If Pot Prevented Cancer You Would Have Read About It, Right?
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.
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!
News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: NORML
Author: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
Copyright: 2008 NORML
Contact: Contact Us - NORML
Website: If Pot Prevented Cancer You Would Have Read About It, Right? NORML Blog
Source
If Pot Prevented Cancer You Would Have Read About It, Right?
It's mostly the drug companies. They have been working for 50 odd years and spending billions of dollars on research to find drugs to slow down or prevent the onset of cancer. They won't let it become common knowledge that a plant you can grow in your back garden is more effective than any number of their over priced and ineffective medicines. Think of the loss of revenue stream their company would suffer. Of course, how well their shareholders pockets are lined is more important than human lives...