Or so it is said.
A study in the US found a link between soaring marijuana use and increased incidence of the disease for the first time.
The link is limited to the aggressive nonseminoma types of testicular cancer which strike earlier than other varieties, affecting men aged between 20 and 35.
At the risk of straying into Ben Goldacre’s territory, this doesn’t in fact tell us very much. what we really want to know is what is the risk before and what is the risk after. Total lifetime risk is some one in 250. They specifically say that it is not all types, but just one sub-type which cannabis increases the risk of.So let’s say one in 500 as the original risk.
Or 0.2%. A 70% increase in risk makes that 0.34%.
Hmm, not exactly the most desperately strong evidence that we need to keep it illegal now, is it?
7 responses so far ↓
1 Roger Thornhill // Feb 9, 2009 at 12:58 pm
You’re talking bollocks, Tim.
2 Chris Gilmour // Feb 9, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Its not quite the 2400% risk increase of lung cancer with smoking, is it?
3 gene berman // Feb 9, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Chris:
Isn’t that a bit of exaggeration? The worst form (small-cell) accounts for only 1 in 5 cases, nearly all due to smoking; of the other forms, constituting 80% of all cases, the two most common sub-forms occur among smokers only about 1/3 more frequently than among non. Where’s the 24 X from?
4 Dave Williams // Feb 9, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I remeber going to get sterilised,
, back in the late 80s and the one thing I remember is I was told that sterilisation doubled the chance of prostrate cancer.
Maybe that should be banned too.
5 Chris Gilmour // Feb 9, 2009 at 4:37 pm
The 24X figure came anecdotely from Rob Grant’s novel Fat, where he mention’s AB Hill’s 1950 paper on lung cancer. I can’t find the original online, but this one here has the increased risk at 9 to 10 times for smokers of 1-14 a day or 20 to 30 times for heavier smokers
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/hill
6 gene berman // Feb 9, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Chris:
It’s perhaps noteworthy that the first actual clue to the etiology of cancer occurred in 1775 when a Dr. Potts noted the incidence of scrotal cancer among adult men who had worked as chimney-sweeps when young. Lack of thoroughness in washing the wrinkled skin, he concluded, had permitted the deposited material, chiefly soot (carbon) to have the carcinogenic effect. It’s also noteworthy that, even prior to Potts’ discovery, almost as early as John Smith had brought tobacco back to England in the early 1600s, there was opposition to the smoking habit based on the fear that it would cause cancer.
7 Rich Nigga Shit // Feb 10, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Mane fuck all yall niggaz!! Itz a RISK dat it could!! Dat mean EVERYBODY wont get it!! So leave da bullshit alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND IM OUT DIS MUHFUCKA!! DUECE!!!!!
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