Latest Anti-Pot Quack Science: 'Marijuana Makes Your Teeth Fall Out'

[marmar]

from AlterNet:



Latest Anti-Pot Quack Science: 'Marijuana Makes Your Teeth Fall Out'

By Bruce Mirken, AlterNet. Posted February 9, 2008.

A rash of new studies of marijuana has hit the mass media, generating absurd headlines like "Smoking Pot Rots Your Gums."



Recent weeks have seen a rash of new studies of marijuana hitting the mass media, generating scary headlines like "Smoking Pot Rots Your Gums," "Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes," and "Pot Withdrawal Similar to Quitting Cigarettes. Most of this coverage can be boiled down to a fairly simple equation:

Flawed science + uncritical reporting = misinformation.

Mercifully, the U.S. mass media were so distracted by Super Tuesday, Heath Ledger's autopsy and the latest Britney Spears trauma that reports of these studies didn't get as much play as they might have. That's good, because the research had significant gaps, and the reporting ranged from slapdash to flat wretched.

LUNG CANCER: A JOINT = 20 CIGARETTES?

The lung cancer study was the scariest. Since cigarettes are a known lung cancer risk, it seems plausible that marijuana might carry similar risks. In fact, most of the scientific evidence tends in the opposite direction -- though one would never know it from reading either the study or the Reuters wire story that got the heaviest circulation.

Conducted in New Zealand, this was what is called a "case-control" study, in which researchers looked at a group of patients who had lung cancer and compared them to a group without cancer -- the controls -- matched for age and other demographics. All were asked about various factors that might increase their lung cancer risk, including smoking cigarettes or marijuana. After running the data on 79 cancer cases and 324 controls through myriad equations and mathematical analyses, the researchers proclaimed that one joint packed a cancer risk roughly equal to 20 cigarettes -- an assertion that became Reuters' lead. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/76496/

[havocmom]

1. Not brushing after the munchies may be a problem, but pot?

Yeah, right, and it will make you pregnant too. :rofl:

[Bicoastal]

2. Whoah....

...Dave's not here, man.

[angrycarpenter]

3. My da dused to have a large book called 1000 dangers of pot.

It was a hillarious collection of newspaper stories just like the ones you mentioned. We used to read it whiles stoned for a big laugh.

[aquart]

4. I thought that was meth mouth.

[tridim]

7. It is, obviously they're trying to muddy the water yet again..

Pot = Meth = Heroin = Crack

The best way to keep Cannabis illegal is to make it equal to hard drugs that actually do cause damage.

[SoCalDem]

18. Pot leads to twinkie-abuse..& maybe when you're mellow, you forget to floss? n/t

[KamaAina]

15. They got two articles mixed up

the other headline reads "Meth Makes You Want to Eat Doritos" :P

[Kitty Herder]

20. LOL nt

[dchill]

5. Kool-Aid...

makes your teeth fall out.

[mike_c]

6. bwahahaha....

Oh that's funny. I'm in my 50s and half my friends have partial or full plates in their mouths. I smoke more pot than most of them and have since I was 14 years old. I have all my teeth. OK, so there are a few logical fallacies in using that anecdotal evidence to refute the argument that pot makes your teeth fall out. Nonetheless, I've still got my teeth (including my wisdom teeth, which I have occasionally wished WOULD fall out!).

[dysfunctional press]

9. my story is just the opposite...

at 47, i have full dentures, and i smoke tons of weed.
but- my gums never really recovered from when i had braces on my teeth from 6th thru 8th grade. they got inflamed as hell, and after the braces came off, they never did get too much better.
the dentist my parents took us too when we were kids didn't believe in using novacaine for kids- so instead he had leather straps on the arms of the chairs. that really put me off of going to the dentist for a big part of my life.

[Fleshdancer]

10. HOLY CRAP!

I'm truly sorry to hear you had to go through that. That must have been hell. :(

[mike_c]

13. I have a similar horror story....

I had my first trip to the dentist at five years old. I remember it vividly to this day. The dentist's office shared a building with the GP physician my family used. Long story short, the dentist-- on older man who was gruff and unsympathetic-- frightened me. Once in the chair, he hurt me. Probably not intentionally, but I was a young child and he hurt my gums with sharp probes, so I cried and tried to keep my mouth closed. With an assistant holding me, he forced wedges into my mouth so I couldn't close it, but I struggled enough to disrupt his work anyway. By that time I was in an utter panic and the sensible thing to do would have been to stop. Instead, he picked me up out of the chair and carried me kicking and screaming to the GP's office where they stripped me, tied me face down onto a table-- by this time I was shrieking at the top of my lungs-- and shoved suppositories up my rectum. These were presumably tranquilizers of some sort. They left me strapped face down on the table in an empty examination room until I went to sleep. Later, I awoke at home.

I don't go to dentists nearly as often as I should now. As an adult, I've sought dental care ONLY when I really needed it, NEVER for the sort of oral health maintenance that I should do. I suspect I'll always be terrified of dentists.

On edit-- this occurred in a small, rural north Georgia town in the 1950s. Today this sort of behavior would cause everyone involved to lose their licenses, if not go to jail, but in those days that's how they did things.

[Runcible Spoon]

17. holy shit...

:wow: I'm so sorry that kind of abuse happened to you. I was going to post something about panic and tears and pain at the hand of a dentist in my childhood, but wow just wow.

[Warpy]

8. They found that HEAVY smokers had poor gum health

I don't know how many heavy stoners you guys know, but the ones I know were quite careless about things like oral hygiene.

The above poster who cited not brushing after a binge of the munchies was partially right. I have never known a heavy stoner to use dental floss for anything but repairing a broken pipe.

I've known too many light and moderate stoners who were high functioning enough to be top researchers in the sciences to give much credence to any of the hysteria surrounding demon pot.

Heavy stoners are a different animal, though.

[GreenTea]

11. They'll never stop with the bullshit lies................

I know hundreds who smoked for 25, 30 years or more who have perfect teeth. It's called brushing your teeth, flossing, dental care.....I sure as fuck sure many more old time drinkers with fucked up teeth...all that sugar from the alcohol on their teeth for years as they pass out!

[Warren DeMontague]

12. not only that, but every time you masturbate, god kills a kitten.

please, think of the kittens.

[Bicoastal]

14. Well--Bye, Mr. Fluffikins....

And sorry...

[sarcasmo]

16. I still have all my teeth so this must be False, LOL.

[SoCalDem]

19. are they in a glass of water??

:rofl:

[spanone]

21. if true, i'd be gumming my food by now.