Our analysis suggests that it is these drugs themselves that increase the risk of stroke, not just other lifestyle factors among users —Eric Harshfield
The recreational drugs cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines significantly increase the risk of stroke – including among younger users – Cambridge researchers have concluded after analysing data from more than 100 million people.
It’s hard to tell from these articles whether they isolated cannabis use from smoking. That seems important to clarify…
I wonder if the people who are using drugs are also experiencing higher than ‘normal’ stress levels which could play a factor? I.e. more stressed people would use more drugs?
My long-term study with a single participant says yes.
Right at the beginning of the article:
“Our analysis suggests that it is these drugs themselves that increase the risk of stroke, not just other lifestyle factors among users.”
Followed by…
There is increasing evidence that these drugs may increase the risk of stroke, but the evidence is often of differing quality and is observational only, meaning it is impossible to say whether the use of these drugs itself increases the risk of stroke, or whether this is purely a correlation.
Followed by:
“To investigate this further, a team from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge first carried out a meta-analysis of studies encompassing more than 100 million people. (…) This approach allows researchers to bring together studies which, on their own may not provide sufficient evidence and sometimes disagree with each other, to provide more robust conclusions.”
“Bringing together disparate studies” and “conducting a meta-analysis” means they fed an AI the studies and asked for commonalities, I guarantee it.
Unless a peer publishes a supporting paper or another reremovedble researcher or journal picks this up, I’m just not convinced there’s anything here.
More drug war propaganda zZzzz
“propaganda” from University of Cambridge?
I don’t get your meaning.
I believe you’re thinking “propaganda” means “bullshit.”
They’re not synonyms.
Do you believe that there has been a war on drugs? Do you believe that there has been propaganda in that war? Something like, say, “reefer madness”? Do you think that universities are ideologically pure institutions with no ties anywhere?
A scientist may check on a thing just because “yeah, lets do science”. But that thing they’re checking may be something someone wants to use to imply that a position they hold on something — ideologically — is the correct one.
Imagine that I’m a billionaire, no limit on my funds. Do you think it would be impossible for me to get someone to study whether too much water is bad for you? Obviously not. Could I then pay the press (or use some presshouses I would own as a billionaire with no fund limits) to circulate the study with dubious headlines which imply water is bad for you? Ofc I could.
Would it be factually wrong? Nope. It would just be like “if you drink too much water without any salts in it, you die, basic fact of medicine”, which is true. But ofc you’d understand that my implication isn’t about making people aware that drinking 10l of distilled water everyday without eating even a morsel of food is bad, obviously.
Propaganda isn’t just someone writing straight up lies and trying to make you believe it.
It’s implication and eliciting feelings.
“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote
Just a reminder that the truth is the most effective propaganda.
Yeah, because it’s not about what you say, it’s about how you say it. Or in this case, what you don’t say. Mainly that in comparison to alcohol these risks are ridiculously low, and we still deem alcohol to be acceptable in society.
So if this post and the “truth” in it is to be believed, the implication is that the war on drugs is good because it would seek to lower the usage of these implicitly risky substances.
But alcohol is more risky, we tried banning it as well, but had to stop because prohibition creates far more issues than it solves. In the case of alcohol it was so bad it became clear in a matter of a few years that society won’t survive it.
With less risky and less uses substances, the prohibition is still making things worse, but not as apparently, so there’s not as much pressure politically to fix it.
What exactly is “mental impairment” in that chart? Is it permanent impairment or does it include temporary impairment, as in, being high as intended? LSD and Mushrooms sure look enticing with the UK’s endorsement, but I’m not clear on their “health, mental impairment, and dependence” concerns
I take it to mean how fucked up one is from an moderate dose.
It would help if they differentiated between smoking cannabis or consuming edibles. That’s a world of difference.
Well I don’t want to live forever 😅
Why not?
You won’t live forever if you don’t do drugs either, so no worries.
