.) So it’s hardly surprising that in the three week span since the Brown University study was published, not one mainstream media outlet has reported its findings. (Full disclosure: over the past days I have personally communicated with several prominent newspapers’ writers about this study — in each case providing them with the full text of the investigators’ findings — but have yet to received any positive feedback beyond the obligatory “We’ll look into it.”)
Will the promotion of these findings in prominent alt-media outlets like The Hill and Huff Po reverse the MSM’s complacency? Perhaps — and your feedback to both sites can only help. So chime in (**Note: comments on both sites are moderated), and tell the MSM that it’s time for us to stop having to do their job!
So you would think this would be enough to take marijuana off being a schelude 1 on the csa ,our government is sure stupid think we should pay them all minumum wage thats what they are worth for real they get more vacations, do less work and have better benefits, health care than most the people they work for !WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
What if our cause could team up with another organization that could promote cannabis use? What if the American Cancer Soceity promoted the use of cannabis? If there is any studies that prove cannabis use limits cancer risks or reduces cancers destruction of the body wouldnt ACS want to encourage use and legalization?
Team up with the American Cancer Soceity. Ask them if they could prevent one person from dying of cancer shouldnt they try. Also think of all the people already dying of cancer that would benefit from cannabis.
It is a shame that we allow dying people to be treated like criminals when all they want to do is be comfortable and try to recover.
We allow 21 year old kids to drink alcohol till they puke but it is illegal for me a 40 year old to decide to smoke a bole after work if I want to. It is OK to drink 30-40 beers a day, smoke 5-6 packs of cigarettes, but illegal to smoke 1 joint. When will this end??
Hey – it’s not just pharms that don’t want this around town…..who the hell are they going to stick in their corporate prison system once the thousands on thousands of pot smokers get released and no more follow them in? That’s a big loss to the prison moguls. And think of all those police precincts that actually staff themselves on pot smoker convictions and fines…..
Then there’s DOW chemical. How are they going to keep selling their toxic synthetic fibers when anyone at all can grow a field of pot and produce sturdy, inexpensive cloth?
What the hell are we thinking. How selfish of us to actually want to hurt all those nice, helpful corporate sluts.
# Sal Says:
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:12 pm
“….to actually want to hurt all those nice, helpful corporate sluts.
RE: I will, of course,
a “drug-free” related…
HURTING of this…WORTHLESS,
dying, shitball planet!!!
(TRUE, COMPLETE REFORM is not happening soon enough…)
DECRIM is a CRUEL JOKE…
– If there was a “Great Flood of Noah”,
no one should’ve been allowed on the Ark…
Not even Noah…
I hate this world!!!
I believe nothing will change.
It also appears that compounds found in the cannabis plant could be effective against Prostate Cancer. Who woulda thunk. 🙂
OH, I KNOW FOR A FACT that cannabis can be successfully used against Basa Cell Carcinoma. I have used it to cure that particular type of skin cancer. IT WORKS!!!
BULL SHIT.
I demand that the United States Government stand trial for war crimes against
America.
Crimes that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens,
and if proven that the Govt. had infact willfully and decietfully hidden life
saving information for any reasons, throughout what they chose to label
“the drug war”,that the officials in current posistions of keeping the laws intact
be charged for contributing to these deaths.
The elected officials proclaimed “war” with lies to the american citizens, when
infact had knowledge since 1974 to the contrary, yet chose to let the citizens die.
If the average citizen willfully took away a medicine (such as insulin) knowing that
the results could mean death, then that citizen would be tried to the fullest extent of
the law for murder.
I ask that given the role of the accused, they be held for treason.
This is not a joke, nor a drummed up exaggeration.
I, as a citizen of the United States Of America, want the accused to stand trial
for such a gross display of power and expect the harshest of punishments for
crimes of war and treason.
Mr. Obama, I ask that you hold yourself accountable and assist in bringing others
to justice as well.
Wrong! Maybe if the pharmaceutical companies didn’t have such an array of lobbiests keeping us misinformed! Fact: I have primary progessive multiple sclerosis. I an in AZ, and possess an AZ medical marijuana card. I get much relief from using cabbabis, but recently have found that “juicing” the raw leaf of a marijuana plant, and thinning accordingly with aloe vera juice, has improved my symptoms tremendously. If Gov. Brewer tries to take this law from us again, she will be doing the biggest disservice to all who suffer from MS, cancer, spinal cord injuries, etc….. We must get president Obama to reschedule marijuana from a class 1 drug, to non-existant, or at least to a higher, safer, number of classification on the drug list. Once this were accomplished, I feel that we could have a national program, similar to our “state by state” programs that don’t get recognition from the feds. To succeed, we must first decriminalize this safe and effective medicine.