Sir William Osler, medical hero, graduated from McGill Medical School - believed that cannabis indica was an excellent remedy for migraine headaches.

Emily Murphy, feminist icon, first judge in the British Empire. Helped to define women as people in BNA.
But was also involved in the forcible sterilization of thousands of mentally challenged Albertans without their consent, as part of her eugenics beliefs. Published articles under a pseudonym in Maclean's inciting racial hatred and urging legal control of opium to prevent the moral turpitude of white women becoming involved with Chinese men. Was instrumental in the criminalization of cannabis in Canada, repeating hysterical stories from the US about Mexicans and blacks assaulting and raping whites after using marijuana. The rift between medical science and legal authorities continues to this day.

Epistemology of cannabis

As physicians, where do we get our knowledge from? For many of us, cannabis receptor pharmacology was not understood when we went through medical school, and even now, cannabis education in medical schools is scant and usually directed at abuse.

This article which appears on Time online, makes it clear that there is a scientific consensus that smoking cannabis is causative of gynecomastia, despite the opinion of cannabis advocates.

So just how strong is that link? This news article does not link to any scientific studies, only the personal opinion of a plastic surgeon. The burst of activity on this topic apparently comes from a different article, written by a plastic surgeon, Anthony Youn from Detroit. In this article, Dr. Youn mentions two articles, one supporting his hypothesis and one negating it.

So can smoking pot really give you man boobs?

"Probably. Although the association between marijuana and gynecomastia hasn't been conclusively proven, it appears very plausible."

Dr Youn appears to be overconfident in his very limited supporting evidence. The studies he is quoting are remote and conflicting, with little followup in the intervening years. Given the ubiquity of both cannabis and gynecomastia in North America, it should be easy to establish this link in a scientific manner, but the evidence does not yet exist.

Most physicians and most people in general do not possess the knowledge or ability to do this kind of fact checking, to separate the opinions of a surgeon who benefits from performing surgery on patients with this condition, from an accurate representation of the medical literature, which would unfortunately be a more boring article.

So can smoking pot really give you man boobs?

While questions about that association have been raised, there is no evidence to support that causative claim. The Mayo Clinic has this to say: "Gynecomastia caused by hormone changes during puberty is relatively common. In most cases, the swollen breast tissue will go away without treatment within six months to two years."

Institutional guidelines. Workplace guidelines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/health/driving-under-the-influence-of-mar...

While most of our experience with impaired driving comes from alcohol, research suggests that cannabis is far less impairing. Of particular note, US states that have legalized medical cannabis have experienced a drop in traffic fatalities.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/02/20/more-pot-fewer-crashes