[420 Girl]

Two influential websites — The Hill.com’s Congress blog and the Huffington Post — have provided me with a platform to report on the contrasting impact of alcohol and cannabis on cancer.

Two just published studies assessing adults’ risk of cancer have reported wildly divergent, and fairly extraordinary, outcomes. One study you may have read about. The other has been ignored entirely by the mainstream media.

… First, the study you may have heard of. Writing August 3 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, investigators at McGill University in Montreal reported that moderate alcohol consumption–defined as six drinks or less per week–by adults is positively associated with an elevated risk of various cancers including stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and bladder cancer.

And now for the study you haven’t heard of. Writing in the August issue of the journal Cancer Prevention Research, investigators from Rhode Island’s Brown University along with researchers at Boston University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Minnesota reported that that lifetime marijuana use is associated with a “significantly reduced risk” of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

As I’ve written previously, both on this blog and elsewhere, for 35 years the federal government has been well aware –- yet publicly denied –- that cannabis possesses potent anti-cancer and anti-tumor properties. Even under the Obama administration, which promised to “base [their] public policies on the soundest of science,” the myth that pot promotes cancer persists. In fact, the White House’s website, whitehousedrugpolicy.gov, presently warns, “Marijuana has the potential to promote cancer of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory tract.”

Of course, this myth persists in large part because the mainstream media rarely if ever pays attention to studies that could be seen as in any way undermining criminal prohibition. (In some cases, the MSM even goes so far as to erroneously report about those that do.) So it’s hardly surprising that in the three week span since the Brown University study was published, not one mainstream media outlet has reported its findings. (Full disclosure: over the past days I have personally communicated with several prominent newspapers’ writers about this study — in each case providing them with the full text of the investigators’ findings — but have yet to received any positive feedback beyond the obligatory “We’ll look into it.”)

Will the promotion of these findings in prominent alt-media outlets like The Hill and Huff Po reverse the MSM’s complacency? Perhaps — and your feedback to both sites can only help. So chime in (**Note: comments on both sites are moderated), and tell the MSM that it’s time for us to stop having to do their job!

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