What Your Government Knows About Cannabis And Cancer -- And Isn't Telling You
Posted June 24, 2008
| 04:20 PM (EST)
Senator Ted Kennedy is putting forward a brave face following his recent surgery but the sad reality remains. Even with successful surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy treatment, gliomas
-- a highly aggressive form of brain cancer that strikes approximately
10,000 Americans annually -- tragically claim the lives of 75 percent
of its victims within two years and virtually all within five years.
But what if there was an alternative treatment for gliomas that could
selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells intact? And
what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but
deliberately withheld this information from the public?
Sadly, the questions posed above are not entirely hypothetical. Let me explain.
In 2007, I reviewed over 150 published preclinical and clinical studies
assessing the therapeutic potential of marijuana and several of its
active compounds, known as cannabinoids. I summarized these numerous
studies in a book, now in its third edition, entitled Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review of the Scientific Literature.
(NORML Foundation, 2008) One chapter in this book, which summarized the
findings of more than 30 separate trials and literature reviews, was
dedicated to the use of cannabinoids as potential anti-cancer agents,
particularly in the treatment of gliomas.
Not familiar with this scientific research? Your government is.
In fact, the first experiment documenting pot's potent anti-cancer effects took place in 1974 at the Medical College of Virginia at the behest federal bureaucrats. The results of that study, reported in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post
newspaper feature, were that marijuana's primary psychoactive
component, THC, "slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and
a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives
by as much as 36 percent."
Despite these favorable preliminary findings (eventually published the following year in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute),
U.S. government officials refused to authorize any follow-up research
until conducting a similar -- though secret -- preclinical trial in the
mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology
Program to the tune of $2 million, concluded that mice and rats
administered high doses of THC over long periods had greater protection
against malignant tumors than untreated controls.
However, rather than publicize their findings, the U.S. government
shelved the results, which only became public after a draft copy of its
findings were leaked to the medical journal AIDS Treatment News, which in turn forwarded the story to the national media.
In the years since the completion of the National Toxicology trial, the
U.S. government has yet to authorize a single additional study
examining the drug's potential anti-cancer properties. (Federal
permission is necessary in order to conduct clinical research on
marijuana because of its illegal status as a schedule I controlled
substance.)
Fortunately, in the past 10 years scientists overseas have generously
picked up where U.S. researchers so abruptly left off, reporting that
cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells -- including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and brain cancer. (An excellent paper
summarizing much of this research, "Cannabinoids for Cancer Treatment:
Progress and Promise," appears in the January 2008 edition of the
journal Cancer Research.) A 2006 patient trial published in the British Journal of Cancer even
reported that the intracranial administration of THC was associated
with reduced tumor cell proliferation in humans with advanced
glioblastoma.
Writing earlier this year in the scientific journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, Italian researchers reiterated,
"(C)annabinoids have displayed a great potency in reducing glioma tumor
growth. (They) appear to be selective antitumoral agents as they kill
glioma cells without affecting the viability of nontransformed
counterparts." Not one mainstream media outlet reported their findings.
Perhaps now they'll pay better attention.
What possible advancements in the treatment of cancer may have been
achieved over the past 34 years had U.S. government officials chosen to
advance -- rather than suppress -- clinical research into the
anti-cancer effects of cannabis? It's a shame we have to speculate;
it's even more tragic that the families of Senator Kennedy and
thousands of others must suffer while we do.
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