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Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

reuters.com

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Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#101

Post by VT_Drew »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #50
CJefferson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Policy makers do put quite a lot of work into protecting us from alcohol, tobacco and over the counter meds. Also, 1200 people is a fairly huge study, plenty to get some quality statistics from. I'm not sure why you have been so offended by this research. It looks quite convincing to me, and fairly worrying.

The difference between how you're treated for consuming alcohol (which as far as I'm aware is objectively more dangerous - and more immediately so to other people - than marijuana) and for consuming marijuana in most places is pretty ridiculous, to the point of almost seeming like satire. Alcohol also has a pretty significant (don't think it's quite this significant, granted) effect on coronary health, not to mention…

>But guess how easily you can get marijuana, even where it's illegal

Guess how easily you can get any drug.....even in prisons. If we can't keep drugs out of prison then what chance is there to keep it out of the general public?

The war on drugs is over. Drugs won. Legalize them all, provide accurate labeling, and tax it. There is nothing left to "debate".

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#102

Post by btilly »

CJefferson wrote: post #59
dekhn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The N of the study isn't the issue here. It's the large collection of other methodological details, such as self-reported survey data, and a lack of dose-response, that invalidate it for policy purposes. When you say it "looks quite convincing", are you qualified to judge it on its merits?

I had a look, I'm not an expert in the area by any means, but at a reasonable glance it looks like a good study to me. Of course, it could be a giant fiddle (almost any experiment can be), but I try hard not to automatically assume studies which say what I like are good, and ones that say what I don't like are bad. I'm sure there will be more research in this area, now that there is not the threat of jail if people r…

What did you have a look at? The article doesn't link to the study, so I'm going to just go off of questions that the article left me with.

First of all, what period did they look at, how many they expected to die, and how many of those did die. 1200 people sounds like a lot, but if their model said that 2.5 people should have died but 9 actually did, your results are extreme but the p-value isn't very high.

Further, do we trust the model that they had for how many should have died? They say what they did. But there are a lot of ways to tweak such a model, and p-hacking is naturally going to lead them to tweak it in ways that make the results look more significant.

Next, even if all of this is true, what is cause versus effect. Are people using marijuana to deal with life stress? If so, is the stress the real risk factor here?

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a study, and most published studies are wrong. Until I see the methodology checked and the result replicated with a high reported p-value, I'm not trusting this study. Not because I don't like the outcome, but because that's simply how unreliable this type of science is.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#103

Post by TallGuyShort »

VT_Drew wrote: post #101
TallGuyShort wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between how you're treated for consuming alcohol (which as far as I'm aware is objectively more dangerous - and more immediately so to other people - than marijuana) and for consuming marijuana in most places is pretty ridiculous, to the point of almost seeming like satire. Alcohol also has a pretty significant (don't think it's quite this significant, granted) effect on coronary health, not to mention…

>But guess how easily you can get marijuana, even where it's illegal Guess how easily you can get any drug.....even in prisons. If we can't keep drugs out of prison then what chance is there to keep it out of the general public? The war on drugs is over. Drugs won. Legalize them all, provide accurate labeling, and tax it. There is nothing left to "debate".

>> The war on drugs is over. Drugs won.

I'd say they're winning, and will almost certainly continue to. I really wish, for many reasons, we could move that to past tense like you did.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#104

Post by sebringj »

People who are stressed out have hypertension and will look for ways to take stress away specifically using marijuana for that purpose. I wonder if that was factored in as you might have a pre-existing condition to make you more susceptible to hypertension. This type of study is questionable to me as it would be better to have a controlled double-blind study rather than manipulating data alone via questionaire.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#105

Post by pbhjpbhj »

devrandomguy wrote: post #20

Could the title be updated to indicate whether we are talking about smoking, or other means of ingestion? Smoke inhalation was already known to be bad, regardless of what the smoke was made from.

And yet it seems some are saying that the idea that smoking might cause blood pressure problems is preposterous because the smoke comes from marijuana.

With the 60 or so cannabinoids (http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?question...) and 50 or so hydrocarbons there seems like a lot of scope for causing health issues. Especially given cannabis smoke is more carcinogenic than tobacco smoke.

None of that necessarily provides a reason to ban marijuana but it may give people reason to switch to safer modes of consumption, or taking of only specific active compounds.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#106

Post by scarface74 »

Why do people constantly jump to the defensive when any study comes out saying marijuana is bad for you? Whether it is or not shouldn't be an issue. The true question is whether it matters and why should the government be meddling in what grown people decide to put in their own body.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#107

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

delbel wrote: post #38

Hate to say it, but it could be true. I am in an area of heavy heavy marijuana use (DABs, oils, etc 250mg> THC daily) and it is not just me, other people have noticed negative health of these users. They look sick. Another diesease is that they can no longer eat and they lose weight. Apparanetly according to the doctors the stomach is unable to make the right acid to digest food. We also noticed mania, strange behavi…

So you are saying Marijuana can help me lose weight..... I think you just sold it more.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#108

Post by StavrosK »

barking wrote: post #42
StavrosK wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty hard to be more harmful than alcohol, though.

Tobacco, that's more harmful than alcohol.

Hmm, how so? I've never heard of anyone driving while under the influence of tobacco and killing a bunch of people or cheating on her husband or beating her kids.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#109

Post by barking »

StavrosK wrote: post #108
barking wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco, that's more harmful than alcohol.

Hmm, how so? I've never heard of anyone driving while under the influence of tobacco and killing a bunch of people or cheating on her husband or beating her kids.

You're going off on a tangent then.

You probably should have made that clear though.

Re: Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

#110

Post by StavrosK »

barking wrote: post #109
StavrosK wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, how so? I've never heard of anyone driving while under the influence of tobacco and killing a bunch of people or cheating on her husband or beating her kids.

You're going off on a tangent then. You probably should have made that clear though.

I'm going by published research: http://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/2001010052/200378674...

I don't know what you're going by.

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