Meet Doctor Narc – Cannabis | weed | marijuana

Meet Doctor Narc, your local cannabis prohibition doctor. Is your doctor a narc? Will your doctor report you for driving “under the influence” of cannabis? according to dr Kenny Lin, a primary care physician and associate director of the Lancaster General Hospital Family Medicine Residency, they should.

dr Lin writes in an editorial:

“Most of us routinely ask our patients about their use of the drug and advise them about possible harms. But how many of us are aware that when it comes to cannabis and public safety, we have an additional duty to notify authorities if we know or suspect a patient is driving while using cannabis?”

The rest, as you might have guessed, is authoritarian nonsense. But the editorial by Dr. Lin highlights a worrying trend among healthcare professionals. A trend that deprives us of expert opinion rather than pill-pushing doctrines.

Doctor Narc exposed

Doctor Narc writes:

“The data suggest that people who drive under the influence of alcohol have a statistically increased risk of being involved in car accidents. Since 2000, the percentage of fatalities in car accidents involving cannabis has doubled and it is found that legalized recreational cannabis has seen a 6.5% increase in accidents involving injuries and a 2.3% increase in fatal accidents has.”

With the data pointing to a particular trend, he concludes, “I have an obligation to report to law enforcement any patient who admits, or has a strong suspicion of driving under the influence of cannabis.” He cites Canadian doctors as inspiration.

But let’s look at this data. Does the evidence suggest that people who ride with phytocannabinoids in their system are at greater risk? Let’s look at three of the studies that Dr. Kin offers.

Study one: read the fine print

This study concludes, “The estimated increase in injury and fatality rates following the legalization of recreational marijuana is consistent with previous studies, but the impact varied from state to state. Because this is an early look at time trends, researchers and policymakers need to continue to monitor the data.”

If that’s all you read, it sounds plausible. But what are these “estimated increases”? The study found: “The impact on fatal accident rates ranged from a 10% decrease to a 4% increase.”

With such a margin, why not come to the opposite conclusion? Driving high means a potential 10% reduction in fatal accidents.

It appears that THC has the potential to both increase and decrease the risk of a fatal car accident. Like most things related to driving – texting, talking intensely to a passenger, not looking in the mirrors, dealing with pets that are in the vehicle, sleep deprivation while driving.

This study compared data using a model that accounted for many factors. His conclusions are not scientifically justified. Its conclusion is simply a narrative called Science™.

Of course, researchers don’t limit this kind of speculative nonsense to cannabis. Anywhere you find public health busybodies, you’ll find a Doctor Narc.

Canada’s new alcohol guidelines are based on observational research (some very poor and irrelevant). However, the conclusion was: “Increasing regulations on alcohol advertising and marketing, increasing restrictions on the physical availability of alcohol and the introduction of minimum alcohol prices”.

When did research studies begin to make political value statements in their conclusions? Speaking of alcohol…

Study 2: Don’t drive drunk

This study looked at cannabis and alcohol. Nobody should drive after consuming ethanol. This shit is for your car, not your body. Therefore, it is not surprising that this “cross-sectional analysis of the multinomial mixed effects logistic regression model” found that:

“The percentage of cannabis-related deaths and concomitant cannabis and alcohol involvement doubled from 2000 to 2018, and cannabis was associated with concomitant alcohol involvement.”

if dr Lin has patients who show up high and drunk, then yes, please call the authorities. I’m not going to call you a Doctor Narc for reporting drunk drivers.

Weed, of course, is a different substance with different effects. Consider the third study referenced by Dr. Lin refers:

Study 3: Do not use this study to imply impairment

This study speaks for itself. “Study results should not be used to suggest impairment or increased risk associated with the presence of drugs.”

What we have here are media headlines that take precedence. Physicians who don’t have the time (or interest) to delve deeply into the literature. dr Lin should have considered the epistemology of research. Or is his anti-cannabis bias enough to ignore the pitfalls of how the studies arrived at these inconclusive findings?

Why Doctor Narc is wrong

Consider what Professor Iain McGregor, academic director of the Lambert Initiative, told an Australian Senate committee. Does this make any more sense than any of the studies Dr. Lin relates?

Cannabis and driving is actually a very complicated area. The tendency is to look at it through the prism of alcohol, but there are actually almost diametrically opposite effects for cannabis compared to alcohol. With alcohol, people overestimate themselves and are more likely to take risks. With cannabis, people actually feel impaired… When they drive, there are quite reliable effects such as slower speed and more distance between them and the car in front.

McGregor doesn’t rule out medical cannabis patients either. He goes on to say:

If you give someone cannabis for the first time, they will be very affected for a few hours after using it, but if someone is a patient and has used cannabis chronically every day for two years, you will really have trouble finding any kind of Impairment. So we need more research and we need more enlightened information for patients instead of just saying, ‘don’t drive’.

The broader trend

Well, I don’t like to single out doctors. Calling someone Doctor Narc is not very nice. But if you write an editorial as bad as Dr. Lin, and sign it with your name, this requires an answer.

I’m sure dr. Lin believes in what is best for his patients. But so did all the doctors who urged Vioxx to have arthritis. Approved by the FDA in 1999, it was recalled in 2004 after an increase in heart attacks and strokes.

Doctors also pushed Baycol, a cholesterol-lowering drug approved by the FDA in 1997 and withdrawn from the market in 2001. It turned out to cause rhabdomyolysis, a serious muscle disease.

Oh, and there’s fen-phen. A weight-loss drug approved by the FDA in 1996 and withdrawn a year later after heart valve damage and pulmonary hypertension were discovered in people taking it.

And let’s not forget Avandia. The FDA approved this diabetes drug in 1999 and only withdrew it in 2011 after a number of people suffered heart attacks.

And what about the Dalkon shield? Women in the 1970’s and 80’s used these types of IUDs until we discovered they caused infections, infertility, and other serious complications.

Doctor Narc’s world view

If he had been practicing in the 1960s, Dr. Lin prescribed thalidomide to pregnant women?

These are not “gotcha” questions. These are serious investigations into how doctors make their decisions. Do they just trust the FDA to do their job?

Since cannabis is not legal and the FDA has not approved it as a food or medicine, it is therefore dangerous. That means the police should arrest medical cannabis patients who are driving.

Is the extent of their logic?

had dr Lin called the police about a patient who drove after taking Zohydro ER? The FDA approved this opioid but recently recalled it due to the possibility of overdose.

does dr Lin a problem with the prescribed opioid addict population driving cars? Why or why not?