WHAT A FREAKIN OBVIOUS CONCLUSION!!!
Drinking Plus Pot Smoking May Equal More Injuries
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Problem drinkers who also use marijuana may be particularly injury-prone, according to a study of emergency room patients.
Rhode Island researchers found that among 433 injured patients considered problem drinkers, those who said they also smoked pot appeared more accident-prone than others.
Compared with patients who said they didn't use marijuana, users were more likely to have had another injury in the past year, particularly an alcohol- or driving-related one.
Overall, nearly half of the study participants said they had smoked pot in the past three months, according to findings published in the January issue of the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.
It is not known whether these ER patients had actually used an alcohol-pot combo before they were injured, the study authors point out. Nor could they tell whether marijuana use alone is an injury risk factor.
"Isolated use of marijuana may or may not contribute to injury," write the researchers, led by Dr. Robert Woolard of Brown University Medical School in Providence.
Still, they conclude, the findings do suggest that problem drinkers who also use pot may be especially vulnerable to injury.
According to the researchers, ER doctors need to be aware that many of their injured patients may need counseling for both alcohol and marijuana use--and not just alcohol alone.
However, they point out, few emergency departments routinely screen all injured patients for alcohol and other drugs. And when problem drinking is clearly the culprit, the researchers add, "screening for other drugs is unusual."
Problem drinkers in this study were identified either by breath testing in the ER, patients' own reports of drinking shortly before the injury, or by scores on a standard screen for "hazardous" drinking.
Those who also reported marijuana use tended to be young, white males with relatively less education--although many patients overall, the researchers note, were college students.
NEXT STUDY - DO LESBIANS HAVE SHORTER HAIR???
― Mike Hanle y (mike), Thursday, 16 January 2003 20:54 (twenty-three years ago)
1998 Ignoble Prize in STATISTICS:
Jerald Bain of Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Kerry Siminoski
of the University of Alberta for their carefully measured report,
"The Relationship Among Height, Penile Length, and Foot Size."
[Published in "Annals of Sex Research," vol. 6, no. 3, 1993, pp.
231-5.]
― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 16 January 2003 22:46 (twenty-three years ago)