Note: Researcher Victoria Cortessis has received support from the SC CTSI Clinical Trials Unit and pilot funding from the SC CTSI Research Development program.

Marijuana might be medicine that helps to ease your pain, officially so in California, but new research out of USC suggests that smoking weed might also have a connection to testicular cancer. Don't all reach for your cajones at once, guys.

Well, maybe do.

Men with a history of toking were twice as likely ...

... to develop "subtypes of testicular cancer called non-seminoma and mixed germ cell tumors" according to a summary of the study, which was published recently in the journal Cancer.

USC assistant professor of preventative medicine Victoria Cortessis compared 163 young men with testicular cancer to 292 healthy men and found that the ones diagnosed with cancer were more like to have used pot.

Cortessis: We do not know what marijuana triggers in the testis that may lead to carcinogenesis, although we speculate that it may be acting through the endocannabinoid system--the cellular network that responds to the active ingredient in marijuana--since this system has been shown to be important in the formation of sperm.

Read the full story on LA Weekly