Cannabis Compound Said To "Halt Cancer" 383
h.ross.perot informs us of research out of the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute suggesting that a compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer from metastasizing. Cannabidiol, or CBD, could develop into a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy some years down the road, if animal and human trials bear out its effectiveness. The article notes that smoking cannabis will not deliver significant quantities of CBD.
So smoking doesn't cut it eh? (Score:4, Informative)
CBD (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you can get CBD from smoking cannabis, but most cannabis is optimized for the best high (most abount of THC).
CBD is one of the two lesser psychoactive chemicals (CBN is the other) that THC breaks down to in the late life cycle of the cannabis plant. Most growers harvest when the plant is "ripe", when it has the most THC. If you wait a week or two after the peek harvest time, the THC will break down and have a higher percentage of CBD and CBN and a lesser percentage of THC.
Re:I volunteer (Score:2, Informative)
Brain tumors, too (Score:5, Informative)
THC selectively decreases the proliferation of malignant cells and induces cell death in human GBM cell lines. Healthy cells in the study were unaffected by THC administration.
Separate preclinical studies indicate that cannabinoids and endocannabinoids can stave off tumor progression and trigger cell death in other cancer cell lines, including breast carcinoma, prostate carcinoma, colectoral carcinoma, skin carcinoma, and pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Re:Chemotherapy (Score:5, Informative)
By your definition, ANY drug-based treatment is "chemotherapy", while the general usage (including usage by the medical profession) refers to this specific class of drug treatments.
The hacker/cracker screwup was a result of outsiders misinterpreting geek jargon. The meaning change of chemotherapy originated from the professionals *within* the medical field. Two entirely different issues.
Re:This comes up every few years (Score:5, Informative)
I don't care what you do, but until there is a viable way to get all the positive herbal healing from it, don't sound the "smoke weed to cure [blah]" horns.
It was prescribed by Queen Victoria's doctor.
It was then made illegal under false pretenses, kept illegal "pending review", and kept illegal under new false pretenses once the scientific review proved it shouldn't be illegal. No honest, free-thinking, educated person wants this to be illegal.
Re:Bad article summary! (Score:4, Informative)
The tests were unable to show which substances had caused the lung damage, but cannabis fibres were found in the tissue samples and can constitute the starting point for inflammation.(...) There were also no cases of emphysema in the control group, even though it included 74 regular smokers.
Re:I volunteer (Score:5, Informative)
What they found instead was that (IIRC) potsmokers who did not smoke tobacco had a 10% lower incidence of all cancers than nonsmokers. More striking, however, was the difference between cigarette smokers who also smoked hemp and buttheads who only smoked butts. The cancer incidence of those who smoked both marijuana and tobacco was half the number of those who only smoked cigarettes.
So your study is done, the results are that cannibis prevents cancer.
As I said, a google search for "marijuana boomer study" yielded only one hit (he he he said), to a site I'd never heard of. So I searched New Scientist and found some other interesting tidbits:
Cannabis compound reduces skin allergies in mice [newscientist.com]
Cannabis compound slows lung cancer in mice [newscientist.com]
Cannabis extract shrinks brain tumours [newscientist.com]
Cannabis can help MS sufferers [newscientist.com]
Cannabis can protect the brain from damage from stroke [newscientist.com]
So we have a substance that is non-addictive (habit forming but not addictive), non-lethal, fights cancer, helps MS sufferers, is the best anti-nausea agent known, stimulates appetite, yet it is illegal. So why is it illegal?
Because it makes you lazy and forgetful, and what's worse for our corporate overlords, makes you think. You can forget about any substance that makes you think ever being legalized; thinking is the VERY last thing your government (wherever you may live) wants you to to do.
Yes, I'm a geezer. No, I wasn't in the study. Yes, I've smoked dope. [kuro5hin.org]
-mcgrew
Re:I volunteer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bad article summary! (Score:5, Informative)
This is righteous bullshit. Allow me to elaborate:
I do advocate... (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, THC is much more soluble in fat than in EtOH. This Erowid article [erowid.org] has good information on chemically extracting THC. I don't advocate that unless you know what the fuck you are doing. You know, something more than HS chemistry. Acetone is poisonous.
Anyway, I really do advocate that you (yes, you) smoke the sensimillia till yu eyes turn red certain. A fi bun mi sensi!
Re:Bad article summary! (Score:3, Informative)
Not true. It doesn't have to be toxic, it just has to prevent the cancer from spreading for long enough for other treatments to do the killing.
THC, for instance, has been demonstrated to prevent cancer cells from creating new blood vessels to feed themselves. Metastasizing isn't even growth, it's migration, where a cancer colony sends out cells to other parts of the body.
So Vote for Ron Paul (Score:2, Informative)
In summary:
If you want to SMOKE DOPE [or think adults should be able to decide for themselves, NOT government],
vote for RON PAUL!
Re:I volunteer (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.jackherer.com/popmech.html [jackherer.com]