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After a study pointed to bad health impacts, is the takeaway that we need to promote more cannabis research?
It might not be “if it bleeds, it leads” — the saying in the news industry that brutally negative stories draw the most eyeballs — but when it comes to cannabis, if it’s bad, it’s big.
That unfortunate reality was on display once again late last month when the results of a study linking cannabis use to heart disease made the rounds. Not just in cannabis-focused publications, but everywhere from the sensationalist New York Post to more even-keeled outlets like CNN and USA Today, even making it into less news-focused magazines like People and Men’s Journal.
The study results — which CNN rightfully described as “small” in the body of their story, though not the headline — are indeed concerning.
A group of researchers, largely from the University of California, San Francisco, looked at 55 participants and found that vascular function was impaired in otherwise healthy individuals who were chronic cannabis consumers, both for those who inhale the plant and those who ingest it in an edible form.
Perhaps more concerning than the study itself, however, is how the study has been presented in the media.
The unfortunate fact is that cannabis research remains difficult. More than a decade into recreational legalization, studies on the impacts of cannabis consumption continue to come out as a trickle rather than a torrent.
The Inlander reported on this in its 2024 Cannabis Issue. Despite promises to make the research process easier, going all the way up to the top of the Biden administration, researchers at local institutions were blunt when asked if cannabis research had become any easier.
“Not one little teeny tiny bit, no,” Washington State University psychology professor Carrie Cuttler said at the time.
This is not to say that studies finding negative health impacts of cannabis consumption should be overlooked. Far from it. But studies across the cannabis spectrum are too few and far between. We simply still don’t know as much as we should about cannabis and its impacts on human health.
For every study finding a problematic correlation, like the UC San Francisco study, there’s at least one finding a positive correlation, sometimes on the same issue. A 2021 review available through the National Library of Medicine found multiple positive impacts of cannabis consumption on the cardiovascular system — it also found negative impacts as well.
Studies with results that can be sensationalized will grab the headlines, but they’re the outliers, whether good or bad. The fact is, humans are still learning about how cannabis affects us. Bold headlines don’t make any one study more valid than another.
“}]] It might not be “if it bleeds, it leads” — the saying in the news industry that brutally negative stories draw the most eyeballs —… Read More
