DR. TASHKIN MAKES THE NEWS

"Marijuana Does Not Raise Lung Cancer Risk," proclaimed the headlines
on May 23, over stories about Donald Tashkin's talk at the American
Thoracic Society conference in San Diego. Dr. Tashkin led a team of
UCLA investigators who conducted a large, population-based,
case-controlled study looking for links between marijuana use and the
risk of lung cancer in middle-aged adults living in Los Angeles
County. They concluded, "We did not observe a positive association of
marijuana use, even heavy long-term use, with lung cancer,
controlling for tobacco smoking and other potential confounders"
(age, sex, race, educational level).

Tashkin originally announced his findings at last summer's meeting of
the International Cannabinoid Research Society, as reported in this
column and O'Shaughnessy's. Only now has the story hit the mainstream
media. It is being reported accurately but with Tashkin's
conservative spin (downplaying the apparent protective effect exerted
by THC and/or other components of the cannabis plant). The following
from WebMD typifies the tone of the coverage:

"The findings surprised the study's researchers, who expected to see
an increase in cancer among people who smoked marijuana regularly in
their youth. 'We know that there are as many or more carcinogens and
co-carcinogens in marijuana smoke as in cigarettes,' researcher
Donald Tashkin, MD, of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine tells
WebMD. 'But we did not find any evidence for an increase in cancer
risk for even heavy marijuana smoking.' Cellular studies and even
some studies in animal models suggest that THC has anti-tumor
properties, either by encouraging the death of genetically damaged
cells that can become cancerous or by restricting the development of
the blood supply that feeds tumors, Tashkin tells WebMD...

"While there was a suggestion in the newly reported study that
smoking marijuana is weakly protective against lung cancer, Tashkin
says the very weak association was probably due to chance.

Cancer risk among cigarette smokers was not influenced by whether or
not they also smoked marijuana. 'We saw no interaction between
marijuana and tobacco, and we certainly would not recommend that
people smoke marijuana to protect themselves against cancer,' he says."

Generally omitted from the coverage is the fact that Tashkin has
devoted much of his career to the search for cannabis-induced lung
damage, and that his findings have been the basis for all the Drug
Czar's warnings over the years about marijuana as a carcinogen.
Although Tashkin could isolate the cancer-causing components of
cannabis smoke, and made frightening photomicrographs of damaged
bronchial tissue, he never got the holy grail, the great white whale,
a causal link to the Big C.

Philip Denney, MD, read the account of Tashkin's talk to the
respiratory specialists in the Orange County Register and called to
ask: "How does it make you feel when you broke the Tashkin story and
the mainstream media picks it up nine months later and nobody credits
you with the scoop?"

Well, not quite nobody -there's you, dear friend.

And scoops were never my goal, for some reason.

Of course a political journalist wants to reach the masses and
influence the elites; but on another level, you're only writing for a
few people whose opinions you care about. The medical marijuana
movement in all its varied aspects is a great story and I feel lucky
to be covering it, even if CounterPunch, the Anderson Valley
Advertiser, and O'Shaughnessy's are "below the radar." The characters
involved -the club owners, the doctors, the researchers, the
activists, the growers, the patients (a term used rightly by the
doctors and misused widely by people who really mean "customers")-
could be the basis for a comic novel if I was any kind of writer...
Chapter 37, in which a team of doctors and scientists from UCLA's
David Geffen School of Medicine determine that components of cannabis
exert a protective effect on the lungs and then characterize their
study as "a failure!"

Tylenol Kills (Why Do They Hate You?)

"Once in Chicago while performing with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild
West," wrote Roxane Dunbar, "Sitting Bull spoke through his
translator to the huge crowd of ragged white men, women, and barefoot
children: 'I know why your government hates me. I am their enemy.

But why do they hate you?'" Robert Altman's great movie "Buffalo
Bill and the Indians" doesn't quote the line but depicts the context,
the dawn of the age of corporate hucksterism. Paul Newman plays
Buffalo Bill, who runs and is the star attraction of a traveling
show. One of the "acts" on display is laconic, brilliant Sitting Bull.

The Sioux leader's blunt question comes to mind with each example of
the U.S. government's willingness to expose us, the people, to
corporate products and practices that are literally killing us. To
protect the beef producers the feds won't allow thorough testing for
Mad Cow disease.

To protect the poultry producers they tolerate high levels of
salmonella in chicken, and even 500 ppb of arsenic!

To protect the drug companies they outlaw the safest and most
versatile pharmacological agent known to mankind and approve and even
promote synthetic compounds with harmful-unto-death side effects.

Vioxx, Celebrex, Rezulin, Fosamax, Seroquel, FenPhen, Prempro/Premarin...

Get ready for a wave of stories revealing that Tylenol causes severe
liver damage.

Years ago the medical students at UC San Francisco called their
Pathology rotation at General Hospital "Toadstools and Tylenol,"
because the only cases of poisoning they ever had to deal with
involved mushrooms or acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Johnson
& Johnson's best-selling painkiller. (McNeil, the company that
markets Tylenol, is a branch of J&J.) Now the danger is being exposed
in lawsuits, and the company is putting out a blame-the-victim line,
i.e., it's your fault for not using as directed, or drinking alcohol,
or inadvertently taking in combination with other drugs that contain
acetaminophen. They are also emphasizing how rare the cases of death
by Tylenol are, given how many millions of Americans are popping the
pills daily.

"Rare cases" of a drug taken by millions equate to thousands of
individual catastrophes. The pharmaceutical manufacturers claim that
the benefits their compounds confer on the many far outweigh the
damage they cause a few. The "sanctity of the individual" -which we
used to hear a lot about when the enemy was Communism-couldn't stand
up to cost-benefit analysis. The corporate decision-makers relate to
us as customers, not as people.

Their ad campaigns are folksy and friendly, as if they're "good
neighbors" concerned about our health -but they're really stock
owners intent on maximizing their profits. They're willing to
endanger our health to sell their products.

That's not the way you treat people you respect and love. It's more
akin to contempt and hate. And therein lies the answer to Sitting
Bull's question. The US government is in thrall to profiteers who
regard us, the people, as marks.