BusinessWeek, among others, published a new press release of the same McGill University “marijuana” study which, while at least mentioning that it was done on animals, still failed to mention several points — one of them being that the study itself did not even use marijuana, and in this case has the particularly large blight of outright stating that the rats were given cannabis, when in fact, they were given WIN 55212-2, a synthetic compound that is a stronger agonist of CB1 receptors than tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active ingredient of marijuana (though there are a few others).
If any of you recall, I made a post entitled “An unsurprisingly disingenuous look at marijuana” criticizing NOT the study itself, but the strong misrepresentation it was given on multiple popular science websites.
Most of the ORIGINAL press this study got fell short in mentioning:
- The study was in animals.
- That the anxiety-like/depressive behavioral symptoms were not demonstrated in all of the results, and the study failed to demonstrate the same effects in the “open field test.”
- That even the “low” dose may have been somewhat high, and thus not a good comparison for smoked marijuana, had it even been marijuana they tested in the first place.
- And finally… That the study didn’t use marijuana, but instead a synthetic compound called WIN 55212-2, which has demonstrated both a stronger affinity for CB1 receptors than THC, and is structurally different. (which the news press release has done no better at)
While I was quite pleasantly surprised that BusinessWeek (and the others hosting this new, updated press release), took the opportunity to mention that the study wasn’t done in humans:
Although the finding stems solely from work conducted with adolescent and adult lab rats — not yet replicated among humans
They still fell short in all other respects mentioned earlier, and in fact, explicitly and incorrectly stated that the rats were given cannabis, as shown:
To assess the role cannabis may play on adolescent brain development, for 20 days — a period characterized as “prolonged exposure” — adolescent rats were given daily injections of either a low-dose (0.2 milligrams/kilograms) or high-dose (1.0 milligrams/kilograms) of cannabis.
Round 2, still can’t get it right? Fire your PR department, McGill! Honestly. A little proofreading, or a little honest (choose your slant) can go a long way.
