Chronic Cannabis Use Linked to Vomiting? Not Likely.
(Update regarding the school which released this “study” posted at the bottom of article.)
I really must admit that twitter is becoming more and more an asset to really get an idea of what type of fear mongering is popping up regarding Marijuana.
The newest “study” comes to us from Creighton University of Omaha, NE:
Marijuana, a commonly abused drug among high school and college students, is linked to a severe form of vomiting syndrome and compulsive bathing behavior. This form of severe vomiting sickness is increasingly recognized with widespread abuse of marijuana. The syndrome usually subsides with strict abstinence from marijuana abuse.
So is there really a risk of developing this horrible sounding sickness? Is there merit to this study? Should we all run and hide from the horrors of marijuana? Are these rhetoric questions doing a fine job at foreshadowing the article to come? Let’s take a moment to examine these claims.
The first step, just like in our dealings with the NIDA propaganda, is to de-filter and really look at the meat of the study which is being reported on. To do this, let’s take a look at the study’s abstract. It is a fairly straightforward peice of text, but let’s examine some of it in detail. First up, how about the introductory statement:
Cannabis is a common drug of abuse that is associated with various long-term and short-term adverse effects.
While I am no scientist, I know enough to understand that when you write an abstract for a study, it is not your job to make assumptions or claims outside the realm of your study which are not backed up by sound documentation, supplementary research, or just anything other than personal opinions.
The author clearly has a bias against marijuana, claiming not only that it is “abused” (yet failing to define or backup claims of said abuse), but that it is associated with “various long-term and short-term adverse effects.”
On what authority does the author base these claims on?
If we move on a bit more, we can see the scope and range of this study’s sample size… a single 22 year old male:
In this case report, we describe a twenty-two year-old-male with a history of chronic cannabis abuse presenting with recurrent vomiting, intense nausea and abdominal pain. In addition, the patient reported that the hot baths improved his symptoms during these episodes. Abstinence from cannabis led to resolution of the vomiting symptoms and abdominal pain.
In other words, this was a study of a man who had some sort of abnormal condition which caused him to have “severe vomiting” and abdominal cramps. Also, it just so happens that this man was a frequent marijuana user and upon abstaining from marijuana his symptoms were alleviated.
To a layman, it may appear that you can indeed blame the marijuana for this individual’s condition, however, science doesn’t rely on assumption, it relies on facts. One of the first things learned in a psychology or statistics class is correlation does not imply causation.
What this means is one possible scenario could be that marijuana directly caused this man’s condition, however, there are other possible causes as well, such as the possibility that the individual had a sensitive respiratory system and repeated inhalation of combusted material contributed to this type of nausea.
To be fair, there have been other studies done on Cannabinoid Hyperemesis (otherwise known as “Marijuana Morning Sickness”)… but it isn’t by any means proven or completely accepted in the medical world.
However, if it is an actual condition, is it a legitimate concern? That is a fair question; after all, this website is not about touting beliefs but rather reporting facts. In another study done on the condition, the doctor who carried out the study remarked that the illness was “reasonably rare” affecting perhaps 1% of all users.
Other doctors seem to disregard the condition as over presumptuous, claiming that the study was flawed:
The title of the paper, “Cannabinoid hyperemesis” is unduly presumptive. Some of these cases appeared to improve with abstinence and then relapsed when patients were “rechallenged” with cannabis, but neither the patients nor the authors appear to have been blinded in the rechallenge. The proposed biological explanation is weak.We suggest that alternative explanations need to be sought for these cases. This syndrome should not be accepted as being caused by cannabis without additional reports and other evidence.
In short, there are billions of human beings on this earth and most of them fall within the average of the bell-curve of life. However, with any system there will be outliers who react differently than others to various situations and substances; this is just reality.
While Cannabis Hypermesis may indeed exist, it appears to exist on a very small scale. Small enough that despite the millions upon millions of marijuana users, scientists must cherry-pick test subjects in order to find those “suffering” from ailments believed to be initiated by cannabis use.
I completely support more research into this area, however, at the moment it is simply not something worth worrying about, nor is it worth headlines.
Update: Thanks to Digg.com user fandyllic, apparently it is worth noting and considering the Creighton University’s reputation before allowing their research to weigh heavily on your opinions:
“The environment is really conservative, and for someone with more liberal views, it can be really difficult here.”
“There are a lot of people here who don’t really care about their academics. They’re just here to party and skate on through.”
