Pubdate: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2012 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.mercurynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Author: Jon Bardin, Los Angeles Times Page: A3 STUDY LINKS MARIJUANA SMOKE, CANCER LOS ANGELES- Male pot smokers beware: Your seemingly harmless habit may be increasing your risk of developing the most dangerous forms of testicular cancer. A new study, published Monday on the website of the medical journal Cancer, reports that men who have testicular cancer are twice as likely to have smoked marijuana before they were diagnosed than control subjects. The association existed only for non-semi-nomas, the more dangerous form of testicular cancer that is harder to treat. In the study, carried out in Los Angeles, a team of researchers enrolled 163 men who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer between 1986 and 1991. They also recruited a larger group of control subjects who were matched to the patients on such characteristics as age, ethnicity, and what L. A. neighborhood the subjects lived in at the time they were diagnosed. The researchers led by Victoria Cortessis of the University of Southern California, quizzed the participants on a range of factors, including drug use. They found that marijuana use before they were diagnosed was linked to a twofold increase in testicular cancer risk. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt