American pop culture has caused the images of smoking marijuana and drinking malt liquor (a type of inexpensive beer with a higher alcohol content which is often sold in 40 oz., screw-top bottles) to go hand in hand.

Just listen to the words of the late, great Notorious B.I.G. in his song “Juicy”: “Smokin’ weed and bamboo, sippin’ on Private Stock.” Private Stock is a 6.87 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) malt liquor. The song listings on Sublime’s album 40 oz. to Freedom includes both the title track, “40 oz. to Freedom,” and “Smoke Two Joints,” hinting that the act of downing a 40 oz. and puffing a joint probably coincided at one time. 40ozmaltliquor.com lists more than 40 (hah!) songs, by artists like Public Enemy, The Ramones, Elliot Smith and Umphrey’s McGee, written strictly about malt liquor. Smoking pot is also mentioned in a majority of the songs—check it out. Also, during rush week one of the most popular parties thrown by fraternities is the “Phillies and 40s” theme, where guests enjoy complementary marijuana “blunts” and whatever cheap malt liquor the convenient store had in stock that evening.

So what happens when a reputable research institute publishes a press release about a recent study announcing “Malt Liquor Linked to Marijuana Use Among Young Adults”?

The general consensus I gathered from mentioning this to my peers was, “Duh. I could have told you that,” or “Give me five minutes and I could have gotten the same results.” My favorite: “Damn, I just did that last night!” Was the study really a load of BS, the dream of a brilliant pothead Clinical Psychology Ph.D designed to liven up boring research, or a valid, important discovery? Luckily, the latter—or UB would have a lot of explaining to do.

In actuality, the study is entitled “Young-Adult Malt Liquor Drinkers: Prediction of Alcohol Problems and Marijuana Use.” The press release headline, which has been printed in over 90 publications, falsely renders the results and makes them sound trivial. Linking malt liquor use to marijuana use is much different from posing it as a problem possibly related to addiction.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism gave the UB Research Institute on Addictions a $469,333 grant to fund the project, which was headed by R. Lorraine Collins and Clara M. Bradizza. I’m not an expert on research grants or how much a major study costs, but that’s a lot of money being thrown around. Financially, this study was pricey for such a seemingly obvious subject. But when you count the cost of materials, advertising (remember those “Do You Drink 40s” ads?) and payment for participants and researchers over a three-year span—half a million can get spread pretty thin.

Regardless, though any Joey Fratboy can tell me that people toke up while enjoying Steel Reserve, there is nothing that can actually prove it aside from valid, scholarly research. A few years back, UB Professor Dr. Jeremy Finn published a study saying that students learn better with smaller class sizes. No shit. Knox 20 isn’t very conducive to absorbing lecture material, but because of research, many schools are touting smaller class sizes as one of their main attributes.

Of the 639 participants, 46 percent reported in “Young-Adult Malt Liquor Drinkers” a “concurrent use of marijuana and malt liquor.” Not too alarming, considering that the study stated that all participants had to “report no history of regular drug use, other than marijuana” to participate. These results actually are substantial: “Individuals who used malt liquor and marijuana together smoked nineteen marijuana joints, on average, during a typical week, whereas those who did not use the two together smoked two marijuana joints, on average, during a typical week.”

What!? I don’t know about you, but the conclusion that there is a nine-fold increase in pot intake when malt liquor is involved—that’s news to me.

For all you college-aged, hard-partying, malt liquor, marijuana-using people—put that fact in your blunt and smoke it. Maybe you’ll save yourself some problems down the road.

Now, who wants to play Edward Fortyhands?