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)
Re: (Score:2)
hard to estimate doseage... (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally speaking, don't just sprinkle herb on your food unless you have a high tolerance for food that tastes strongly of pot (yuck). Making olive oil (or corn oil, whatever oil you want really) is the easiest method for most people to have some good thc laced treats, and it makes some damn good enchiladas/pasta
If you're really experimental there are ways to infuse thc into alchohal for use at clubs and places where using "breath drops" would be acceptable. But that is even more of a headache than making butter. Search for "cannabis tincture" if you're so inclined. If you live in SoCal and are a MMJ patient you can buy cannabis oil, cannabis tincture, and other assorted ready made foods from your local MMJ dispensary. YMMV.
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!
Bad article summary! (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
Bad study (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (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 t
Re:Bad article summary! (Score:5, Informative)
This is righteous bullshit. Allow me to elaborate:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank the USA's 'war on drugs'! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bad article summary! (Score:4, Insightful)
In science, if something *plausible* COULD be wrong with a study, it deserves to be analyzed before the study is assumed to be rigorous. This also applies to studies on the other side, i.e. the ones which claim marijuana cures death and stops global warming. In your analogy, you can't possibly give me any plausible evidence that my parents killed JFK. I pointed out a rather common methodological flaw (check the literature) with using self-reporting in smoked marijuana studies.
Would you say there's an honest culture of information about cannabis in the United States? I wouldn't. I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'd be all for a campaign to educate people on the safe use of marijuana. In the Netherlands, most coffee shops stock a vaporizer and a lot of Dutch people I've talked to would prefer to use a vaporizer. Ultimately, people will probably still smoke cannabis because of the social bonding aspect, but they should be educated about the alternatives. After that, it's a choice you make for yourself.
In case you were NOT being sarcastic, here are some websites that advocate safe marijuana use:
safer choice [saferchoice.org], regulate [regulatemarijuana.org], marijuana uses [marijuana-uses.com] (not really an organization, but an emeritus harvard professor who's studying the positive uses of marijuana)
Re: (Score:2)
I volunteer (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad I don't have breasts
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because most men don't know that they could get breast cancer, it tends to not be noticed until it is in an advanced state, and has likely already spread beyond the breast tissue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
According to the doctor, if you don't get it treated in time, the pain will never go away, and you'll be on pain killers for the rest of your life to deal with the pain.
That's true for any sort of pain. I had ACL replacement surgery 3 weeks ago and was given oxycontin and oxycodone to take. I told the doc I didn't want to take them because I hate pain meds and I have a fairly high pain tolerance anyways. He insisted I follow his plan for at least 3 days because he said the same thing about the pain. If you let it go too long and don't stay ahead of it, you may never get it to go away. Let me just say, I hated the feeling I got from the oxycontin, but it does works as
Re:I volunteer (Score:4, Insightful)
I *heart* slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a small amount of breast tissue found in men, and cancer does sometimes develop there. It's nowhere near as common as in women, though.
(IANAD but my g/f is a therapeutic radiographer)
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:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It was something along the lines of 51% of the vote=2 years before re-eval, 65% of the vote =4 years before re-eval, 80% of the vote = 8 years before re-eval, unanimous=permanent unless some new law overturns it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.jackherer.com/popmech.html [jackherer.com]
Re:I volunteer (Score:5, Insightful)
People will quote the special interests against it, but there's a bigger reason that dominates them all, and makes racism and the chemical company lobby fade into the background. That reason is: attitude about government.
Americans still overwhelmingly think the purpose of government is to implement whatever good ideas come up, and solve our problems. That's why this particular article is political: people are talking about the presence of useful compounds inside the plant. People talk about how harmful it is, how harmful it isn't, etc, as though the utility of the plant, or its side-effects, actually matter.
As long as you engage in discussion of the merits (or lack of merits) of the plant, in the context of whether or not it should be illegal, you lose. There will always be arguments against anything, whether its heroin or hydrogen hydroxide, that the material is harmful to the user. There's nothing on this earth that is provably safe.
The debate should always be about who owns people, not the decisions that the owner makes. Is it the government's decision on what people should ingest, or the people's decision? People, stop citing the plant's advantages, and start talking about the real political issues. Don't ask "why is this illegal?" Ask, "How is does local gardening fall under the intent of the 'interstate commerce' clause?" Ask, "Why do voters in Texas have a say in Vermont citizens' health?"
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
A despair sometimes...
A teen lesbian orgy.. that would be NSFW... but breasts? Ever been outsite on a saturday night?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I volunteer (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But... (Score:5, Funny)
OMG! Afghanistan is going to be Pharma Capital! (Score:2)
Kabul, shlabool (Score:2, Funny)
No cancer save
Head southeast, fool:
Burma Shave
Re: (Score:2)
Chemotherapy (Score:3, Interesting)
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: (Score:2)
And that definition would be correct. The term "chemotherapy" was to differentiate it from other forms of treatment (radiation, surgery), not to specify the specific drug used.
This would be a new drug for chemotherapy.
Re: (Score:2)
Um...why do you stutter when you type?
Free Clue: chemotherapy is used to refer to many medical treatments for issues other than cancer. Yes, taking an aspirin a day to prevent heart attacks IS chemotherapy.
Free Clue Number Two: Wikipedia is written by amateurs.
Re: (Score:2)
Less talk, more action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I heard once...
Makes sense to me. A little splash of bleach and that pe
Re: (Score:2)
Makes sense to me. A little splash of bleach and that petri dish won't have any live cells in it. Yet bleach is NOT suitable for internal use.
Chemotherapy works in pretty much the same way. You pump what is basically a fairly nasty cell toxic into the body and hope it kills the cancerous cells faster than it kills the rest of the body (I did simplify a bit).
Sometimes you have to try several combinations to find the one that targets your particular strain best. You still kill quite a few regular cells though.
It's a bit of a flamethrower vs. fly approach but, well, flamethrowers do work against fly s dont'ya know ?
Well, sometimes they do. Didn't
Re: (Score:2)
I remember a few years ago that the FDA changed their chemotherapy drug approval requirements. It used to be that all a drug had to do was show a certain statistical probability that it'd reduce tumor sizes.
The rule adjustment was that it would now have to either show better tumor reduction f
Estimating Risk (Score:5, Insightful)
References:
NCI budget [cancer.gov]
Cost of Iraq war [msn.com]
cancer deaths [forbes.com]
false dichotomy (Score:3, Insightful)
we don't. we think it's valuable to our security to get rid of saddam hussein and democratize iraq. is that right? is it wrong? certainly, it could be the stupidest thing the usa has ever done
but therefore, you need to defeat the money spent on that operation based on that rationale alone, within the confines of the merits or lack thereof of that operation by itself
but comparing the money spent on that to money to be spent on some
Re: (Score:2)
we could spend that money on ... healthcare for the middle class
Doesn't it boggle one's mind to think that we're in such a weird state that the middle class can't even make it without help from the government??
If you need government hand-outs to pay for healthcare, why are you middle class at all? If you're on welfare, are you not poor?
Personally, I think that we need to figure out how to cut the cost of healthcare, not inflate it by throwing supply money at it...
we need socialized medicine - universal healthcare (Score:2, Insightful)
even from just a callow economic point of view, in terms of the cost of preventive care (what you get with socialized medicine) versus the costs of emergency care, it is cheaper
what is the system we have now? a more
Re:we need socialized medicine - universal healthc (Score:2)
If you think our current government can manage a healthcare system, I invite you to study the mess that Medicare has become, a
flat out wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
i am not stumping for universal healthcare as some sort of nirvana, i am saying it is the less worse of two evils
all of the negatives you can throw at me about universl ahealthcare, i agree with you 100%
and it's still better than what we have now
Re:we need socialized medicine - universal healthc (Score:4, Interesting)
And how is that different than the current system? You are already "playing the lotto" that your HMO won't declare your cancer "a pre-existing condition" or the treatment that you need is "experimental".
What good is a cure for cancer if your HMO won't pay for it and you can't afford it?
Re: (Score:2)
Except, your facts are wrong. We spend about 200 billion a year on cancer. You don't include private enterprise. There is a reason health care is so expensive and cancer is among the top reasons why. The average cost per cancer treatment is over a million dollars per patient. Multi
Re: (Score:2)
--G
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Well, fuck 'em. Some things are more important than money. Human life is priceless.
-uso.
Re: (Score:2)
However, 8-10 years to develop a drug AFTER the pre-clinical work that identifies a compound you think might do some good. Hearing about these breakthroughs is cruel because the media talks about what's happening in vitro or in animal testing. The odds of any one compound making it all the way to approval are very low. Maybe it has unacceptable side effects (and yes I read that they say the compound is non-toxic. We'll see), maybe the drug
Since when is 'but I want it now' +5, Insightful ? (Score:2)
attention all researchers: you have been warned. from here on out it's all or nothing. no scientific method. no peer review. no journals. no conferences. no progress. we demand immediate and absolute salvation.
> It's hard to be patient when people you care about are sick or dying.
and we all know that if something is hard then you simply shouldn't have to do it, right?
What form of Cannabidiol (Score:2, Interesting)
They say that smoking it would not yield much cannabinol. What of long time marijuana users, surely they would have build up cannabinol in their bodies.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Common sense states that your average pot smoker smokes a lot less pot than your average cigarette smoker smokes cigarettes, so there's a starting point. Further, a LOT of chemicals are used in the manufacture of your typical cigarette.
There are a ton of starting points for reasonable research to be done, but alas, it won't be any time soon. Without doing research unfortunately, we simply can no
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
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.
ohru. (Score:4, Funny)
--Cancer free since 1998.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a challenge to me!
I see the article's authors never met my friends.
-mcgrew [kuro5hin.org]
Does this mean it's time to celebrate? (Score:2, Funny)
Are you sure? Or are you blowing smoke. (Score:2)
Yeah, right. You probably said this just to keep the FEDS off your back. I mean after all, we cannot have research show that smoking pot is even in the remotest good for you. The status quo multi million dollar drug enforcement empire need to be kept in place.
It doesn't kill cancer... (Score:4, Funny)
unpatentable: don't hold your breath (Score:4, Interesting)
that's bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
what the pharma companies do is substitute a methyl group for a hydrogen somewhere, or mix the chemical with some other chemical, patent that, and call it vastly superior, even if it isn't
just look at celebrex: it's just an NSAID. nothing that aspirin can't handle. but they modified the chemical slightly, patent that, the effects are slightly different, but the slight effects are relabelled massive and brilliant improvements in function, and you have
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the big pharmaceutical companies are scum sucking patent feeders. But that's not the only way to go.
Re: (Score:2)
But Cannabis is BAD (Score:5, Funny)
Marijuana cannot be used to stop cancer. Stopping cancer is good, and marijuana is bad; therefore marijuana cannot logically be used to stop cancer. It's a basic fact!
Why are you promoting the use of this evil drug, when you know that it can only be used for bad not for good. Do you want children to smoke marijuana, and destroy their lives? Do you want them to commit murder and rape so they can feed their evil habits? Do you want them to think that bad things are good? That's just wrong!
We need to defend our children and society from the scourge of drugs. Breast cancer is bad, but that does not mean we should use evil to fight it. Instead, I propose setting up a breast cancer awareness group where people can discuss how breast cancer has affected their lives. That's a real solution to this problem.
We can hold meetings at the local bar, so people have a few drinks and a smoke afterwards.
Re: (Score:2)
High CBD content != good pot (Score:2)
What if you were to smoke hemp?
CBD is believed to be the compound in pot responsible for the sedative effect, as opposed to THC, which is responsible for the "mind expanding" psychedelic effects. High levels of CBD are common in strains grown for fiber or seed, which are not particularly fun to smoke. At best, you just get tired. At worst, you cough up a lung....:)
slashdot delivers (Score:4, Funny)
Smashing.
drugsarebad (Score:4, Funny)
The animal tests would be so cool (Score:2)
Kid on a field trip: "Haha, look at that rat smoking a dubie!"
Tour guide: "Thats medical research son, thats what we get paid to do."
Kid: "I know what I want to be when I grow up!"
one of the side effects of heavy pot use (Score:2)
so this seems like a problem that takes care of itself:
1. smoke pot
2. grow boobs
3. get boob cancer
4. smoke more pot
5. cure boob cancer
if this logic seems a little hazy to you, well, you're right. it's called stoner logic
now if you will excuse me
(puff puff)
Natural Selection.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a thought, but I wonder if it could be possible that humans are genetically disposed to loving cannabis? It has been a commonly used plant for a long, long time. The seeds have been used as food and seem to have the perfect balance of essential fats. Now it seems we've discovered it suppresses certain forms of common cancer. Certainly, there are people who abuse themselves with it, but maybe we want them to. In my experience, the people who overuse pot are the same people who have trouble restraining many of their impulses. One of my room mates seemed to actually became a human when he was high... otherwise he was intolerable. By taking these people's pot away, we don't make them better people, just angrier.
Another thing to note is that, while cannabis is illegal now, if we are genetically disposed to love it, cannabis will win the legal battle eventually no matter what the logic for it's legalization is. People legalize things they love and suppress the things they hate ignoring all logic in the process. You can't fight your nature. :)
Re: (Score:2)
It'll never be legal (in the States) (Score:3, Insightful)
I high school (circa 1977), at least 70% of the kids smoked regularly or occasionally.
25% didn't care if anyone smoked it and only 5% were against it. (These numbers are all personal observation so take with a grain of salt.) The point is -- I was a geek, I occasionally did imbibe, I didn't care if anyone else smoked all day long.
Fast forward a couple decades. Those same pot-heads are now republicans and swear that they never, ever smoked pot. In fact they believe it is immoral to do so. And anyone who does should be thrown in jail. Amazing how raising kids changes your perspective.
I believe that alcohol is far worse than pot to your body and to society as a whole. BTW, I quit smoking pot years ago, but that doesn't mean you should.
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: (Score:2, Troll)
In the case of MS they found that yes it helped with pain but over time it worsened some symptoms such as balance and cognitive skills. I'm glad we're looking at herbal and holistic compounds for cures but I'm tired of a "cure" being offered when it really isn't.
Cue the tin foil hats about how this is a conspiracy from the government/Big Pharms.
Re:This comes up every few years (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You probably don't have a vested interest in tobacco production, pharmaceutical research, nutritional supplements, petroleum production/distribution, cloth manufacture... etc.
There you go, bringing your silly "facts" into the argument again. It's bad! End of discussion.
Re: (Score:2)
That's overgeneralizing a bit. Only a few denominations use wine for sacrament. Most denominations (mainly the Protestants and Evangelicals, as scary as they are) are much more hard-lined on this: Alkie is bad, so wine at communion doubly so. I've even heard pastors who rail against the Orthodoxy because, ooh, they dri
Re: (Score:2)
-mcgrew [kuro5hin.org]
PS- Marijuana laws themselves lead to harder drugs! Often the folks selling pot also sell other drugs; I remember when Reagan started his "WO(s)D" the pot supply dried up. "No, man, it's dry. Want some coke?" Then there are unscrupulous dealers who will take shitweed and spice it up with crack, heroin, PCP, downers, you name it. If you could buy it at the liquor store it would NOT lead to harder drugs.
G.W.'s diary reportedly said "nothing settles the evening
Re: (Score:2)
And while marijuana is stuck in Schedule I along with heroin and LSD, the DEA has placed pure THC (the pharmaceutical equivalent of hash oil!) in Schedule III. You see, corporations cannot patent a plant(yet), but they can isolate an active ingredient and make a patentable pill out of it. And sell it for far more than an equivalent amount of pot would cost.