Thread: Marijuana Myth Busters

December 27, 2007 at 20:45:40 PT
By Daniel J. DeNoon, WebMD Medical News
Source: WebMD

Web MD -- THC and another marijuana-derived compound slow the spread of cervical and lung cancers, test-tube studies suggest.
The new findings add to the fast-growing number of animal and cell-culture studies showing different anticancer effects for cannabinoids, chemical compounds derived from marijuana.

Cannabinoids, and sometimes marijuana itself, are currently used to lessen the nausea and pain experienced by many cancer patients. The new findings -- yet to be proven in human studies -- suggest that cannabinoids may have a direct anticancer effect.

"Cannabinoids' ... potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of highly invasive cancers should be addressed in clinical trials," conclude Robert Ramer, PhD, and Burkhard Hinz, PhD, of the University of Rostock, Germany.

Might cannabinoids keep dangerous tumors from spreading throughout the body? Ramer and Hinz set up an experiment in which invasive cervical and lung cancer cells had make their way through a tissue-like gel. Even at very low concentrations, the marijuana compounds THC and methanandamide (MA) significantly slowed the invading cancer cells.

Doses of THC that reduce pain in cancer patients yield blood concentrations much higher than the concentrations needed to inhibit cancer invasion.

"Thus the effects of THC on cell invasion occurred at therapeutically relevant concentrations," Ramer and Hinz note.

The researchers are quick to point out that much more study is needed to find out whether these test-tube results apply to tumor growth in animals and in humans.

Ramer and Hinz report the findings in the Jan. 2, 2008 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Note: Marijuana Ingredients Slow Invasion by Cervical and Lung Cancer Cells.

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Source: WebMD (US)
Author: Daniel J. DeNoon, WebMD Medical News
Published: December 26, 2007
Copyright: 2007 WebMD Inc.
Contact: Sswint@webmd.net
Website: http://www.webmd.com/

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74

By Raymond Cushing, AlterNet. Posted May 31, 2000.



In 1974 researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. But the DEA quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated -- until now.
The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.

Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.

The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out -- unsuccessfully -- to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."

The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.

The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats' brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none.

"Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma ... We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended."

Guzman's investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't involve live subjects.)

http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

Myth: Marijuana Kills Brain Cells. Used over time, marijuana permanently alters brain structure and function, causing memory loss, cognitive impairment, personality deterioration, and reduced productivity.

Fact: None of the medical tests currently used to detect brain damage in humans have found harm from marijuana, even from long term high-dose use. An early study reported brain damage in rhesus monkeys after six months exposure to high concentrations of marijuana smoke. In a recent, more carefully conducted study, researchers found no evidence of brain abnormality in monkeys that were forced to inhale the equivalent of four to five marijuana cigarettes every day for a year. The claim that marijuana kills brain cells is based on a speculative report dating back a quarter of a century that has never been supported by any scientific study.



Government experts now admit that pot doesn't kill brain cells. This myth came from a handful of animal experiments in which structural changes (not actual cell death, as is often alleged) were observed in brain cells of animals exposed to high doses of pot. Many critics still cite the notorious monkey studies of Dr. Robert G. Heath, which purported to find brain damage in three monkeys that had been heavily dosed with cannabis. This work was never replicated and has since been discredited by a pair of better controlled, much larger monkey studies, one by Dr. William Slikker of the National Center for Toxicological Research and the other by Charles Rebert and Gordon Pryor of SRI International. Neither found any evidence of physical alteration in the brains of monkeys exposed to daily doses of pot for up to a year. Human studies of heavy users in Jamaica and Costa Rica found no evidence of abnormalities in brain physiology. Even though there is no evidence that pot causes permanent brain damage, users should be aware that persistent deficits in short-term memory have been noted in chronic, heavy marijuana smokers after 6 to 12 weeks of abstinence. It is worth noting that other drugs, including alcohol, are known to cause brain damage.

The space occupied by people in jail for non violent drug posession should be conolidated and used to free up houses of incarceration for processing prior to deportation.

Originally Posted by Richard

The space occupied by people in jail for non violent drug posession should be conolidated and used to free up houses of incarceration for processing prior to deportation.

I absolutely agree!!

It depends on what you mean by "drug possession."

I don't think the government should expend resources arresting potheads, but I don't think people running meth labs and housing hard narcotics should be put back on the street.

About 90% of the meth in this country is coming from Mexico. Meth is a particularly nasty drug that has very bad effects on people, and as long as it can cross that border with little or no interdiction it will continue to destroy people's lives.

I don't support it's 'legalization', but I do think the laws regarding it, and other hard drugs, belong at the State level.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

About 90% of the meth in this country is coming from Mexico. Meth is a particularly nasty drug that has very bad effects on people, and as long as it can cross that border with little or no interdiction it will continue to destroy people's lives.

I don't support it's 'legalization', but I do think the laws regarding it, and other hard drugs, belong at the State level.

Yes, meth is a very, VERY destructive drug. San Diego is the meth capital of the world -- started when the military experimented with it in WWII, soldiers and sailors brought meth addiction back to the bases of SD. I have seen its effects. It can turn a very attractive young woman into a hag in short time.

I agree, though. We don't need to be "locking these people up." We need to get them to treatment facilities. They are violently ill. And we need to smash those meth labs on the border. We need the military there to confront the Mexican military bringing meth (a WMD) into our nation.

The worst thing about it is that you can make it from virtually any normal cleaning products/decongestents, which means the government wastes time creating stupid laws regulating how many boxes of over the counter Benadryl you can buy at your local pharmacy.

Originally Posted by Shapka

The worst thing about it is that you can make it from virtually any normal cleaning products/decongestents, which means the government wastes time creating stupid laws regulating how many boxes of over the counter Benadryl you can buy at your local pharmacy.

Agreed!