This latest column about marijuana is more or less OK, but could have used some up to date cites.
In this 2006 article, he’s citing a 1974 study?!? There have been quite a few longitudinal studies conducted since then. In fact, in the last few years, there have been a torrent of studies warning about cannabis-psychosis link. Prompted by these studies, the British Home Secretary requested the British Parliament’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to prepare a report on the state of the research. I’ll quote from that Dec-2005 report …
Re: lung cancer - there have been a few large studies about the marijuana-cancer link. This review is a good summary:
Tentatively, there’s a reported study in process of being published (as confirmed by a friend in email with lead author) which suggests no increased risk.
Neither is nicotine, for that matter. Cecil probably meant tobacco, but even that would be wrong since “inherently carcinogenic” implies an near-inevitability of cancer in all smokers rather than the small minority of smokers who actually get it:
It seems to me that nicotine may indeed play a role in causing tumors.
Where do you get that “inherently carcinogenic” implies a near-inevitability of cancer in all smokers? All “carcinogenic” means is capable of causing cancer.
It may, but Cecil is clearly attributing cig-smoking-caused cancers to nicotine, although that’s not where the blame falls. Even in the ‘Discussion’ section of your cite, it says: “Although nicotine per se is not thought to be carcinogenic, the risks of long-term nicotine supplementation are unknown.”.
Then “inherently carcinogenic” is an oxymoron. Inherently means ‘inseparably’. It doesn’t make sense to apply an absolutist adjective to a probabilistic category. I was treating carcinogenic as ‘causing cancer’, although the -ic should have warned me.
It seems to me up i nthe air. I think you’re right, though, that “tobacco” would have been a better word there; it’d also be more analogous to “cannabis.” So I’l remove that quibble.
Yes, “inherently” means “inseparably.” It doesn’t mean “inevitably” or “always.”
If your quibble is right, then it’s wrong to say that nicotine is inherently carcinogenic, but it’s a useful distinction to make that it’s not. Nicotine doesn’t cause cancer itself, but it addicts people to habits that cause them to ingest carcinogens; one could say it’s indirectly carcinogenic, but not inherently carcinogenic. THC might not be inherently carcinogenic, by comparison, but IF it turns out that other components of marijuana are carcinogenic, then by encouraging folks to ingest these other components, THC could be called indirectly carcinogenic.
For X to be inseparably ‘something’, it means it is always ‘something’; otherwise it’s separable.
The problem with this general discussion is that context matters and it is being lost. Given that people get cancer naturally i.e. in the absence of the input of any recognized risk factors, do we say that the human body is inherently carcinogenic? By the apparent standard, I’d guess Yes. Thing is, with tobacco or cannabis or any other “carcinogen”, not all who are exposed to them get cancer, yet we attribute the agency to the external agent, when actually it’s a synergistic event. Even among 70 year old continuing smokers, there are 6.2 lung cancer deaths p.a. among 1000 smokers, which is closely aligned with the incidence given the survival odds (60% dead within a year of getting the lung cancer), yet we don’t say that those 6 individuals had a vulnerable physiology, but that smoking killed them. The causality is shifted from the nexus to the external agent. In that light, I was objecting to labelling tobacco as ‘inherently carcinogenic’, given the lack of near-inevitability. Now if we shift the argument to prevalence i.e. among 10,000 cucumber-eaters, X get cancer, whereas among celery-eaters, only X/15 get cancer. And that X crosses some arbitrary threshold such that we think it’s reasonable to label cucumber as “inherently carcinogenic”, well, then that’s a subjective judgement.
Even if I accept your semantic argument–which I don’t–it’s still incorrect to say that it’s a mistake to call something “inherently carcinogenic.” Russian Roulette is an inherently risky game, even if we define “risky” as “capable of causing harm,” and even if only one chamber is loaded. This is an unexceptional combination of words.
As for the rest of your post, it looks to me as if you’re arguing against tobacco being carcinogenic. Yeah, good luck with that.
The first standard is useless; the second, a value judgement, and the third, IMHO, the only useful one.
I’m not. I argued that the human body is itself “inherently carcinogenic” if we use criteria A above. In that case, tobacco qualifies. If we use C, then it doesn’t.
And yet nearly everyone uses B, yes? Or can you point to a variety of sources (especially relevant sources–e.g., discussions of health risks from peer-reviewed sources) that use A or C?
My SIL, while doing post-doctoral work at USC, was part of an ongoing study of prepubescent (under 12, IIRC) marijuana use causing psychotic episodes. In a number of the kids , the psychosis was permanent- at least, they haven’t come out of it in the 5 years since…
Rather disturbing study- don’t know if the lab has published yet but I will check.
I’ve got a colleague who published the study showing a correlation between a certain genotype for a neuron receptor and adolescent marijuana increasing incidence of schizophrenia by age 26. What it boils down to, he says, is that if you’ve got a certain genetic propensity to it, smoking dope as an adolescence more than doubles your chance of becoming schizophrenic in adulthood. He also says there are not current plans to offer a quick mail-in genetic test for this, but maybe there ought to be :o)
Moderation of the effect of adolescent-onset cannabis use on adult psychosis by a functional polymorphism in the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene: longitudinal evidence of a gene X environment interaction. (abstract, PDF of full paper)
I have an interesting thought. How about we use the word “inherent” as it is actually defined:
" involved in the constitution or essential character of something : belonging by nature or habit "
Russian Roulette is “inherently” risky because risk is an essential character of the game. You “risk” death each time you pull the trigger, even though death is not an inevitable outcome. It would be, by contrast, incorrect to call it an “inherently deadly” game, unless the rules forced trigger pulling to the point of someone being shot, or unless you define “deadly” to mean “having a chance of death.”
For something to be “inherently carcinogenic,” all that is needed is that the factor of carcinogenicy (the ability to cause cancer) is an essential character of the substance. That is, is it the substance itself that creates the possibility of cancer, as opposed to the substance only being involved in cancer when combined with other factors.
Which is not to say I have an opinion on the application of that term to either nicotine or any other substance under discussion. It just helps to argue semantics using actual definitions, not made up concepts…
“Actually defined” by whom? English is not like French, with some national academy dictating the rules.
I already provided the definition of ‘inherently’ above, as ‘inseparably’, from Google definitions.
This can never be shown, as you would have to examine every cigarette smoker’s complex bodily constitution thoroughly to detect commonality of features among those who got cancer and possible differences from those who didn’t.
I think this is a rather standard definition; it’s not much of a leap to say “belongs by nature” = “inseparable”, though I’m personally having trouble finding a definition on-line that “inseparable” as a synonym for “inherent”.
It should be clear by now that calling cannabis “inherently carcinogenic” means that the substance itself possesses cancer-causing qualities, rather than, e.g., the method by which it is ingested. Anticipating your objection:
Then I think it’s the word “carcinogenic” that you have a problem with. By the definition you propose, nothing could be carcinogenic unless it produced cancer in every single case. This, to me, seems like an overly-fastidious requirement, as is the earlier quibble that words must convey only clear, objective information to be useful.
If I were you, I’d concede the point and move on; it’s distracting you from the far more important ideas raised in your original post.
The point I’m making is saying that ‘something’ is “inherently carcinogenic” indicates that the presence of something is the controlling variable. As shown in the tobacco study cited above, dosage matters. Even among those who have ingested similar gross dosage, a small minority of smokers get lung cancer. There are many other variables involved. From that perspective, it makes little sense to label tobacco “inherently” carcinogenic.
By “controlling variable,” do you simply mean that, all other factors being equal, the presence of this substance creates an increased risk of cancer? If so, you’re correct, and tobacco is inherently carcinogenic. The fact that a small minority of smokers get cancer is not the point: the point is that they get lung cancer in hugely disproportionate numbers when compared to nonsmokers.
Consider “carcinogenic” to mean “a ticket for the cancer lotto.” Not everyone who buys a ticket wins the lottery, but if you don’t buy a ticket, you’re not going to win. (Note, of course, that tobacco is only one of many carcinogens). The fact that only humans are eligible to win the lottery, or that only a small minority of lottery-ticket-holders win, in no way invalidates this idea.
All other factors will never be equal, of course; that’s why we have epidemiological studies, to smooth out those other factors.
It appears to me that you’re trying to postmodernify the word “carcinogenic,” to analyze it into meaninglessness. I’m not sure what the purpose of such an effort would be.
Except that dosage matters; so does method of administration. The mere presence is not risky. Dosage, frequency & method are the salient variables. Saying that tobacco is “inherently” carcinogenic gives the impression that you are at risk of cancer irrespective of how modulate the tobacco use, but the increased risk doesn’t show up in epidemiological studies until you cross a certain dosage threshold.