Cannabis Cures Cancer.... An experiment in public self condemnation...

Cairenn said:
Scientific American posts an article on new treatments for MS and someone posts this.

External Quote:

M G
Cannabis oil deals effectively with MS without any of the side effects. There are now CBD/CBN oils that have NO PSYCHOTROPIC EFFECT, no "high". The federal government holds medical patents on a plant it outlawed for having "no medical value" while pouring billions into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies that dominate Medicare/Medicaid. Fight for your rights to use non-narcotic, natural remedies. Tell the Attorney General to respect state legislation regarding cannabis use and research. Tell the White House to release all patients and non-violent cannabis prisoners.
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Do you have evidence refuting the claim that cannabis can be an effective MS treatment? Hint: Pub Med is your friend: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22791906

There are, no doubt, many studies completed or underway to this effect (see the several cited articles on the sidebar, which confirm that ongoing research in this field is vigorous). Looks like your friend was essentially correct.
 
psi said:
Do you have evidence refuting the claim that cannabis can be an effective MS treatment?
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Interesting, but not the topic.

The specific topic here is Cannibis as a 'cure for cancer'.

Other possible "curative" aspects of the weed, in other topics.

ETA: the claim as a 'cure for cancer' IS the topic...not the plant. Subtle distinction? Perhaps.
 
psi said:
Do you have evidence refuting the claim that cannabis can be an effective MS treatment? Hint: Pub Med is your friend: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22791906

There are, no doubt, many studies completed or underway to this effect (see the several cited articles on the sidebar, which confirm that ongoing research in this field is vigorous). Looks like your friend was essentially correct.
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I don't think anyone here is disputing that it has been shown to be effective at symptom mitigation, such as with muscle stiffness from MS. Mitigating symptoms is not the same as curing or preventing though. As far as I'm aware it still hasn't been shown to definitively cure anything. There have been positive results in some studies but nothing concrete as a treatment yet. It is also good to keep in mind that what takes place in laboratory settings does not equate to inhaling, ingesting or absorbing it will have the same effect. The body reacts different when you inhale (smoke) or ingest (eat) something. It is also hard to know how much of a dose someone gets by smoking something.

If I'm understanding the study correctly, the subjects took the doses orally and didn't smoke it.
I think the general misconception is that if a subject in a study takes a certain dose and had relief, then all they need to do now is smoke some weed to have the same effect. This may be the case but it very well may not be.

The subject of medicinal marijuana has been a good test against confirmation bias for myself. ;):D
 
psi said:
I don't understand why "such claims" are labelled "dangerous" without anyone commenting on the many decades of mass imprisonment, ruined lives, government mayhem, etc., caused by the fraudulent war on cannabis.
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They're only dangerous in the sense that they can influence someone to neglect proven treatments in favour of unproven anecdotes, that's all.
The damage caused by the war on drugs is not the topic.
 
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Bill said:
Contrary to what the referenced article says none of these studies actually prove that cannabis can cure cancer. It is bad reporting of actual science.

It's way to early to draw any conclusions from these studies beyond cannabinoids may have anti-tumor applications that deserve further study. Some of these studies aren't on actual organisms they are on isolated cell lines; others seem to be animal studies that may not be applicable to humans. One is not a cancer study at all - it is a study of the effects of cannabinoids on neurodegeneration. While all conclude that there is potential that deserves further study it is reaching to look at these studies and then claim there are benefits from any form of cannabis ingestion.
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Uhu. Thanks for injecting some data into the discussion.
Soulfly said:
I don't think anyone here is disputing that it has been shown to be effective at symptom mitigation, such as with muscle stiffness from MS. Mitigating symptoms is not the same as curing or preventing though. ;):D
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Agreed, and an important distinction. I am just cautioning about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Symptom mitigation of an illness as serious and debilitating as MS is nothing to scoff at given present treatment options.

On the question of cancer, it is also true that cannabis has been proven to radically curtail if not destroy some cancers in vitro. Of course this is a long way from being a cure for cancer of any kind, but anecdotal evidence continues to pile up, sufficient to prove that much further research is warranted:



It is difficult, one might add, to understand the duration, intensity, and anti-scientific character of the decades long war on the herb, without invoking institutional vested interests. Originally these involved both plastics (A.J. Anslinger was married to the daughter of the founder of Dupont) and paper (hemp, which was (why?) made illegal along with the psychoactive strains, was and is an incredibly productive and economical source of fiber for many uses). Today I believe the evidence points towards the pharmaceutical industry, which, if it was acting in its own best interest, would undoubtedly be trying to at least delay full decriminalization of the plant, given its potential for a wide range of pharmacopeiac applications. It is easy to debunk the latest internet fad, and more challenging (and therefore imho more interesting) to debunk the deceptions of powerful vested interests. It is also less popular, which perhaps explains why it is done less often.

Starting at about 19:00 in this excellent documentary, listen to the revealing story of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, the Harvard M.D. psychiatrist who became perhaps the most important medical marijuana researcher of the 20th century, describe how the anecdotal evidence of his own son's nausea from chemotherapy became the genesis for the research that has led to the now widely accepted and know proposition of the effectiveness of cannabis for this treatment modality.
 
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There is NOTHING wrong with discussing the effects of Cannabis as a way to "ease" illness symptoms. I'm with Bill Maher on this....BUT...as a so-called "cure" for cancer???

THAT ( ^^^ ) is the topic of this thread. OTHER aspects of Cannabis, other thread topics please.

EDIT...for the record....I do NOT smoke, and NEVER HAVE smoked Cannabis. IN FACT, I NEVER WILL!

BUT, I respect the rights of those who choose to do so. THEIR choice...not MINE!!!
 
I did , up to about 30 y/o, smoke mj. That apparently had little to no effect on my developing cancer in my mid-forties. As I said earlier in this thread, my niece, who regularly partook all her adult life, had breast cancer in her 30s and succumbed to it despite following the advice of cannabinoid advocates, and two rounds of conventional treatments.
 
My bologna radar goes off big time when it comes to smoking it will cure anything. I highly doubt it ever will. That's not to say it can't cure something after a specific compound has been extracted or synthesized and then used in a more controlled manor, like injections directly into tumors like they did in the Harvard study.

I think a lot of people, that just want to get high, are hijacking he medicinal cause for their own selfish wants. There really isn't a need for that as there are many sound reasons to legalize for recreational use. The 'it can cure cancer, therefor I should be able to smoke it' is imo wrong.

Opiates have been shown to be great at pain mitigation but you don't see people saying we should all be able to grow poppies and smoke opium. So if, in the end, smoking is shown to do nothing but mitigate symptoms then the argument would be like the opiate one I just made.

With that said, I'm ready to eat my words if I'm wrong and it is shown smoking cures something deadly.
 
You don't actually need to OD to die from marijuana. You just need to take a big enough hit to pass out and bonk your noggin hard enough.
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2013/03/medical_marijuana_overdose_dabbing.php

External Quote:
"In the past couple of years, there have been repeated occasions in which 911 teams have had to be called in due to cannabis overdoses," Gieringer writes, going on to describe people passing out from high-concentrates at High Times Cannabis Cups in LA. The most authenticated record of someone dying from marijuana use, by the way? A man who became so incredibly high on hashish he passed out -- and then died after hitting his head on a hard floor.
 
psi said:
It is difficult, one might add, to understand the duration, intensity, and anti-scientific character of the decades long war on the herb, without invoking institutional vested interests. Originally these involved both plastics (A.J. Anslinger was married to the daughter of the founder of Dupont) and paper (hemp, which was (why?) made illegal along with the psychoactive strains, was and is an incredibly productive and economical source of fiber for many uses). Today I believe the evidence points towards the pharmaceutical industry, which, if it was acting in its own best interest, would undoubtedly be trying to at least delay full decriminalization of the plant, given its potential for a wide range of pharmacopeiac applications. It is easy to debunk the latest internet fad, and more challenging (and therefore imho more interesting) to debunk the deceptions of powerful vested interests. It is also less popular, which perhaps explains why it is done less often.
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I do not understand your argument. Surely if it does have such wide ranging potential it is in the interests of the pharmaceutical company to decriminalise it. Then they can slap a patent on the various compounds and the target medical use and kerching another money spinner.

Maybe a patent like this one
External Quote:

Phytocannabinoids in the treatment of cancer
US 20130059018 A1
ABSTRACT
This invention relates to the use of phytocannabinoids, either in an isolated form or in the form of a botanical drug substance (BDS) in the treatment of cancer. Preferably the cancer to be treated is cancer of the prostate, cancer of the breast or cancer of the colon.
http://www.google.com/patents/US20130059018
 
If there is a cannabis cure for cancer developed and I got cancer. I (and probably many others) would want that cure to be manufactured by a reputable company and not some upstart hippie in his kitchen. j/s
 
psi said:
Uhu. Thanks for injecting some data into the discussion.
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Not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic but if you take the time to read the 20 studies listed in the article referenced by Jason, http://www.collective-evolution.com...-studies-that-prove-cannabis-can-cure-cancer/, you'll see that despite the headline none of the studies cited claim cannabis cures cancer. The claim is not any of the abstracts, data or conclusions. That is actual data being discussed and it is what you should look at before just accepting a headline or video claim.

I would also like to point out that a quick skimming of PubMed and Google Scholar shows that numerous studies have been and are still being conducted on cannabinoids to determine the which one have an effect, how each one works, methods of drug introduction and possible side effects. These studies are happening in numerous counties that still penalties for the recreational and medical use of cannabis. If the Big Pharma you mentioned was as powerful as you seem to believe and opposed to cannabis research these studies should not be going on.
 
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There's little stopping anyone from chewing willow bark to relieve a headache yet for some reason masses of people prefer big pharma ASA formulations, as well as other compounds.
 
Soulfly said:
External Quote:
Abusing marijuana blunts the brain's ability to respond to dopamine, the neurotransmitter that's responsible for our feelings of pleasure, motivation, and reward. The effects of that "high" might actually lead to depression and anxiety, according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/brain/marijuana-abuse-blunts-brain's-response-dopamine#4F1hQ3E34We93SRb.99
Love the pun in there!
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No wonder I was so anxious and depressed during my college years.
 
Many of the comments in the IFLS FB post for the above article are disheartening if you ask me. The general meme seems to be, that because you can't overdose on marijuana, it means it is 100% safe and will never do any harm.
 
It has become increasingly evident over the years that certain compounds present in cannabis may have antitumor properties against certain types of cancer - at least in vitro models. However, little was known about the cellular signaling systems involved in mediating these apparent effects. In a recently published mouse study, researchers from the University of East Anglia have identified previously unknown signaling platforms that mediate the anticancer effects of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis. The study has been published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-an...antitumor-properties-work#O8R9cle5AQ61T6HI.99


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The researchers suggest that direct targeting of these two particular receptors may be an effective method to reduce tumor growth.
Now they just need to show that smoking or ingesting it will cause direct targeting. :rolleyes:
 
psi said:
I don't understand why "such claims" are labelled "dangerous"
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Well..unfortunately, many read the claims and anecdotal stories, and forego "mainstream" medical treatment based on those claims. I do agree, penalties for MJ are too severe except in the case of trafficking. Small quantities, if illegal by statute in the jurisdiction, should result in nothing more than a "jaywalking" ticket.
 
Lots of good info in this. I found this part most interesting.
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/medical-marijuana-hitting-bong-science/
External Quote:
Breast cancer. Again. Let's say that we actually can gather evidence that marijuana has an effect on breast cancer. First, we need to determine how much THC actually would kill most breast cancer cells. In one study, the researchers determined that it would take a concentration of cannabinoids of approximately 10 µmol/L to cause the death breast cancer cells in cell culture. This converts to around 3.14mg/L of THC. So, you'd have to assume that to kill any breast cancer cells, you'd need at least a blood level of 3.14 mg/L to achieve breast cancer cell death. So how close to that 3.14 mg/L can we get by just smoking a joint or two? According to research, smoking one joint will give you a blood level of THC of around 1.3-6.4 ng/mL serum, or about .00013-.00064 mg/L. In other words, to get an anti-cancer effect, you need to light up around 1000 joints per day.
 
The problem is that many people see "anti-cancer effects" and immediately blow it out of proportion. Throughout the history of researching cancer treatments, many many drugs (I don't have exact numbers but hundreds, at least) have been shown to have the ability to kill cancer cells. Having tumor shrinking abilities does not win the war on cancer, though. With most drugs that initially showed promise, the tumor(s) would shrink only to regrow more aggressive than before. This is because usually because a population of those cancer cells developed resistance and thrived over the rest. That happens after the drug probably did a number on the normal cells as well. Almost any drug that kills cancer cells will also harm normal cells. Notice I said almost, there are very efficient and amazing drugs/treatment available today for certain cancers. Those drugs came out of long and hard battles within the world of cancer research, politics, and funding. To invest in a crude drug like cannabinoids as a sole treatment for cancer is to go back to the days of the first chemotherapeutic drugs that were, when you get down to it, simply poisons in safer doses.
 
I like to point out that, in vitro, bleach is a very powerful anti-cancer agent. Doesn't mean its going to be used in vivo to combat the disease.
 
jaydeehess said:
I like to point out that, in vitro, bleach is a very powerful anti-cancer agent. Doesn't mean its going to be used in vivo to combat the disease.
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cells.png
 
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