Cannabis can CURE CANCER - cheaply and without getting you high The non-hallucinogenic parts of cannabis seem to be potentially highly effective anti-cancer drugs, according to a new study. “This study is a critical step in unpicking the mysteries of cannabis as a source of medicine," explains Dr Wai Liu. "The cannabinoids examined have minimal, if any, hallucinogenic side effects, and …
The Good News :
I had a successful apprentisship with the aformentioned THC, in it's various forms, for several years, I presume that I should be safe and free from cancer till the end of my days.
The Bad News:
Our Cannabis "Medicinal" cigarettes used a lot of tobacco.
PS : Don't bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me.......
Bongs and pipes? I smoked dope for about 8 years, along with a pack a day cigarette habit. When I left the Navy in 1985, the exit chest x-ray showed that I had a couple of spots on my lungs that the doctor told me would have resulted in emphysema before too long. Fortunately, I had quit both tobacco and weed in 1982, so my lungs never developed cancer or emphysema.
But think about it: how many people get emphysema after just 8 years of smoking? Some probably, but not many. It was the pot smoking combined with the tobacco that almost did me in. Pot smoke has even more tar and cancer agents than tobacco; and combine the two at the same time, and you've got yourself a death wish.
Not only that, but after stopping the weed (I smoked probably several joints a week or so on average from age 13 to 22), it was almost 3 years before the THC cleared out of my brain cells and I was able to think normally again.
Anyone who thinks pot isn't dangerous is deluded. Not only does it lead to harder drugs, but it can give you cancer just like tobacco. I think THC might be useful as a prescribed drug for some situations as long as it is administered in a non-smoking form. The smoke is very dangerous. Don't kid yourself into thinking it isn't.
And THC itself needs to be tightly regulated and controlled. THC/pot turns you into a nitwit, while at the same time the user thinks he is actually getting smarter. It's a trap.
@lone ranger sez -
(1) Anyone who thinks pot isn't dangerous is deluded. Not only does it lead to harder drugs, but it can give you cancer just like tobacco.
(2) THC/pot turns you into a nitwit, while at the same time the user thinks he is actually getting smarter.
(3) I smoked dope for about 8 years
nuff said ...
"But think about it: how many people get emphysema after just 8 years of smoking? Some probably, but not many. It was the pot smoking combined with the tobacco that almost did me in."
Nope, just lousy genes almost did you in.
Emphysema tends to be genetically triggered in some smokers.
The majority of smokers just end up with clogged arteries.
You're either disingenuous, or a victim of believing your own bullshit. You weren't even close to having "emphysema".
I live in a country where a sizable portion of the population uses it routinely. I know people who have smoked it every day for 40+ years and they aren't bedridden and wheezing. In fact I know a lot of people. (and one of them first hand) I am not saying that smoking anything is good for you, but cannabis is not likely to kill you anytime soon.
Cancer is a bit tricky though. If you are susceptible to it, and your immune system doesn't go after cancer cells, you're probably going to get it in some form. You simply cannot say that "stopping smoking" (tobacco or cannabis really) prevented you from getting cancer. You could still have a problem with it in the future, or not. Hopefully not ever.
THC doesn't have to "clear out of your brain cells" either. The THC itself is in fact gone from your body in a few days (most of it in a few hours), what persists in fatty tissues and are excreted slowly are its non pharmacologically active metabolites.
THC binds to receptor sites for chemicals (anandamides) in your brain that have similar molecular structures and properties. Yes, your brain has cannabinoid receptors. It therefore changes your brain chemistry, but regular users' brains simply adapt to it. It doesn't turn people into "nitwits", they already have those traits to begin with.
Yes, it can cause temporary loss of concentration and other cognitive abilities while people are under the influence of it. Less so in chronic users, who will be more likely to be enhanced by relatively small amounts of it than impaired.
Leads to harder drugs? Not in itself. What leads to harder drugs, is having to buy it from illegal sources who also deal in other drugs. It's also a matter of perception. Someone is already using illegal cannabis without serious harm, so it's not much of a stretch to seek out other substances. They are already comfortable defying the establishment and worse... they might think that worse drugs aren't harmful either, since none of the brimstone and fire happened to them.
Oh, really?
http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1513/AnnalsATS.201212-127FR?journalCode=annalsats&#.Ul5D8XVDvmE
"In summary, the accumulated weight of evidence implies far lower risks for pulmonary complications of even regular heavy use of marijuana compared with the grave pulmonary consequences of tobacco."
Well, it's a good thing you quit the tobacco, at least.
it is NOT the tobacco that causes the lung problems. It is the SMOKE. Fine particle smoke that clogs up the alveoli, creates irritation and eventually rips the air sacs and stiffens the lungs with scar tissue. The SMOKE.
Very few tobacco smokers would smoke fewer than 20 a day, many would be in the 30-40 range. Nobody would ever stay awake long enough to smoke 20 reefers a day, every day, for 20 or 30 years (which is at least the time it takes for emphysema to develop).]
Incidentally a lot of smokers never get emphysema, and only 16% of smokers get lung cancer. So much for "cause".
"Anyone who thinks pot isn't dangerous is deluded"
Yes that's true. As you point out, smoking it isn't so good for the lungs. And I wouldn't recommend it to anyone below 25 (and most certainly not to teenagers), as until around 25 the brain is still developing. But there are many safe ways to get at all the weedy goodness. And it is much, much, MUCH safer than both tobacco and alcohol.
"Not only does it lead to harder drugs..."
No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!! Please quit with this BS, it is absolutely not true. It's a correlation vs causation thingy, there is no evidence whatsoever to show that pot use in and of itself leads to harder drugs. And if it's legal, then pot users have less opportunity to be exposed to dealers who will be pushing harder drugs.
"THC itself needs to be tightly regulated and controlled. THC/pot turns you into a nitwit, while at the same time the user thinks he is actually getting smarter. It's a trap."
Yes, of course it needs to be regulated and controlled. At the very minimum same as alcohol, but I would also up the age of 'don't sell to" to 21. Yes it turns you into a nitwit, that's half the fun. But it turns people into funny, passive, cool nitwits, as opposed to alcohol that turns people into a paranoid, aggressive, violent nitwits
"But it turns people into funny, passive, cool nitwits, as opposed to alcohol that turns people into a paranoid, aggressive, violent nitwits"
BS.
What it causes to different people are totally depending on the individual. I become a funny, passive, cool nitwits of alcohol. However one closely related to me, who also after a burnout seem to have a chronic depression, actually gets aggressive especially of red wine.
I suspect the way pot will affect a human will be just as dependant on the individual as with alcohol. I've never used drugs for recreational use, medically yes, never smoked and won't smoke. But I do drink alcohol, and the way I use it, it has never made me paranoid, aggressive, violent nitwit.
However I do recognise that with alcohol, traits of who the person really is shows through. Carry a load of anger inside, it will be exposed under the influence alcohol, and so will it with many other hidden feelings that otherwise is kept from bursting out. That's probably why so many turn to alcohol when under stressful conditions. It makes them talk about it, in one way or other.
"Not only that, but after stopping the weed (I smoked probably several joints a week or so on average from age 13 to 22), it was almost 3 years before the THC cleared out of my brain cells and I was able to think normally again."
I smoked whilst at college and university. I still managed to pass my degree but only after I quit smoking. Whilst in second year I was smoking stronger and stronger stuff and eventually went onto some strong strains of skunk. I was also drinking copious alcohol too. I had a not-very-nice white out and passed out by the side of a road walking home - only to be recovered by some people who were passing and were concerned. I'd been unconscious for hours. I stopped smoking cannabis after that. I stopped smoking a few years later. My memory is shot - I have little short term memory. I attribute that to the pot.
"Anyone who thinks pot isn't dangerous is deluded. Not only does it lead to harder drugs"
That is nonsense. Whilst I smoked cannabis and skunk I never moved onto harder drugs. I was offered them, as the place and dealer you bought from was also the place that sold those much harder elements (Acid, Cocaine, Heroin). I always declined. My view was a pill, once it was in your system, was pretty much going to run its course and you couldn't control the dose. With smoking at least you could put it out or pass it to someone else. I've had friends who have taken heroin and been in and out of rehab, but they didn't start from cannabis.
---
In response to the article, if they can isolate the molecular strains and proteins in there to isolate pain and help cancer sufferers then great.
Anon as its my jaded past...
Well then--Let me tell you a story...
My brother was a straight A student, always cheerful, loved his family and did anything to help others, even walking old ladies across the street and such.
That was until one night.
About six months ago, my brother, sweet and unassuming, started hanging out with the "cool" kids in his school. You know, the type that do drugs, smoke tobacco cigarettes and engage in sexual sodomy.
One night, these "friends" of his invited him to a party. He was only there for a few hours before some of them started using marijuana and asked him if he wanted to join.
I wasn't there, but it probably sounded something like, "Uhhh hey dude do you wanna do some marijuanas with us? It's totally coooool, bro, and you're totally a nard if you don't, home slice."
So basically, they peer pressured my poor brother into doing their deadly drug. I assume he had no other choice.
My brother must have snorted at least ten lines of marijuana and injected even more marijuanas-- using an unsterilized needle!
By the time the paramedics arrived it was too late. My brother had OD'ed on too much marijuana. I miss him. We all miss him. Let this be a warning to all of you that still think snorting and injecting marijuana is cool.
Rest in peace, Danny.
Not to be a grammar nazi or anything of the sort but there is a significant difference in an intoxicant and an hallucinogen. Cannabis is not classified as hallucinogenic. That classification covers substances such as LSD, mescaline and ecstasy.
I say this both as a long time student of criminology (my post grad) and a long time aficionado.:)
Not to be a grammar nazi or anything of the sort but there is a significant difference in an intoxicant and an hallucinogen.
Good because you're not being a grammar nazi. And if you were you should be ashamed of yourself for saying an hallucinogen. It's a hallucinogen (or not a hallucinogen in the current context). And you're not correcting grammar. You're correcting basic English.
eat an ham sandwich?
it's an hamster?
go to an hospital?
Most 'h' words do not use the "an" form.
You only use "an" if the 'h' is silent so that the word starts with a vowel sound.
The general rule is, if the word starts with a vowel *sound* (not necessarily a vowel) , it uses 'an' instead of 'a'
So you can use an for all 'h' words if you pronounce them with a French accent!
But in English there are a limited number of words with a silent 'h'
An honest man
An hour
An umbrella
An upside
but a University (sound is yew , not un)
"You only use "an" if the 'h' is silent so that the word starts with a vowel sound."
Not quite! If the first syllable is unstressed, then you would use "an" rather than "a".
Thus you can differentiate between :-
A history book.
and
An historical novel.
I suppose that you can claim that in the unstressed case, the "h" is not really pronounced.
You can use 'an' before a word starting with h only when its first syllable is unstressed or where the h is silent (e.g. 'hour', or 'herb' if you're American). In 'hotel' the second syllable is the one with the stress so 'an hotel' is fine. The stress on 'hallucinogen' is /ˌhæl.uː.ˈsɪn.ə.dʒən/ i.e. the first syllable has secondary stress.
"I would use "an hallucinogen" in the same way I would use "an hotel"."
Why would anyone say "an hotel"? I've never heard that before, it's really odd. Perhaps in some thick northern slang where the h is not pronounced ("an 'otel")?
Although, on the BBC they say "an historic" quite a lot, so who knows?
Still, back to the matter in hand. Yay for weed!
THC might not be classed along with the other Hallucinogens but I can confirm from first hand knowledge that its effects are very hallucinogenic.
Don't believe it, try eating about half an ounce.
I vividly remember, even after 30 years , the effects that that brought on.. it took a few hours before the effect hit me, when it did I had to leave the pub, I became very paranoid. I wasn't stoned as normal, it was a completely different feeling. All I knew thought was that I had to get home...
t took what felt like hours to walk the 2 or 3 miles and then I was literally on hands and knees for the last 1/2 mile, the pavement had become spongy, wwaving up and down roller coaster style, making it difficult to walk. The lamps posts had melted and I couldn't grip on to them and the hedges were breathing, which I didn't feel comfortable with. I also had to finally suffer the scenes of animal things floating over the ceiling for a while when I finally managed to make it home ....
On the whole it was far less intence than LCD but very surprising nonetheless. I had eaten small pieces up until that point and did not realise that that would happen when I ate a larger piece..
Strange thing , I wasn't the slighest bit ill the next again day.
"THC might not be classed along with the other Hallucinogens but I can confirm from first hand knowledge that its effects are very hallucinogenic."
I'd bet you were using marijuana, which -usually- contains other psychoactive compounds. THC itself is not a hallucinogen. Those other compounds are absent -mostly- from hashish, which contains a bigger concentration of THC than the plant buds, and hashish won't make you hallucinate.
Nowadays -in my locality at least- it's not too common to suffer hallucinations from marijuana, as most of what is grown/sold nowadays comes from strains developed for a high content of THC, in detriment of the other psychoactive compounds.
The paranoia is a different matter, though. In my experience, if you are under lots of stress, depressed or mixing THC -in any form- with booze, you have bigger chances of ending up with some drug induced paranoia, that usually lasts a few minutes or at most ~half an hour. To put it short: THC+ethanol=BAD! :0)
Cannabis is a CNS depressant and hallucinogen. Not sure where you're getting your info, but cannabis is most definitely officially classified a hallucinogen.
Where the article and/or the scientists are wrong is stating it is a powerful hallucinogen. Even the best smoke on Earth doesn't qualify as a powerful hallucinogen. Besides the 'regular' stuff like LSD, mushrooms and peyote, there are plenty of industrial chemicals that you can 'intentionally concentrate and inhale'* that will have you tripping your balls off and you can buy them in bulk. Those are powerful hallucinogens, cannabis is not.
"Where the article and/or the scientists are wrong is stating it is a powerful hallucinogen"
Yeah, that! :^)
But if you eat half a kilogram of salt or drink five litres of water you'll also hallucinate (just before dying). I mean, half an ounce of the stuff is not a normal dose for THC, when a gram can keep you high for hours. What I'was trying to say in my comment is that other chemicals in cannabis buds are responsible for most of the hallucinogen properties of marijuana. I've never had hallucinations while using hashish, but I had them on several occasions after consuming Maryjane, in similar dosages. Don't know what would happen if I ate 1/2 Oz. (~13 grams)THC's worth of hashish, though. That would be ~50 grams of hashish with a 30% content of THC. If you can consume that amount in two days you must be a pro! Taking the full amount at the same time is stupid & wasteful, IMHO.
On a side note, I'm not totally sure whether we agree or disagree :^), but it's an interesting discussion anyway.
1/2 oz is probably around 100X an "effective dose" ie what would normally get you high. The fact that you woke up fine the day after speaks volumes for weed's safety.
I saw a comparison taken from The Lancet* couple of years ago comparing effective dose with fatal dose. With alcohol, 10X "effective dose" would kill you. With heroin it was about 4X, and many other drugs were in the region of 10-25X. With pot, they had plucked a number from somewhere but the number was effectively infinity - there is not one single recorded case in medical history of death due to pot overdose.
*Super-respected medical journal
"Don't know what would happen if I ate 1/2 Oz. (~13 grams)THC's worth of hashish, though"
You fall asleep. Smiling. For about 15-25 hours. And you wake up very hungry.
Sometimes you trip your balls off for an hour or two first.
A very important fridge rule is don't eat Mark's chocolatey treats. Certainly don't eat half of them....
Works for dogs too. Once they scoff some hash, they often suddenly stop eating everything, and will then on stick to just dog food. All that seeing in colours freaks them out ;)
The one thing that can be said with certainty about cannibis is that MOST EXISTING literature, articles, rules, regulations and classifications are in fact wrong or worse outright lies.
Yes, everything you learned about pot in your DARE class is complete bullshit. No one has ever died directly from an overdose. It has no lasting side effects and it cures the symptoms of many discomforts, ailments and complaints. All that and the primary side effects include sleepiness and the munchies.
All in all a truly harmul drug eh?
Classification as a "Schedule 1 drug" under the "Controlled Substances Act" is why weed is still illegal here in most of the USA. (Schedule 1 includes all comon hallucinogenic drugs as well as heroin)
How weed is classified in the rest of the world is typically proportional to how that country works with the US DEA. If they want the "War on drugs" funding, then weed is classified as a dangerous hallucinogenic drug.
When the sole function of the war on drugs seems to be keeping the liquor and pharmaceutical companies in business, perhaps we should stop listening to their lies.
"Yes, everything you learned about pot in your DARE class is complete bullshit."
Perhaps, there was no such class back when I was in school.
However, cannabis *is* a hallucinogen when a large quantity is consumed.
Large as in substantial, a hell of a lot.
And with such large consumption, there are also lasting effects.
Like everything else, moderation is the key.
Well, for everyone but me. I'm allergic to it.
"How weed is classified in the rest of the world is typically proportional to how that country works with the US DEA."
Not always. Not a single GCC state takes US drug war money. Their laws are for religious reasons.
Funny how it's trivially available though and hash is even more commonly available.
As for pharmaceutical companies, they could trivially grow high quality medical grade weed and sell it, package the various alkaloids, etc. So, they have little to no incentive to have some grand conspiracy to ban weed.
The same is true for the booze companies, indeed, weed was prohibited around the same time prohibition hit.
All courtesy of Randy Hearst and his Reefer Madness crap.
What is stupid is that research in the US on medical uses of weed is heavily restricted.
Especially since President Didn't Inhale.
"As for pharmaceutical companies, they could trivially grow high quality medical grade weed and sell it, package the various alkaloids, etc. So, they have little to no incentive to have some grand conspiracy to ban weed."
Growing weed is really easy. If it's legal to grow, it would be REALLY cheap, and pharma companies can't make mega-profits from simple repackaging. Would you buy a $10 pack of pharma-weed when you could get the same effect from your local coffee shop at $5? Or grow your own for a lot less?
I said it was classified as a hallucinogen by the DEA, not myself. Two generations of kids have been lied to in D.A.R.E. classes about weed and most of them now know the truth. How effective is the message when you lie to achieve your aims?
My experience is the same as yours, unless you use a massive qty it is not "hallucinogenic". Sometimes when faced with getting busted, you'll eat alot of strange stuff.
Remember this phrase: "It's not about how much you can do and still survive, It's how little you can do and still get off".
However, my experience with full blown hallucinogenics was quite extensive and they are nothing like weed.
BTW, I am allergic to Beer so a man has to have something to relax with for god's sake.
Yes, you will still be buzzed for a day after eating a substantial amount but you won't be running naked through the streets unless you took something else as well.
The pharmaceutical companies use very similar molecular stuctures to CBD's and THC in various prescription drugs (anti-psychotics, sleeping pills, pain medications), and THAT is why they don't want it legalized. They cannot patent a plant or a plant extract and if it does the same as expensive schedule 2 or 3 drugs then it won't be legal. It is not a "grand Conspiracy", the legal system are just dickheads.
BTW, HASH is NOT widely available here in the USA like it is in Europe.
"The one thing that can be said with certainty about cannabis is that MOST EXISTING literature, articles, rules, regulations and classifications are in fact wrong or worse outright lies."
In fact it's not only schedule 1 in US, it's also classed as "no known medicinal properties" even though that's complete BS. What that means is that it can't even be studied for research purposes, so there is very little serious literature compared to, say, heroin which was originally developed as a painkiller, and whose close cousin morphine is in wide medical use.
James, Try looking for the US Pharmacopia (USP) books from before 1920 and see what they had listed for marijuana and hash. They used to use "Red Oil" for surgery as an anesthetic during the civil war for amputations. There was plenty of medical literature on good practices, dosages, lack of lethality (only very high dosages could depress the autonomic system and cause possible suffocation).
The US DID already study it and it was part of the USP for over 80 years before the Tax Stamp Act banned it.
'When the sole function of the war on drugs seems to be keeping the liquor and pharmaceutical companies in business, perhaps we should stop listening to their lies.'
And don't forget the arms companies.
After the end of the cold war they needed a new market - and the 'War on drugs' provides one. Apache helicopters and SWAT teams to pull up cannabis plants by hand - it would be laughable if it wasn't for the thousands tortured and murdered due to drugs cartels being illegal and having to sort out their trade disputes with psychopaths.
Never though I'd support lawyers but I'd much prefer such disputes to be sorted out in the courts.
Since when it THC an hallucinogen?
Start taking it in appropriate quantities for the hallucinogen effect to take, well, effect. If you apologise the quoting from wikipedia, there is a famous autobiographical book called 'The Hashish Eater', by Fitz Hugh Ludlow, which documents his exploration of cannabis via an extract called "Tilden's Extract", which is a solid that you eat. One researcher said:
Ludlow consistently talked of “hasheesh” but in fact he took the solid extract of Cannabis Indica which was roughly twice as potent as the crude resin and ten times as potent as marijuana. A rough calculation shows that his intake was equivalent to about 6 or 7 marijuana cigarettes per dose, i.e. at the hallucinatory rather than at the euphoriant level prevalent in contemporary North American use.
Ludlow wrote of taking as much as a drachm of the extract (3.9 grams, .14 ounces) in his largest doses — if Kalant’s figures are correct, this is equivalent to a quarter-ounce of resin or well over an ounce of herbal cannabis.
THC is most definitely a hallucinogen but is only one of around 70 identified cannabinoids- most of which are believed to be pharmacologically active.
Not that I have smoked in a very long time but skunk is cultivated to promote THC production at the expense of other cannabinoids giving a far more 'tripy' effect which has rightly or wrongly been linked to increased risks to mental health.
TLDR there is more to cannabis then THC.
"With most of the plant being beneficial and easily farmed on a large scale, is it the drug companies that lobby governments to keep it banned?"
I suspect it's more of a case of the small but extremely vocal population of 'Right Whingers' keeping it banned combined with the drug corps not seeing enough profit margin in a plant is already widely cultivated. Nice to see folks finding cheap & easily manufactured treatments - but unfortunately those are two things that the drug co shareholders really won't like..
Right Whingers? If I had to define my political stance I would have to say I am right of centre yet I fully believe in personal responsibility, unlike those left of centre who prefer someone else to make the decisions. So my stance would be legalise it and let grown adults make their own decisions, like with alcohol, they are free to pickle their livers with Kestrel Super if they so wish. Odd that.
Junkies stealing the crop? How many stories do you see of health nuts raiding organics vegetable producers? If it was legalised I am sure it would be grown in a very secure location.
On the strength of that post I don't think you qualify as a 'Right Whinger', they are a subset of the 'Right' whatever that means. :)
I think in my heart I am an Anarchist, with my head ensuring that you don't hurt other people (and take responsibility for your actions). The main aim is to try and leave the place a little bit better than when I found it.
Mine is the coat with a couple of CDs in it, Circle's 'Raunio' and Roy Harper's Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion.
Shame I can't up vote more than once - but I can state here that I wholeheartedly agree with every word.
Unfortunately personal responsibility is one characteristic which too many of our soi-disant élite seem determined to nanny out of the populace:-
Surely it couldn't be that unthinking sheep are easier to control & use, could it?
jonathanb
thats right, we need to be so scared of these pot junkies. i mean they cause havoc.... my local co-op is always running out of chocolate and crisps.
you seem to be mixing up heroin and weed. thats like comparing a bugatti veron and a 3 wheeler.
its such basic misunderstandings that stop this relatively harmless drug from being decriminalised and leaving us only alcohol to unwind, which is a horrible drug for society.
also, as said before. pot isnt hallucinogenic unless you eat shitloads. ive been smoking since i was 16 and im 38 now and an IT manager and have suffered zero issues over the years. the closest to acid i even had from pot was some that won the cannabis cup around 1995 which was bloody strong.
"They will make a synthetic version of the active ingredient if it is useful as a medicine. That way there would be no risk of junkies stealing things to get their next fix."
Actually they've tried synthetic versions before with AIDS patients to stimulate appetite, they tended to wipe the patients out, make them feel ill etc and be no way near as effective as the herbal variety.
Also Junkies stealing..your talking shite
Not even that.
I foresee the sad story of Racecadotril. It is the most effective medicine known to man against extreme dehydration from diorhea. It saves tens of thousands of children in the tropics annually and saves quite a few adults from misery in developed countries.
However, it has the fault of being a non-addictive artificial morphinoid. It also has the double fault of being French.
So rather unsurprisingly, if you happen to be American or British you are left to use loperamid (which has a ton of side effects and is unsuitable for children) or sh*** yourself. After all - french artificial morphinoid? For something as "harmless" as diarhoea (which still kills tens of thousands of people worldwide by the way)? Cleared by NHS or FDA? Yeah, some other time.
>if you happen to be American or British you are left to use loperamid ...cleared by NHS or FDA? Yeah, some other time.
Hidrasec is the best selling brand of racecadotril in the UK - it's used all the time - it's a prescription only drug if that's what you mean......supresses the immune system if used habitually, so needs clinical supervision.
The "leftist" French may be concerned with alleviating human suffering and the lives of their children, but here in the USA we have more pragmatic goals: stamp out illegal substances.
My daughter at age 32 years was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer several years ago. A radical mastectomy, radiation treatments, and a $100,000-per-year prescription drug ( ! ) stopped the cancer -- temporarily. Now she's diagnosed with incurable bone cancer, a result of the spread of the breast cancer cells. Doctors say she's good for about five more years.
One might hope that the US government could see its way clear to cooperate with and/or assist the London research effort, but if our government's past track record is any indication, there will NEVER be approval for research involving cannabis in the USA, regardless of any other factors.
Celebrate the freedom and concern for human rights in Amerika. (The NSA will hear this parent's plea, and file it under "subversive.")
It doesn't matter. These test, along with many, many others, have been going on for years, longer than I've been alive. NOTHING has ever come from them. NOTHING. Cancer patients are still being treated the same. Kill it by killing the body. If it works, great, you owe us big money. if not, you die and someone owes big money. no way in hell pharmaceutical companies are gonna try something as cheap a bag of weed. no F'ing way. If they do, it will be a joint that cost so much you'll have to sell your car for. and the line that separates them from a drug dealer on the street is is simple. If you pay US 100 times more for the same thing you get on the street, it's legal. If not, go to jail.
Sad, sad world.....
"Actually, what I'm more concerned about is that when it comes to cancer, I'd really rather get treated with the most effective drug - not the most cost-effective one."
If you're paying, then by all means. Customer is always right etc.
But when it comes to public health, the most cost effective is often the most effective. Because it can actually be used, rather than having to restrict it.
In much the same way as I'd prefer to always eat at the nicest restaurants, I accept that my budget only stretches to a kebab.
For quite a few forms of cancer, I'd just live with it. Same choice that a rather large number of physicians make. Perhaps volunteer to test this weed cancer treatment. You're going to die of something, I'm a bloke, so it'll probably be heart failure. Cancer in the guts or on the skin I'd have chopped, in the organs I probably just accept my fate.
My guess would be that it might offer a "kinder" chemo. So you chop it out, then follow up with large infusions of cannaboloids to try and cause any other bits to reset their cell death timer.
It's certainly good for pallative care. A vape and half a gram a day can make a hell of a difference to someone who has lost the will to eat from the side effects of the other stuff they are being given. With chemo, it's hardly shocking (you're poisoning yourself to kill the cancer) and the lack of nutrition can end you faster than any disease.
But I jest. Commen sense dictating drugs policy? When Dr Nutt is a drugs tzar I'll believe it.
As someone who has blood Cancer I welcome any steps forward towards being able to treat it more effectively.
Mine will return. you can't be cured of Cancer. So if there is a better and more effective treatment that increases the period before it returns again then all I can say is FUCK YOU. I'll take it any day.
Until you have this disease you really have no idea what it does to your whole body.
Like "Sativex"?
That's another mowie-wowie-based medicine that is rather effective for MS, Chrons (so I'm told by people with it) and neuropathic disorders. GW pharma say you can't get high on it. Someone I know who has drunk a whole 100-spray bottle would like to disagree with GW pharma.
I'll also reflect the sentiments by various commentards: Why legalise a plant that people can grow in their own homes for free, when you can charge the NHS £240/month for every prescription?
What's a mild hallucinogen? Just gives harmless visions of dark beer? Apart from the aforementioned author and the poster who swallowed 1/2 oz (presumably already suffering from some mental condition) I know of no-one who has hallucinated on the stuff alone - and I didnt exhale!
Hallucination doesn't necessary mean seeing pink flying elephants dancing across the walls. It's a mistake I've made when people mentioned that weed is hallucinogenic: After trying interesting bits of blotting paper in my sillier youth, calling cannabis a hallucinogen is like describing a pedal-car as a Bugatti Veyron. That said, I've had some pretty neat geometric closed-eye visuals after some of the rather potent stuff.
You know how everything just tastes so awesome when you have the munchies? That would be a hallucinogenic effect, that would.
(The Plod already know about my caution for PoCS (class b), so it's not like I'm going to get in shit for posting this.)
I beg to disagree. Fortunately, the Church didn't have anything to say on the matter until well after the 'Reefer Madness' campaign. Evidence: In my country, the -back then- ultra Catholic Spain, hashish was sold in drug stores as an OTC medicine till the beginning of the fifties. It shared many uses with Aspirin (PMS, headaches, chronic pain...) with far less secondary effects. I've also been told that it was commonly used for preventing epilepsy seizures. For this later use, it was replaced by Diazepam. Which incidentally has lots of nasty secondary effects, including -but no limited to- physical dependence, addiction, depression, ...
It seems that you took my 500 years as a typo. It wasn't.
I was referring to the period around 1500 -1700, where people who knew anything about any effects of whatever were hunted down by the church for doing witchcraft.
Holy water or licking a finger-bone from a saint (some of them must have had up to 26 hands . . .) was the only acceptable way of treating any illness.
This precedes drug stores, Aspirin and Valium by some years.
Spain has lost even more knowledge in those 'religious cleansing' times: Due to the Moorish influences Al-Andalus, and Cordoba especially, held large collections of medical knowledge which was, of course, evil in the catholic churches eye.
You might know this better than I do, I'm not in Spain . . .
So, no, I didn't mean recent history as in 20th century. I think we lost a lot more knowledge 500 (or, in Spain, more like 1000, when the Caliphate declined) years ago already.
I'm not saying that Islam is superior to Christianity, I don't think too much of any religion. But the attitude to learning in the late middle ages was definitely better in Muslim influenced areas.
I don't see the matter quite as you do.
I was referring to the period around 1500 -1700, where people who knew anything about any effects of whatever were hunted down by the church for doing witchcraft.
Contrary to Hollywood's version of History, the total number of people executed by the Inquisition -all of it, not just the Spanish Inquisition- is about seven thousands, throughout the three hundred and fifty years it existed. Witches were rarely executed, and when they were, it usually was by hanging. The stake was reserved for 'serious offences', such as religious dissent (sigh...). Analysis of the Inquisition records shows that torture in any form was used in about 2% of cases, and such torture was performed under a set of rules that prevented the prisoners from suffering permanent harm.
Now, you can compare this picture with the situation in the rest of Europe, where the matter was left in the hands of local authorities and some respected historians claim that the number of 'witches' executed in the same period came close to 100,000, there where no limits to the degree of torture inflicted to the suspects and 'witch hunts' where often used to 'solve' land disputes and small scale political turf wars.
Spain has lost even more knowledge in those 'religious cleansing' times: Due to the Moorish influences Al-Andalus, and Cordoba especially, held large collections of medical knowledge which was, of course, evil in the catholic churches eye.
Ermmm... No. When the Moors were expelled from Spain - a huge injustice and an act that harmed Spain, IMHO- all those books had been already translated into Spanish and/or Latin by the famous 'Escuela de Traductores de Toledo' and copies were available in monasteries and universities, and routinely used for teaching. Most of these books either were never in the Inquisition Index, or they were, but with a caveat authorising physicians to read them. As a result, many of the best physicians and 'scientists' around the Renaissance period came from Spain.
There probably was some loss of knowledge, but cannabis was used in that five centuries period without much interference from the church. The fuckers were busy doing worse things :^)
That bit you copied from their statement:
Importantly, they had an increased effect on cancer cells when combined with each other ...
So did they just trail off there before finishing the paragrap? Were they under the influence when they started to write it? Enquiring minds want ...
Next Step: applied to other illnesses?
I wonder whether some enterprising student or researcher is thinking about Mordok:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Benzite
And wondering whether this discovery/application can be used for deliving non-lethal levels of oxygen in stages to various parts of the human body for the purposes of killing HIV in reservoirs. As I understand things, the reservoirs are difficult to find. But, if I can assume they are in places where blood flows (well, is it safe to assume I can exclude bone/marrow areas where blood might not flow easily), and if specific inhalants such as the e-cigs could be used, then an infected or non-infected person could inhale once or twice an hour as a treatment or as a pre-exposure prophylactic/laxis...
But, the Benzite liquid inhalant approach might be cumbersome. Coincidentally, Benzites seem blue, and the e-cigs have -- iirc-- a brand or model of "blue"...
Half a tea-spoon of cannabis resin stirred into a cup of coffee made me hallucinate. I don't know whether this is attributed directly to the THC or not.
The cancer fighting properties of cannabis oil have been long known. Wasn't cannabis first banned because it was a threat to the profits of the pharmaceuticals?
Nope the general urban myth is that it was all about Randolph Hearst, DuPont and the paper industry which forced it to be banned. (i.e. a cheaper way to make paper using hemp). However it basically got banned, (in the states at least), during their puritan prohibition thang after the first world war when there was a critical mass of people kicking around who like to moan about such things and hadn't actually got killed or maimed in the trenches.
Also urban legend with possibly a lot more than a grain of truth in it:
During prohibition, all sorts of drugs and booze could still be obtained. Booze was the drug of choice of whites, weed of blacks and heroin of chinese. So prohibition lifted only on booze not on the others was partially a racial issue.
Is that true? No way to tell but it certainly sounds like it could be true
No, the threat to Big Pharma is one of many reasons it has remained illegal. It was first banned because it was a threat to the Timber and Paper Industries as hemp is an amazingly cheap, sustainable, and sturdy source of paper and other materials, and they used racist fear-mongering and lies about it saying that it was used by the Mexicans and southern blacks and that it made the user psychotic.
Medical marijuana advocates have been saying for years that it is the combination of chemicals in cannibus, not just THC, that make it an effective medicinal. It's good to see that intelligence is finally winning out over the (undeserved, IMHO) bad rap that cannibus has. In reality it's no worse than alcohol or tobacco, both of which are legal and moderately socially acceptable.
Disclaimer: Yes, I support the legalization of marijuana, largely because it's been 90ish years since any hardcore criminals got rich off of alcohol or tried to sell it to kids. No, I don't ingest or smoke the stuff, nor do I think anyone else should take it recreationally. I support it's legalization because I look at it and see many of the same problems that revolved around alcohol during prohibition that vanished as soon as it was legal again.
I think you might be one of their customers if you truly believe that. Either that or you're just sadly out of touch with the real world.
But that's beside the point. Cannabis tends to be the domain of low level gangbangers who don't have the connections to get the harder stuff. You can grow it VERY easily and safely (one friend of mine -- clean for over a decade, in case you're wondering -- used to grow his in a dresser drawer when he was in high school), so it has an extremely low barrier to entry. If you legalize it you instantly put half the drug dealers out of business simply because they don't have the connections to get harder to obtain drugs.
The whole 'gateway drug' thing defies both common sense and statistical facts. If there were any truth to it there would be far more crack addicts running around California than there were 15 years ago (before they started handing out cannabis prescriptions for headaches). Instead the statistics show very little change, and that little bit is actually negative.
I can't read the article either, but the usual gist of these things is "we dripped XYZ on cancer cells and they died". On the Everest of drug development, you're barely in Asia, let alone at base camp. Even if these cannabinoids aren't hallucinogenic, they may be toxic in other ways, impossible to get into the body at usable doses, unsuitable for pharmaceutical manufacture etc etc etc.
The use of medicinal cannabis by, among others, cancer sufferers is to ameliorate the effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other conventional aggressive treatments for the disease which often have bad effects on the sufferers[0]. There's little if any research results pointing to any real effects cannibinoid compounds have on various cancers either pro or con.
It's also used by people suffering from MS, severe arthritis and the like to help them get through the day but no-one is (yet) claiming cannabis is a cure or even results in slowing the progression or reversing the effects of such diseases.
[0] SF writer and blogger Jay Lake has terminal cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy, not because it will cure him but because it will help him live longer. He talks frankly in his Livejournal about the effects of the drugs he takes and how they ruin his quality of life but he also acknowledges those same drugs are why he's still alive today. http://jaylake.livejournal.com/
Are you joking? Cannabis has been used for thousands upon thousands of years without one case of toxicity. Scientists have attempted to estimate the LD50 of Cannabis in Humans by measuring it in both rats and then mice. Strangely enough, the scientists failed absolutely in their attempt to OD rats, so they tried to OD mice on more Cannabis than a user might consume in a year and failed, again, so they could only make a "guestimate." Their conclusions were that a user would have to smoke between 20,000 and 40,000 joints in about 15 minutes to fatally OD. So to answer your concerns, we can be certain that these chemicals are not toxic.
do not feed the AC troll....unless he has read the paper and can summarise the findings here!!!
Seriously, the comment about cancer in the lab may be true. But that is why we do clinical trials. Phase 1 is to see if it is safe, phase 2 is for specificity. Try reading some Ben Goldacre, it is entertaing as well as informative.
As molecular design is one of my "hobbies", the very first thing you learn about active pharma molecules is to start with one that nature provides. We can design anything in a computer, we can synthesize only a small fraction of them.
I imagine this research is important, only it is hard to evaluate 'cos I cannot read the paper....!
P.
It is good there is some research in this area, especially with the evidence that the illegal/commercial agriculture
of these plants has selected for the THC content over all other components.
We may need some hippies to do some excavation to find some of the "naturally good ganja"...;-)
It is not good I cannot get to the article because is is paywalled....even via the Bodleian. ;-(
I'm guessing it would depend on the hemp strain, but the most you'd get from a commercial legal variety would be a headache.
It is only relatively recently that proper research is gaining momentum, from what I can see, with regard to high CBD strains of medicinal cannabis. It is long long overdue, thanks to reefer madness and the destructive idiocy of prohibition. The list of people with material interest in maintaining the murderous and backward status quo of prohibition is too long for a comment, and as for the Daily FAIL types, I've yet to hear any complaints that are not either caused by prohibition, or applicable to a variety of substances and therefore a social ill.
To quote the movie Daybreakers: "It's not about the cure, it's about repeat business!"
Hemp is made from the stem of the plant. The fibres are long and strong, and can be woven, braided etc.
Cannabis are the flowers of the plant, especially the females.
Generally the strains differ based on what you are focusing on. Fairly sure most industrial hemp flowers will be pollinated, unsuitable for smoking. Maybe possible to separate some hash mechanically, but in general you would grow the species you are interested in, not sure if many dual breeds would be grown industrially. I'd imagine some of the big outdoor cannabis strains might have usable stems.
Generally canaboloids are concentrated in the flowers, with very low levels elsewhere in the plant.
a killer drug for unemployable wasters.
Funny, because I can count potheads amongst some of the hardest and best workers I've seen. In jobs that aren't sedentary sit-at-keyboard lazyfests either.
In fact, I don't know who you are, but simple statistics lets me confidently dare you to try a week, let alone a month, in some of these jobs. Hell, if you can survive a single shift I'll be surprised. Some heavy lifting required, make sure your life insurance is up to date.
So you allow dopers to not only work for you, but lift things?
If I were an employer, then sure. If people want to huff aircraft wing membrane lacquer in the privacy of their own homes, that is their business. So long as they turn up on time and bright-eyed, it simply would not be my concern, and neither should it be.
I wouldn't even be bothered if they were eating spacecakes at home. Shooting up smack would probably trigger my disgust reflex, but the same principal applies: Are they doing the job, and are they doing it well?
I guess you (and others) would simply like to see such people sacked and put onto the street, artificially made destitute not by a substance, but by ignorant bosses with a puritanical attitude, and a system that's more broken than the mind of a terminal LSD addict?
(edit: Yes commentards, I know that LSD is rather low on the addictiveness scale.)
You are so full of shit that it's not even funny. Did you find a time machine and get transported from the 40's or 50's to the present after watching Reefer Madness? I know quite a few people who imbibe in some cannabis sativa and have been productive, hard working folks, including some with their own company too. The only reason I quit generations ago was that they started doing piss tests in the profession I am in and I have to have a job to support a family. Because of urinalysis and hair follicle tests I haven't smoked or eaten weed in around 20 years, but when I was doing it I didn't have any problems doing my job or showing up to work on time. Do I now miss it? No, not really, but that might change when I retire and don't have to worry about keeping a job.
Asshole!
New research, my arrse. Its from 1st of July 2008. http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/marijuana-cancer-what-facts-smoke/
This stuff has been going round the Internet for ages, its just rubbish. Theres one medical treatment using cannabis available, because research is done on it, it stimulates the appetite in HIV, AIDS and other similar conditions where patients have problems eating.
<upon re-reading your post i cant tell if you are being sarcastic or serious>
bullshit.
alcholol is....
in fact... through a thorough trial of friends i can deduce that in fact crisps are the most deadly gateway experience. almost everyone who has died in the UK for the last 50 years has eaten crisps. they must be a killer drug.
in seriousness, after booze i guess its the most common way in but all it teaches you is the BS the gov spoon feed you cannot be relied on.
alcohol does far more damage to society and the user (and im speaking as someone who's wife is an ex-alcoholic).
after decades of trying to prove its the most evil thing on the planet there is still not a single scientist who can prove any links to mental illnesses. schizophrenia is often linked to but no definite link can be found even after massive expense from the tobacco industries and big pharma.
prohibition is actually damaging the public. it would be very easy to do some work on creating a strain with low THC that can be used as a tobacco alternative. this would stop kids bulking out joints with tobacco (the actual dangerous bit), low THC strains like FLO have been around for ages but since its all illegal most people have no choice in what strains are available to purchase.
just let us grow our own and you will see tobacco intake reduced.
Only ever witnessed people using tobacco to cut the green stuff in the UK. In western Canada we never did that, presumably because the real deal was so abundant (and I'm not talking oil).
George Washington bred sex-segregated hemp, a.k.a. that previously little known northern Mexican name made popular by William Randolph Hearst - "marijuana", the filler in the original peace pipe, the miracle herb that if you believe there is a God that made everything *proves* that there is a caring God, is the one thing that the born-again Puritans absolutely love to HATE. How dare something that is good for you also be enjoyable if taken without any pre-processing to remove the happy fun times good stuff?
Europe got rid of as many Puritans and their ilk as possible. North America is proving why this was a great idea in the long run. North American Puritans - dreading that someone, somewhere, is having a better time than they are, and trying hard to make sure nobody has fun since 1598.
Only ever witnessed people using tobacco to cut the green stuff in the UK.
That's because it's (a) expensive, and (b) the damned good stuff. You don't need a lot.
If it's going in a pipe, it'll probably go in raw, but then you're only stuffing a pea sized bit into each hit. Making an entirely 100% green joint is just a waste, doesn't get you all that much more wrecked, and half the £180-£240/oz goodness goes up into the air instead of into your lungs.
Vaping or eating the stuff though, now that's the way of the future.
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