Posted on 09/08/2012 12:51:31 PM PDT by neverdem
Cristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells because they grow faster than normal cell lines and thus are useful for research purposes. But the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.
Instead of gaining insight into how cells function, Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC. In 1998, she reported in a European biochemistry journal that THC induces apoptosis [cell death] in C6 glioma cells, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Subsequent peer-reviewed studies in several countries would show that THC and other marijuana-derived compounds, known as cannabinoids, are effective not only for cancer-symptom management (nausea, pain, loss of appetite, fatigue), they also confer a direct antitumoral effect.
A team of Spanish scientists led by Manuel Guzman conducted the first clinical trial assessing the antitumoral action of THC on human beings. Guzman administered pure THC via a catheter into the tumors of nine hospitalized patients with glioblastoma, who had failed to respond to standard brain-cancer therapies. The results were published in 2006 in the British Journal of Pharmacology: THC treatment was associated with significantly reduced tumor cell proliferation in every test subject.
Around the same time, Harvard University scientists ++reported++[ http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v95/n2/abs/6603236a.html] that THC slows tumor growth in common lung cancer and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread. Whats more, like a heat-seeking missile, THC selectively targets and destroys tumor cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed. Conventional chemotherapy drugs, by contrast, are highly toxic; they indiscriminately damage the brain and body.
Aric Crabb, Bay Area News Group / AP Photos
There is mounting evidence, according to a report in Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry, that cannabinoids represent a new class of anticancer drugs that retard cancer growth, inhibit angiogenesis [the formation of new blood cells that feed a tumor] and the metastatic spreading of cancer cells.
Dr. Sean McAllister, a scientist at the Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, has been studying cannabinoid compounds for 10 years in a quest to develop new therapeutic interventions for various cancers. Backed by grants from the National Institute of Health (and with a license from the DEA), McAllister discovered that cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive component of the marijuana plant, is a potent inhibitor of breast cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, and tumor growth.
In 2007, McAllister published a detailed account of how cannabidiol kills breast cancer cells and destroys malignant tumors by switching off expression of the ID-1 gene, a protein that appears to play a major role as a cancer cell conductor.
The ID-1 gene is active during human embryonic development, after which it turns off and stays off. But in breast cancer and several other types of metastatic cancer, the ID-1 gene becomes active again, causing malignant cells to invade and metastasize. Dozens of aggressive cancers express this gene, explains McAllister. He postulates that CBD, by virtue of its ability to silence ID-1 expression, could be a breakthrough anti-cancer medication.
Cannabidiol offers hope of a non-toxic therapy that could treat aggressive forms of cancer without any of the painful side effects of chemotherapy, says McAllister, who is seeking support to conduct clinical trials with the marijuana compound on breast cancer patients.
McAllisters lab also is analyzing how CBD works in combination with first-line chemotherapy agents. His research shows that cannabidiol, a potent antitumoral compound in its own right, acts synergistically with various anti-cancer pharmaceuticals, enhancing their impact while cutting the toxic dosage necessary for maximum effect.
Breast cancer cells killed by CBD on right compared to untreated breast cancer cells on left. (Courtesy Pacific Medical Center)
Cannabidiol offers hope of a non-toxic therapy that could treat aggressive forms of cancer without any of the painful side effects of chemotherapy.
Investigators at St. Georges University in London observed a similar pattern with THC, which magnified the effectiveness of conventional antileukemia therapies in preclinical studies. THC and cannabidiol both induce apoptosis in leukemic cell lines.
At the annual summer conference of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, held this year in Freiburg, Germany, 300 scientists from around the world discussed their latest findings, which are pointing the way toward novel treatment strategies for cancer and other degenerative diseases. Italian investigators described CBD as the most efficacious inducer of apoptosis in prostate cancer. Ditto for cannabidiol and colon cancer, according to British researchers at Lancaster University.
Within the medical science community, the discovery that cannabinoids have anti-tumoral properties is increasingly recognized as a seminal advancement in cancer therapeutics.
Martin A. Lee is the author of Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana Medical, Recreational and Scientific (Scribner, August 2012). He is the cofounder of the media watch group FAIR, director of Project CBD, and the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens. For more information and regular updates, follow Smoke Signalsthe book on Facebook.
Leave it my foot...many addicted souls say that in denial. The fact is that most people need pot or some other drug to escape the real pain of a mislived life or cowardess in their lives. Real noble and happy people need no drugs at all because they have God’s joy inside them.
copingstrategiescd.org has that path....which also has led to a spiritual cure of cancer for many people.
Scale of feesFDA calculates the fees for the following year based on the expected work (applications etc.) and the amount it wants to raise from the fees. For 2008 the application fees are :
$1,178,000 per full application requiring clinical data,
$589,000 per application not requiring clinical data or per supplement requiring clinical data.There are also establishment fees and product fees.[21]
There are loads of other plant medicines that work best in whole form that are also left out in this limbo because they can't be patented.
No denial. I have gone without for months and years at a time and suffer nothing for it.
The government has NO DAMN BUSINESS telling us what we may or may not ingest, smoke, inject, etc.
Our ancestors knew the Constitution wouldn’t allow Prohibition, so they passed an Amendment. (Then discovered that the PEOPLE wouldn’t allow it, either.)
So why is it any different with marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or any other substance you care to mention?
Whether YOU oppose something or not is inconsequential. The Constitution does not empower the government to ban anything, SO LEAVE IT ALONE AND LET US DECIDE FOR OURSELVES!!
What a childish non-answer.
Over 45 years you don’t think that you have unknowingly been in a vehicle with a friend that was holding?
Actually if you read my post you would see that I was comparing smoking drugs to licking frogs, not to a glass of wine with dinner.
And I wasn't answering a question.
Your posts seem to be getting confused. What's goin' on there?
I know two people who initially raved about their running programs and ended up quitting because it was destroying their knees and hips. Their problem: they thought they could run on hard surfaces and have no problems. Humans are meant to run on soft surfaces and not concrete or asphalt.
Please don’t turn this into one of those stoner things where every thing has to be parsed and picked at endlessly.
Over 45 years I have been surprised many times to find that a friend has been carrying, or came for an extended visit from out of town with me while holding, or showed up at one of my parties with pot and him pulling it out at some point, or me discovering them using it.
In your lifelong use of the drug, you have never been places, or participating in things or events, or in someone’s automobile without announcing to everyone that you were in possession, ever?
Why can’t we just grow it and smoke it?
LOLOL
Those headless bodies and boobytrapped parks are our reality only because of the prohibition policies you support.
Legalizing the use of marijuana and allowing people to grow for their own use would put an end to those horrors you bring up.
Marijuana can not mend smashed knees.
Nevertheless, it ought to be beneath the dignity of the State to regulate common weeds, except where they are an agricultural nuisance, like Russian thistle or knapweed.
Cannabis is not such a weed, and if it was, there are already such laws protecting farming and the environment.
The War on Pot makes the government look absurd - perhaps that’s a good thing!
IOWs your comments are above being responded to.
To hear you tell things you know more "stoners" than I (or any other FR pot user) does. You must because in 45 years I've never seen the behavior you constantly claim you've seen.
“... close relatives/friends who did of and survived cancer, I can say the effects are positive”.
When my Mom had pancreatic cancer (that she did die from), if I had known how to get marijuana for her.. I would have. Her doctors gave her plenty of pain medicine but the chemo made her so sick. She literally had three saltines a day or two gingersnap cookies. If pot could have reduced her vomiting and increased her appetite then it would have helped her. I could literally see her wasting away. I would check on her in the morning and swear she was thinner by the same evening. No prescription drugs would help.
LOL, typical addict language, we behead people and booby trap your forests, because you straights and your laws, force us to.
If it weren't legit, then why has the federal government held a patent on it since 2003? (US Patent 6630507 titled Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants)
Not with anyone who would have a problem with that. I don't impose that way on people. For the most part I never carry it at all once I get it home. Which has been extremely seldom to begin with. When I acquire it it is usually brought to me.
Cannabis is actually very good for agricultural land. Its roots go deep and break up hard compacted clays, introduce organic matter a couple of feet below the surface and hold soil that is prone to erosion very tightly. When plowed under it introduces almost as much nutrients as stinging nettles so it’s a good cover crop too.
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