You are truly dense if you think pot is worse in the terms you described than either alcohol or tobacco and really the facts are not on your side. MODERATE use of alcohol is what the health benefits are being shown for, there are no studies discussing moderate use of marijuana and long term health detriments, certainly not with people that aren’t smoking it but ingesting via a different form. Most of the studies we have seen furnished are the glaringly obvious that using it chronically (no pun intended) can be bad and kids using it is bad for their development. In other words they are in the “no shit” category. [/quote]
False. Here is an article referencing the marijuana-testicular cancer connection:
See my link to Dr. Makavali in my previous post re: health benefits of drinking. As for tobacco, it isn’t good for you, but the risks are insurable.
The health effects of tobacco use are more predictable and provide impact most often in the long-term. Thus, they are insurable - we can actuarially measure the risk against the cost and expected payout.
Marijuana? Not so much. Post-users are a bad financial bet. Health risks in the short term and long, its function as a gateway to other substance use…no thanks. Smart money isn’t going to take a risk on that, and smart money - it turns out - doesn’t.
But again, hey - put your money where your mouth is. If you’re right, you should have no problem ronding up pot-users and forming your own insurance collective. If what you say is true, then your insurance pool wouldn’t have any problems outside of a regular one, and you’d make all the money that current insurance companies are missing out on because of their, um, well, whatever reason is causing these money-making companies from refusing to make money on pot-users.
Go for it, seriously. Based on everything you have said, you’re sitting on a million dollar idea, and you have nothing to fear.
You are truly dense if you think pot is worse in the terms you described than either alcohol or tobacco and really the facts are not on your side. MODERATE use of alcohol is what the health benefits are being shown for, there are no studies discussing moderate use of marijuana and long term health detriments, certainly not with people that aren’t smoking it but ingesting via a different form. Most of the studies we have seen furnished are the glaringly obvious that using it chronically (no pun intended) can be bad and kids using it is bad for their development. In other words they are in the “no shit” category. [/quote]
False. Here is an article referencing the marijuana-testicular cancer connection:
See my link to Dr. Makavali in my previous post re: health benefits of drinking. As for tobacco, it isn’t good for you, but the risks are insurable.
The health effects of tobacco use are more predictable and provide impact most often in the long-term. Thus, they are insurable - we can actuarially measure the risk against the cost and expected payout.
Marijuana? Not so much. Post-users are a bad financial bet. Health risks in the short term and long, its function as a gateway to other substance use…no thanks. Smart money isn’t going to take a risk on that, and smart money - it turns out - doesn’t.
But again, hey - put your money where your mouth is. If you’re right, you should have no problem ronding up pot-users and forming your own insurance collective. If what you say is true, then your insurance pool wouldn’t have any problems outside of a regular one, and you’d make all the money that current insurance companies are missing out on because of their, um, well, whatever reason is causing these money-making companies from refusing to make money on pot-users.
Go for it, seriously. Based on everything you have said, you’re sitting on a million dollar idea, and you have nothing to fear.[/quote]
Yeah let’s take 1% of the populations and form our own world , eye roll
And the shopping list of negative health effects grows faster.
But you know that, don’t you?[/quote]
Grows faster? No, it doesn’t. Studies continue to confirm that people who consume moderate amounts of alcohol live longer than people who don’t, and moderate consumption appears to reduce the risk of certain diseases.
And since I know from experience that you’re not much for research and learning about topics before opining on them, enjoy the link for some happy reading on general information, and you’re welcome:
But just for the fun of it, let’s assume you are right - why aren’t insurance premiums for consumers of alcohol going up, or alcohol drinkers otherwise getting denied coverage?[/quote]
All those benefits are obtainable via other more nutritional sources.
Insurance premiums don’t go up because alcohol use is socially acceptable. I don’t know about insurance in America, but I’ve never had to be tested for marijuana use because of insurance.
All those benefits are obtainable via other more nutritional sources.[/quote]
So? What does that have to do with anything? Or the obvious list of haelth benefits that moderate consumption of alcohol provides?
That’s irrelevant to the point you attempted to make, which was that alcohol had a list of problems “growing even faster” than the list of benefits.
Dumbest thing I’ve read here in months. Insurers have things called actuarial tables that with cold, unemotional math predict (or attempt to predict) health outcomes based on health profiles of individuals. “Social acceptance” does not influence that math, not one bit. The only thing insurers worry about (generally speaking) is “does the choice to engage in a certain behavior make that individual more likely or less likely to require the insurer to pay for a bill?” If a given behavior makes it more likely that the insurer will hve to come out of pocket to pay for a bill, the math says your premiums go up. Period.
False. Here is an article referencing the marijuana-testicular cancer connection:
[/quote]
Gee, so this is what you guys see is “defining proof”.
They took a freaking survey and asked guys who had testicular cancer if they smoked pot. Since many said they did, that is how they arrived at that conclusion.
LOL…I just looked and this is the major headline on this topic now. My question is, why wasn’t there even a small news balloon somewhere about the decrease in lung cancer ACTUALLY SEEN IN LAB TRIALS???
They used a survey…and it gets world wide coverage as proof of a link.
Kids, this is the difference between the truth and what some news writer wants to become more well known for saying out loud.
Correlation does NOT imply causation…so beware of people with no medical backgrounds who have political agendas who use medical “articles” as proof of their stance and not real studies.
Gee, so this is what you guys see is “defining proof”.[/quote]
Proof? Yep. Proof as to why insurance companies are skeptical about insuring pot-users.
[i]The new study, published in the journal Cancer, is the third in recent years to link marijuana use to the development of testicular cancer.
It compared 163 men with testicular cancer to 292 healthy men who were about the same age and race. All the men in the study were between age 18 and 36 when they were diagnosed.
Men who said they had ever smoked marijuana had more than twice the risk of aggressive testicular tumors, compared to men who did not smoke marijuana.
That was true even after researchers accounted for other things known to affect a manâ??s risk, like having an undescended testicle.[/i]
Scientists and researchers use this correlation to spur additional research to see if there is causation. Insurers’ first priority isn’t causation, it’s risk of occurrence.
Kids, this is the difference between the truth and what some news writer wants to become more well known for saying out loud.
Correlation does NOT imply causation…so beware of people with no medical backgrounds who have political agendas who use medical “articles” as proof of their stance and not real studies.[/quote]
The news article says that Young men who use marijuana have a higher risk of testicular cancer, a new study found, and no one is offering the study - which was conducted not by a “news writer” (usually called “journalists”) but by a professor of preventive medicine at USC - proof of causation of testicular cancer.
For more reading, help yourself:
The study continues to raise questions about possible causation, and the author describes the concern:
[i]By what mechanism do you think recreational marijuana use could cause testicular cancer?
Two scenarios seem plausible based on what is known about physiologic effects of marijuana and testicular biology.
First, marijuana smoke may interfere with hormonal signaling that is required for proper development and function of the testicle. In animals studied in controlled experiments, both marijuana smoke and the marijuana constituent Î?9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (called â??THCâ??) have been shown to suppress androgen levels in male mice. Similarly in humans, men who smoke marijuana have been found to have lower levels of androgens circulating in their blood. So perhaps elevated risk of seminoma occurs as a result of marijuanaâ??s suppression of androgens below levels required by the testicles for optimal health.
A second possibility is that THC from marijuana specifically interferes with other biological processes, which are carried out by the so-called endocannabinoid system. This is a network of signaling molecules produced by the body that bind the same cellular receptors as THC. These receptors are present in testicular tissue, and it has been suggested that THC from marijuana may bind these receptors, keeping them from carrying out their usual function and thereby damaging testicles in a way that predisposes to non-seminoma. It was this possibility that motivated Dr. Janet Daling, a member of the research team that first reported the marijuana-nonseminoma association, to investigate marijuana use as a possible contributor to testicular cancer risk. [/i]
Dang, it’s crazy how smart real doctors sound when they talk about stuff they know about.
In any event, it’s a “real study” and isn’t being used for a “political agenda,” but most importantly, the topic we are discussing is why insurers won’t provide insurance coverage to pot-users, not whether pot-use causes a condition.
But thanks anyway. We’ll take it from here with relevant discussion.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Dumbest thing I’ve read here in months. Insurers have things called actuarial tables that with cold, unemotional math predict (or attempt to predict) health outcomes based on health profiles of individuals. “Social acceptance” does not influence that math, not one bit. The only thing insurers worry about (generally speaking) is “does the choice to engage in a certain behavior make that individual more likely or less likely to require the insurer to pay for a bill?” If a given behavior makes it more likely that the insurer will hve to come out of pocket to pay for a bill, the math says your premiums go up. Period.
Seriously. This is ridiculous.[/quote]
Wrong again, genius. Insurance companies know how much backlash there would be if they increased premiums for drinkers. If you think that public opinion and social acceptance doesn’t affect what they raise their premiums for, then yours should be raised for all that crack you’ve been smoking.
Wrong again, genius. Insurance companies know how much backlash there would be if they increased premiums for drinkers. If you think that public opinion and social acceptance doesn’t affect what they raise their premiums for, then yours should be raised for all that crack you’ve been smoking.[/quote]
Heh, okay. Let me make sure I understand you.
You’re saying that alcohol has a “growing list” of bad health effects - even though I showed you that isn’t true, but in any event - and that an alcohol drinker’s inusrance premiums would be higher to account for these bad health effects but for insurance companies’ “fear of backlash” of raising premiums due to “social acceptance”?
Gee, so this is what you guys see is “defining proof”.[/quote]
Proof? Yep. Proof as to why insurance companies are skeptical about insuring pot-users.
[i]The new study, published in the journal Cancer, is the third in recent years to link marijuana use to the development of testicular cancer.
It compared 163 men with testicular cancer to 292 healthy men who were about the same age and race. All the men in the study were between age 18 and 36 when they were diagnosed.
Men who said they had ever smoked marijuana had more than twice the risk of aggressive testicular tumors, compared to men who did not smoke marijuana.
That was true even after researchers accounted for other things known to affect a manâ??s risk, like having an undescended testicle.[/i]
Scientists and researchers use this correlation to spur additional research to see if there is causation. Insurers’ first priority isn’t causation, it’s risk of occurrence.[/quote]
So just to be clear, this study (of a cancer that is the lowest occurrence form in men about 1%) that shows a possibility of a correlation (enough to warrant further investigation, based off an interview that divides them into a “have smoked” and “have not smoked MJ” camp with no consideration as to how much and how it was ingested and no cross analysis with other compounds concurrently (i.e. groups of MJ AND drug x to compare) is the smoking gun that makes insurers not want to cover users. Just want to be clear because you seem so very proud of this uber-conclusive study.
From Chemicals Health Monitor: “Increasing incidence of testicular cancer reported in countries in the Western world coupled with the rise in chemical exposures over the last century have lead some scientists to postulate the involvement of environmental factors in testicular cancer etiology, in particular prenatal exposure to chemical compounds that mimic or interfere with the hormone signalling pathways that regulate fetal development. These compounds are known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Those with potential effects on male reproductive health include xenoestrogens (chemicals that mimic hormones responsible for female sexual development and reproduction) and anti-androgens (chemicals that interfere with the androgen hormones responsible for the development and maintenance of the male sexual characteristics).”
So insurers should totally not be covering people that have eaten foods from BPA lined cans, eaten or drank out of styrofoam containers, eaten heavily pesticided food, etc.? Because the inherent risks are not just hypothesized and warranting further investigation but have actually already been made.
Could MJ be proven to carry a higher risk (of course hopefully they would actually study some kind of rate limiting use and not just people into a have or have not tried it camp) for testicular cancer? Maybe but your bias is showing and EXTREMELY illogical when you sit there and earnestly try to say that tobacco is manageable when is is PROVEN to be a carcinogen and far beyond testicular cancer but somehow the insurers view MJ as just over the top risky?
Sugar is a powerful lobby that gets billions in subsidies and other government assistance. Trust me no insurance company is going to make that move to demonize it and the reasons (as with most things) run deeper than the surface issue.[/quote]
It’s getting harder to take you seriously - you mean you think the insurers aren’t recognizing the “real risks” of sugar because of the sugar lobby? Really? No…really? Insurance companies?
Wow - pot does really make you paranoid, aye?
No, your conspiracy theory is rubbish. Insurers kow how to price in the bad health effects of sugar and have for a long time. They have the economics of sugar consumers figured out, and they can make money on them for the simple fact that the risks are not extreme.
Well, but that is irrelevant to the larger point, which is that insurers would nit insure those people if they were being honest about their use. But in any event, yes, the occasional recerational use of pot is worse than alcohol for the simple fact that moderate alcohol consumption actually is good for you.
This notion that pot and alcohol are the same is idiocy. I mean, I understand why the comparison is made, but it’s wrong.
Completely and utterly false, and you keep undermining your argument by just making nonsense up to suit your argument. Insurers have conclusive data on this stuff. That isn’t subject to debate.
No, it isn’t. See above, re: making stuff up. Yet another recent study connects pot use and testicular cancer - just because you choose not read this stuff doesn’t mean that others don’t, especially those who are paid enormous sums of money to know this stuff and see if there is an opportunity to make money from it.[/quote]
How can you sit there and try to call me out for making up nonsense when you sit there and emphatically say that moderate alcohol use is better for you when there are ZERO studies defining moderate use of MJ. Your assertion is based solely on the existence of ones for moderate alcohol use. Plus I didn’t say alcohol and pot were the same. I’m asserting that as far as the studies show, overall there appear to be LESS negative effects from MJ than abusing alcohol.
You can pretend that insurers know how to price in the bad effects of sugar but its ever increasing use in our food supply over the last 40 year has been an experiment and to the detriment of those companies. Diabetes has DOUBLED just in the past decade, CVD and cancer is up and both can be linked to excess sugar intake but somehow they can work the math on that but are just incapable of figuring out the same pricing with pot? They can do it with tobacco (commercial chemical laden cigarettes being a million times worse for you than recreational pot use) but again just can’t find an algorithm to make pot users insurable? Again according to your brilliant analysis it has absolutely nothing to do with the illegality of the product. MMmmmkay…
I’ll give you the stretch on the sugar lobby but it’s not just insurers, there is a massive amount of money being thrown at government officials to keep sugar right where it wants to be. Are you sitting there with a straight face and telling me that if refined sugar was outlawed and banned from use in foods that it wouldn’t impact how it is viewed insurance-wise?
I did choose to read that study and have weighed in on it. Stop communicating like you are an all knowing smug little prick and just have a discourse for christ’s sake.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
The health effects of tobacco use are more predictable and provide impact most often in the long-term. Thus, they are insurable - we can actuarially measure the risk against the cost and expected payout.
Marijuana? Not so much. Post-users are a bad financial bet. Health risks in the short term and long, its function as a gateway to other substance use…no thanks. Smart money isn’t going to take a risk on that, and smart money - it turns out - doesn’t.
But again, hey - put your money where your mouth is. If you’re right, you should have no problem ronding up pot-users and forming your own insurance collective. If what you say is true, then your insurance pool wouldn’t have any problems outside of a regular one, and you’d make all the money that current insurance companies are missing out on because of their, um, well, whatever reason is causing these money-making companies from refusing to make money on pot-users.
Go for it, seriously. Based on everything you have said, you’re sitting on a million dollar idea, and you have nothing to fear.[/quote]
Ha ha you just used the “gateway” drug argument. Nice, 1953 called and they’d like their propaganda nonsense back. From a Congressional report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences:
“Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana â?? usually before they are of legal age.”
Alcohol and tobacco are the real gateway drugs and everyone with half a brain knows it and the studies that have tried to prove MJ as the gateway have all come up short. Amazing that insurance can find proper pricing for those gateway drugs but not the illegal one?
The insurance thing isn’t as important to me and not enough to leave my current position to pursue that. I have an HSA and save my own money should I need it for emergency care. I’ve got preventative care wired in and don’t need to go to the hospital for anything except an accident or keeping up with my blood labs (and you don’t need them for that nowadays). I agree though if someone had the desire it would be a good move but again it’s hard to create a large enough pool if the substance is illegal. Someone should start in CA or CO though, agreed.
So just to be clear, this study (of a cancer that is the lowest occurrence form in men about 1%) that shows a possibility of a correlation (enough to warrant further investigation, based off an interview that divides them into a “have smoked” and “have not smoked MJ” camp with no consideration as to how much and how it was ingested and no cross analysis with other compounds concurrently (i.e. groups of MJ AND drug x to compare) is the smoking gun that makes insurers not want to cover users. Just want to be clear because you seem so very proud of this uber-conclusive study.[/quote]
Not really proud of it, and it appears to be the third such study showing the connection. And I didn’t say it was a “smoking gun” or that it was “ubder-conclusive”- you imagined that.
The point is (and always has been) that continued research into pot use shows bad health effects. That’s a fact. Insurers take these trends seriously, because they help them…wait for it…price risk.
[quote]From Chemicals Health Monitor: “Increasing incidence of testicular cancer reported in countries in the Western world coupled with the rise in chemical exposures over the last century have lead some scientists to postulate the involvement of environmental factors in testicular cancer etiology, in particular prenatal exposure to chemical compounds that mimic or interfere with the hormone signalling pathways that regulate fetal development. These compounds are known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Those with potential effects on male reproductive health include xenoestrogens (chemicals that mimic hormones responsible for female sexual development and reproduction) and anti-androgens (chemicals that interfere with the androgen hormones responsible for the development and maintenance of the male sexual characteristics).”
So insurers should totally not be covering people that have eaten foods from BPA lined cans, eaten or drank out of styrofoam containers, eaten heavily pesticided food, etc.? Because the inherent risks are not just hypothesized and warranting further investigation but have actually already been made.[/quote]
Well, what are the chances those risks of bad health effects materialize? Do you know? Insurers do. Do you?
Because, from an insurability standpoint, that is what matters.
No, it isn’t - the study itself is unbiased. It’s information gathering. And no, it isn’t “illogical” - tobacco is manageable, because the actuarial modeling can predict the types of health effects from tobacco and most importantly when they are most likely to develop them.
Face it, you’re grasping. The more we peer into the issue, the more we laearn about the downside. That’s fine as far as it goes - but it explains why insurers are skeptical of insurng users, and don’t go crying “conspiracy!” when there is a commonsense reason.
How can you sit there and try to call me out for making up nonsense when you sit there and emphatically say that moderate alcohol use is better for you when there are ZERO studies defining moderate use of MJ.[/quote]
Because moderate alcohol use has been shown to provide positive health benefits over non-consumption. What positive health benefits does pot provide over non-use of pot?
Can’t wait for your answer.
False, completely and utterly false. Why? We know that moderate alcohol consumption actually provides health benefits. That is a net “LESS negative” effect than pot use.
No, you didn’t - you just keep thrashing around when you don’t even have a basic understanding of insurance 101. And we can’t have a “discourse” until you wrap your head around some basic math and economics and stop trying to answer every challenge to your precious herb with “it’s a conspiracy, man!”.
Look, pot use is not a money-maker for insurance companies. The risks are high, the anticipated chance of a payout is high, and other people in the insurance pool would be very angry that their premiums keep getting raised because of inclusion of pot-users in the insurance pool in order to accommodate the health insurance of recreational drug users. Period.
No amount of fanciful theorizing changes that basic idea. The same result occurs in life (and therefore disability) insurance, as well, for the same kinds of reasons.
Alcohol and tobacco are the real gateway drugs and everyone with half a brain knows it and the studies that have tried to prove MJ as the gateway have all come up short. Amazing that insurance can find proper pricing for those gateway drugs but not the illegal one? [/quote]
Let me get you right - when hard-drug users state that they used alcohol or nictone first, that’s basis to claim they are “gateway drugs”, but when they use pot prior to hard drugs, that is not a basis to claim it is a “gateway drug”?
Wel, clearly not.
Good, then go for it.
Again, I support your right to use it, so long as I don’t have to be compelled to underwrite the risks you are taking, or otherwise pay for your choice to do so. The choice to do recreational drugs is independent of other choices - it isn’t a component of food, or anything like that. As such, your business, your freedom, and your health probems are your responsibility.
If we could get that agreement in place, I’d support (limited) legalization.