Propaganda Tries to Link Cannabis to Magnesium Deficiency

A blogger for the site Powerful Primates put out an article titled, “Hey Pothead, Marijuana Makes you Magnesium Deficient.”

The article claims it to be fact that “if you intake marijuana on a daily basis you are likely abusing the herb. Come to think of it, if you ingest any herb everyday you are likely abusing it.” So, if I like to eat a sprig of basil everyday, am I also abusing that?

Did you notice that the author left themselves out of having to prove this claim? That six letter word ‘likely’ is there as a parachute to help the author escape the dangers of having to actually write factual claims.

I can do it too. If you think Olive Garden is the ‘best Italian food’ you’ve ever had, you’re likely without a tongue (no disrespect to Olive Garden). See how that one word means that whatever I said doesn’t have to be true anymore? This is a common tactic among false arguments, meant to facilitate frenzied vitriol and distract the audience from looking deeper.

So which peer-reviewed, verified, scientific study is this author citing? Surely, a university or medical center would be a good source for such information. No such luck. The infallible source for this nonsense is the Narconon International webpage. Crazy to think that a rehab agency would want to paint cannabis as a problem. They must stand to lose millions in revenue if they can no longer use stoners to fill their enrollment numbers.

Narconon’s claim is that using cannabis depletes the body’s natural magnesium levels, which can lead people to be “on-edge” when coming down from being high. The author then goes on to list a bunch of problems associated with magnesium deficiency. There are a couple of issues with that. For starters, this list names the symptoms of tons of conditions (such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, bowel issues, muscle pain, anger, tendinitis, ADHD, etc).

After displaying this litany, the author states, “Anything that makes you tense and tight could potentially be due to magnesium deficiency.” I’m surprised that hang nails and cutting yourself while shaving didn’t make the list. Also, a great deal of the listed symptoms are actually helped by using cannabis. Commence the face-palming. Be sure to notice the parachute phrasing again: “could potentially…”

Let’s clarify. There are no legitimate studies that back up this claim. My editor did some research and did find a correlation between cannabis and magnesium deficiency — strictly in the form of growing. It turns out that soil that has low levels of magnesium can lead to some poorly grown plants. But nothing was found corroborating this mountain of manure.

I’m not outright saying that there is no possible link between cannabis use and magnesium levels. And I’m certainly not trying to make light of people who do legitimately suffer a magnesium deficiency. I have no doubt it’s a real condition, I just doubt the role cannabis plays in its prevalence. No one has really done the work to find out and it’s dangerous to spread bad information.

And can I just give a collective “F-you” to the author for saying daily cannabis use is drug abuse? Get your head out of your ass. I have used a lot of cannabis everyday for many years and neither I, nor anyone connected with me, has ever had an issue with it.