alt Hacker News> researchers were unable to account for several potential confounding factors including the duration and amount of cannabis use or the use of tobacco or other drugs.
Personally I'd wager a bet it's the tobacco and/or smoking that is the harmful part, but it kind of dumbfounds me they failed to account for "details" like "duration and amount of cannabis use", that feels like a very vital thing to control for. Nothing is good for you in too great amounts, even water, so not taking that into account seems to not really give reliable and trustworthy results.
Replies
Exactly. Being unable to account for this covariate (tobacco use) pretty much invalidates this analysis. The odds ratio for tobacco use is basically the same (3x).
Also, title needs a 2025.
Edible forms of cannabis raise heart rate and blood pressure substantially as well.
Also all the bad food choices me and my fellow stoners make when we’re high.
I tried to look up the source article, but there doesn’t seem to be any mention of consumption of edibles versus smoking.
I mean, probably? There's definitely a statistical likelihood of folks who use cannabis also using tobacco products or other substances. It's not a "gateway drug" so much as a "anyone who enjoys thing X is likely to try related things" object. I recall those early studies about alcohol in moderation being good for you eventually being debunked as, "actually, folks who could afford alcohol consistently in moderation also ended up being able to afford health insurance and that created the better outcome"; I suspect there's something similar with cannabis when we look retrospectively, given its illegality for so long (users are less likely to seek medical attention for symptoms or precursors to avoid the stigma).
The thing is we don't know without doing more research, which I genuinely appreciate the authors essentially calling out point blank. They're not saying cannabis is bad, they're saying that looking at the thin amount of valid data we have available thus far, there's definitely a correlation there worth investigating further.
[dead]
The physical act of smoking itself is harmful. Not just tobacco specifically, burning and inhaling anything.