Drugs Political Science
posted by on February 6 at 15:14 PM
Holy smoke, there have been a lot of pot-is-bad-for-your-health studies released recently. Here is the third one since last week.
Heavy cannabis smoking is a major cause of gum disease, research suggests.An international team tracked the dental health of 1,000 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973. They found heavy cannabis smoking was responsible for more than one-third of the new cases of gum disease among the group by the age of 32.
Gum disease, one of the most common diseases of adulthood, is the second most common cause of tooth loss, after tooth decay.
It has long been linked to cigarette smoking, but this is the first study to look specifically at cannabis. The researchers accepted that cannabis users also tended to smoke tobacco.
I’m not surprised that pot smoke may cause gum disease, especially when combined with tobacco smoke. But what do you bet munchies also played a role? I’d like to see a study compare the oral health of pot smokers who regularly fell asleep with a mouthful of potato chips and chocolate to non-stoners with good dental hygiene. But that’s another study. And a kind of gross study.
For now, what’s interesting is the rate at which scientists are suddenly releasing these reports. You’ll note that this current study, like last week’s pot-causes-lung-cancer-as-much-as-cigarettes study, was conducted in New Zealand—a UK Commonwealth. For the last few years, the UK has been debating whether cannabis possession should be upgraded to a more serious criminal offense. To support its recommendation, the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs called for urgent research on the health impacts of cannabis. And just yesterday, the Council officially began reviewing the evidence. Maybe the wave of reports has passed, or maybe there are many more in the pipe, as it were.
At any rate, we can be sure that smoking pot poses some health risks (though I strongly doubt anywhere near on par with tobacco). So if you’re a stoner and you’re concerned about the health risks of smoking pot, bake it in brownies, use a vaporizer, or (as I’ve said before and I’ll say again) buy the best you can afford and smoke less of it. Oh, and brush your teeth before bed.
This is why I will NEVER smoke pot.
Uh. It's a rather spurious link between the UK and New Zealand. NZ may be a commonwealth country, but it certainly has its own laws and social mores. That and I seriously doubt the Brits giving a flying f*ck what the colonials are doing...
the rate at which scientists are releasing these reports has not changed. the rate at which the media hypes them has.
@1 *snort*
Dom's right in that there have been a spate of British stories claiming pot is bad over the past 6 months or so, and it does seem to coincide with the political wrangling over how illegal to make pot posession. I think you know what the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs thinks.
USE DOES NOT EQUAL ABUSE/MISUSE.
The relevant question when assessing criminal penalties for possession should always be "are the health effects of incarceration more severe than the health effects of the proscribed substance?"
In just about every instance the answer is "yes."
If you really want to rot your gums, you gotta take up chewing tobacco. Skoal!
Yeah, the Commonwealth is a voluntary association based on historic ties to Britain, not a form of government. Many (not all) members, e.g. Canada, Australia, NZ, have kept Queen Elizabeth as head of state, but this is voluntary and pretty much entirely ceremonial.
unless you also study pot smokers who do not smoke tobacco (of which i was one), there is no way to attribute the gum disease to pot.
fuck this study.
It's not the smoking. Stoners are just more likely to fail at flossing their teeth nightly.
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