July 4, 2005
Does pot cause cancer?
Donald Tashkin, a professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine and a leading expert on the carcinogenic effects of marijuana, has for years produced studies proving that the drug causes cancer of the lung, upper airways or esophagus. Tash-kin’s and other, similar studies—most of them funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse—have been widely used by anti-drug campaigners to underline the perils of pot.
But now Tashkin says those earlier studies were wrong—and that there is in fact no evidence that marijuana causes cancer. From CounterPunch:
Over the years, Tashkin’s lab at UCLA has produced irrefutable evidence of the damage that marijuana smoke wreaks on bronchial tissue. With NIDA’s support, Tashkin and colleagues have identified the potent carcinogens in marijuana smoke, biopsied and made photomicrographs of pre-malignant cells, and studied the molecular changes occurring within them. It is Tashkin’s research that the Drug Czar’s office cites in ads linking marijuana to lung cancer. Tashkin himself has long believed in a causal relationship, despite a study in which Stephen Sidney examined the files of 64,000 Kaiser patients and found that marijuana users didn’t develop lung cancer at a higher rate or die earlier than non-users. […] Tashkin decided to settle the question by conducting a large, prospectively designed, population-based, case-controlled study.
Although the study found a clear and positive correlation between tobacco use and lung, upper-airway and esophageal cancer, it found absolutely no positive correlation between marijuana use and cancer (CounterPunch has the details). It did, however, find a negative correlation between marijuana-only smokers and lung cancer—in other words, it appears that marijuana may offer some protection against the disease. Asked whether this was in fact the case at the annual symposium of the International Cannabinoid Research Society in late June, Tashkin responded:
“…in [this] one category that relationship was significant, but I think that it would be difficult to extract from these data the conclusion that marijuana is protective against lung cancer. But that is not an unreasonable hypothesis.”
No word yet from the NIDA.
Thanks to Sideshow for the tip.
Posted by Stephen at 12:20 AM in Drugs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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