Study: Marijuana Smokers Not at Risk for Oral
Cancer
A study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,
Wash., concludes that recreational marijuana smoking doesn't appear
to increase the risk of oral cancer, the Seattle Times reported
June 2.
"Oral cancer probably shouldn't be one of the things people
should worry about when they decide whether to smoke marijuana,"
said Stephen Schwartz, a member of the center's public-health sciences
division and the study's senior author. "Our study found no
relationship between marijuana and cancer."
The study's findings contradict a 1999 UCLA study that concluded
that marijuana smokers were more likely to develop head and neck
cancers than nonusers.
Schwartz and his team of researchers analyzed 407 oral-cancer patients
and 615 healthy participants from western Washington. Nearly all
of the study participants smoked marijuana less than once a week,
while 1 percent of the cancer patients and 2 percent of the healthy
participants were daily users of the drug.
The researchers could find no link between oral cancer and marijuana
use.
The study's findings are published in the June 2004 issue of Cancer
Research, the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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