My friend, I am trusting academia, but I also know how flawed it can be. If anyone has a bias right now, it seems to be you and the bias is towards always trusting academic research without thinking for yourself.
> "If this is extractable to the general population, approximately 2.75 million (2.13-3.38 million) Americans may suffer annually from a phenomenon similar to CHS."
Well, it is most definitely not extractable, that's why they also wrote "if". The dataset is abysmally small, biased and the filters/conditions applied not nearly strict or valid enough to come to these conclusions.
They are also, at exactly this point, completely contradicting their own research and rationale, as well as your claims:
> 2127 patients approached for participation, 155 met inclusion criteria as smoking 20 or more days per month.
2127 patients that are already in the ER, for various possible reasons. Invalid dataset.
> 155 met inclusion criteria as smoking 20 or more days per month. Among those surveyed, 32.9% (95% CI, 25.5-40.3%) met our criteria for having experienced CHS
This would mean, by their and/or your logic:
- that out of a "general population" dataset, 7% smoke >= 20 days a month, which on a side note absolutely conflicts with other statistics on weed consumption
- even if that was the case, there is absolutely no way to infer from ER patients back to the general population
- even if that was a valid line of thinking, it would imply that: Out of 35 million cannabis smokers, there are 23 million that smoke weed more than 20 days a month (right..), and since they claim that 33% of them seem to have experienced CHS, this would imply that around 7.5 million of 35 million smokers have potentially experienced CHS.
You know what that is? 21% of all cannabis consumers. I don't think so. Their logic is flawed. ER patients are not a neutral slice of the population. You have absolutely no way of inferring back to the general population without knowing how and how much the dataset is skewed. This also shows very clearly that even if the dataset is at least somewhat valid, their pre-selection and applied conditions are absolutely bogus and not suitable.
> In fact, you're introducing your own concocted bias, because you've limited the dataset to the ER visits and not the population.
The dataset IS limited to a group of patients in the ER, you knucklehead. That's what was used to generate the dataset in the first place. A subset of people they found in an ER. Exclusively. That's a bias that almost certainly invalidates the whole calculation. You also have no way of inferring back to the population from it.
> You're now suggesting that these situations aren't actually marjiuana-related at all, but instead some other drug overdose that the ER staff totally missed.
Because I wrote "overdose", and not "THC overdose" or "cannabis overdose"? Sorry man, but.. if anyone is trolling here, it must be you.
Everything you've said is contradictory to reality, and you are displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of science and statistics. I won't engage with your increasingly childish antics, but I will make one last attempt at making you recognize your mistakes, in the very unlikely event that you're willing to learn from them.
> 2127 patients that are already in the ER, for various possible reasons. Invalid dataset.
You keep mistakenly using this number for all of your calculations, but 2,127 is completely irrelevant to anything at all, because it includes 1,972 people who didn't participate. This should be obvious, but people who don't participate in a study aren't part of the study -- whereas what you're suggesting is the exact opposite of scientific methodology. The actual dataset is 155 participants, of whom 51 experienced CHS symptoms within the previous 6 months and 104 didn't.
> This would mean, by their and/or your logic: that out of a "general population" dataset, 7% smoke >= 20 days a month, which on a side note absolutely conflicts with other statistics on weed consumption [...] even if that was a valid line of thinking, it would imply that: Out of 35 million cannabis smokers, there are 23 million that smoke weed more than 20 days a month [...] You know what that is? 21% of all cannabis consumers. I don't think so. Their logic is flawed.
All of the available data[1] says that the number of daily marijuana smokers is between 6-8% of the total population, and between 15-25% of the marijuana smoking population. So, their logic[2] was both very accurate and entirely debunks all of your claims -- making it rather despicable that you're asserting yourself as intellectually superior to multiple teams of scientists.
> The dataset IS limited to a group of patients in the ER, you knucklehead. That's what was used to generate the dataset in the first place. A subset of people they found in an ER. Exclusively. That's a bias that almost certainly invalidates the whole calculation. You also have no way of inferring back to the population from it.
What's especially ridiculous about these assertions (besides the childishness), is that you don't even realize you're arguing against yourself. If it were strictly CHS-presenting patients, then that sample would be only those sick enough to require medical attention, meaning the actual number of CHS cases would be higher across the entire population, as most CHS cases don't actually lead to hospitalizations. That number can't magically be less. It could only be higher.
But it's specifically not CHS-presenting patients. It's an inclusion of 155 daily smokers from a random sampling of 2,127 approached (versus ~28,000 total) visitors to a specific location over the course of 71 days. That it's an ER doesn't actually matter, because the reporting was based on 6 months of usage, meaning their visit doesn't necessarily have anything to do with marijuana or vomiting -- and in fact, anyone presenting with abdominal pain or vomiting was excluded[3] from the study.
[1] "But the number of Americans who use cannabis heavily is soaring. In 2006, about 3 million Americans reported using the drug at least 300 times a year, the standard for daily use. By 2017, that number had increased to 8 million—approaching the 12 million Americans who drank every day. Put another way, only one in 15 drinkers consumed alcohol daily; about one in five marijuana users used cannabis that often."
[2] "In this survey cohort of ED patients, 32.9% of self-reported frequent marijuana users met our definition of CHS. Extrapolating on a reported 8.364 million near-daily or daily marijuana smokers in the United States in 2014, we estimate between 2,130,000 to 3,380,000 individuals have suffered from CHS symptoms in the United States. This prevalence estimation was generated using data up to 2014, suggesting the true prevalence of CHS may be higher today given current trends in increased marijuana usage."
[3] "This convenience sample included all patients between the ages of 18 and 49 years able to consent who did not currently complain of nausea, vomiting or abdominal pain. Patients presenting with nausea, vomiting or abdominal pain were excluded to avoid confounding conditions and, thus, an overestimate of CHS prevalence."
> "If this is extractable to the general population, approximately 2.75 million (2.13-3.38 million) Americans may suffer annually from a phenomenon similar to CHS."
Well, it is most definitely not extractable, that's why they also wrote "if". The dataset is abysmally small, biased and the filters/conditions applied not nearly strict or valid enough to come to these conclusions.
They are also, at exactly this point, completely contradicting their own research and rationale, as well as your claims:
> 2127 patients approached for participation, 155 met inclusion criteria as smoking 20 or more days per month.
2127 patients that are already in the ER, for various possible reasons. Invalid dataset.
> 155 met inclusion criteria as smoking 20 or more days per month. Among those surveyed, 32.9% (95% CI, 25.5-40.3%) met our criteria for having experienced CHS
This would mean, by their and/or your logic:
- that out of a "general population" dataset, 7% smoke >= 20 days a month, which on a side note absolutely conflicts with other statistics on weed consumption
- even if that was the case, there is absolutely no way to infer from ER patients back to the general population
- even if that was a valid line of thinking, it would imply that: Out of 35 million cannabis smokers, there are 23 million that smoke weed more than 20 days a month (right..), and since they claim that 33% of them seem to have experienced CHS, this would imply that around 7.5 million of 35 million smokers have potentially experienced CHS.
You know what that is? 21% of all cannabis consumers. I don't think so. Their logic is flawed. ER patients are not a neutral slice of the population. You have absolutely no way of inferring back to the general population without knowing how and how much the dataset is skewed. This also shows very clearly that even if the dataset is at least somewhat valid, their pre-selection and applied conditions are absolutely bogus and not suitable.
> In fact, you're introducing your own concocted bias, because you've limited the dataset to the ER visits and not the population.
The dataset IS limited to a group of patients in the ER, you knucklehead. That's what was used to generate the dataset in the first place. A subset of people they found in an ER. Exclusively. That's a bias that almost certainly invalidates the whole calculation. You also have no way of inferring back to the population from it.
> You're now suggesting that these situations aren't actually marjiuana-related at all, but instead some other drug overdose that the ER staff totally missed.
Because I wrote "overdose", and not "THC overdose" or "cannabis overdose"? Sorry man, but.. if anyone is trolling here, it must be you.