Marijuana as Medicine

[Moontanman]

Here is a new link on pain relief.

 

Marijuana May Be Effective For Neuropathic Pain

[Michaelangelica]

Great Article well written and worth a read.

For healthy folk who think of marijuana as getting stoned, "medical marijuana" may sound like a doper's deception. Hiatt shakes his head. His clients are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Typically, they are on disability. Many have cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease or Crohn's disease.

 

AIDS patients are using marijuana to control nausea, so they don't vomit up the 40-odd pills they have to take every day. In 2000, when a judge forbade writer and AIDS patient Peter McWilliams from using marijuana, he threw up his "AIDS cocktail," choked on his vomit and died.

 

The word "cocktail," makes Hiatt bristle. "It's not a damned cocktail. This is chemotherapy for life."

 

McWilliams had been ordered to use Marinol, a drug with one of marijuana's active ingredients. Hiatt says he has a client right now ordered by a judge to use Marinol.

 

"It makes my client really stoned, and he doesn't want that," Hiatt says. "It's expensive. It costs $10 to $20 a pill. Why use it when you can grow a house plant?"

 

Hiatt's typical client is one, like Martinez, with chronic pain. Says Hiatt, "Their doctor puts them on OxyContin, morphine, one of the opiates. Their brain is in a fog because of the opiates. They're constipated. They're miserable. They say, 'I lost my life.' Then they try marijuana. It allows them to cut their opiate dose in half. Some of them eliminate it. They feel better. Their mind is clearer. They're not constipated anymore."

 

"I've heard that story five hundred times," Hiatt says. "Because it works."

 

Hiatt estimates there are 25,000 medical-marijuana patients in Washington. The state law says they can have a 60-day supply, but since 1998 it has been up to local officials to say what that is.

chisblassternardone: The new reefer madness: arresting people in pain

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.economist.com/images/ga/2007w37/Cannabis.jpg

[Michaelangelica]

Turned-off Cannabinoid Receptor Turns On Colorectal Tumor Growth

 

ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2008) — New preclinical research shows that cannabinoid cell surface receptor CB1 plays a tumor-suppressing role in human colorectal cancer, scientists report in the Aug. 1 edition of the journal Cancer Research.

 

 

 

CB1 is well-established for relieving pain and nausea, elevating mood and stimulating appetite by serving as a docking station for the cannabinoid group of signaling molecules. It now may serve as a new path for cancer prevention or treatment.

Turned-off Cannabinoid Receptor Turns On Colorectal Tumor Growth

[Moontanman]

In the USA to allow MJ to be legal would require the government admit to loosing another war, just ain't gonna happen. I've already been warned by my doc that he will do his best to ruin my life if I test positive even though it helps my chronic pain better then the opiates he allows me to buy.

[Michaelangelica]

Medical Marijuana Users Ask For 71 Ounces

 

SEATTLE -- Many using medical marijuana said the Health Department's current amount of how much can be possessed legally is too little.

 

Currently, patients can possess 24 ounces in a 60-day period to relieve pain or nausea, but some users say the rule is too restrictive.

 

"The 24 ounces is low for the most sick in our society. Those that are eating Cannabis for cancer remission, for example, or for the pain associated with it," said medical marijuana user Muraco Kyashna-Tocha.

 

Patients said 71 ounces is how much someone who is in severe pain would have to eat to get as much active ingredients from the plants as they would from a prescription substitute called Marinol.

us: Medical Marijuana Users Ask For 71 Ounces - UK420

[Michaelangelica]

Why Cannabis Stems Inflammation

 

. . .People not only rate cannabis sativa L. highly because of its intoxicating effects; it has also long been used as a medicinal plant. Although the plant has been scrutinized for years, surprising new aspects keep cropping up. For example, researchers from ETH Zurich and Bonn University examined a component in the plant’s essential oil that until then had largely been ignored and found it to have remarkable phar- macological effects. The findings open up interesting perspectives, especially for the prevention and treatment of inflammations.

 

Completely different molecule structure

 

The hemp plant contains over 450 different substances,

Why Cannabis Stems Inflammation

[Michaelangelica]

Medicinal Marijuana Effective For Neuropathic Pain In HIV, Study Finds

 

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2008) — In a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial to assess the impact of smoked medical cannabis, or marijuana, on the neuropathic pain associated with HIV, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found that reported pain relief was greater with cannabis than with a placebo

Medicinal Marijuana Effective For Neuropathic Pain In HIV, Study Finds

[Michaelangelica]

Cannabis Culture Magazine Online

America's Never-ending Prohibition: from Reuters News

It seems only the White House and law enforcement want drug prohibition to continue

by Bernd Debusmann

 

WASHINGTON - America's alcohol prohibition lasted 13 years, filled the country's prisons, inspired contempt for the law among millions, bred corruption and produced Al Capone. What it did not do was keep Americans from drinking. America's marijuana prohibition drew into its 72nd year this month. It has created a huge underground industry catering to users, helped the U.S. prison population balloon into the world's largest, and diverted the resources of American law enforcement. What it has not done is keep Americans from using marijuana.

 

On the contrary. Since 1937, the year marijuana was outlawed, its use in the United States has gone up by 4,000 percent, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington-based lobby group which advocates regulating the drug similar to alcohol. A recent World Health Organization study of marijuana use in 17 countries placed Americans at the top of the list.

 

The 1920-1933 prohibition on the sale, production and transportation of alcohol is now seen as a dismal failure of social engineering. Will the prohibition on marijuana ever be seen in a similar light?

 

For the first time in a generation, there is a bill before Congress that would eliminate federal penalties "for the personal use of marijuana by responsible adults." But not even the congressman who introduced the bill, Democrat Barney Frank, sees bright prospects for swift passage. The last time the U.S. Congress dealt with legislation that would have decriminalized marijuana was in 1978, when a bill introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy was passed by the Senate but never got to a vote in the House.

 

The case for legalizing marijuana, the most widely used drug after alcohol and tobacco, rests on several planks - the most obvious being that prohibition simply hasn't worked despite extraordinarily labor-intensive and costly government efforts. In 2006, the last year for which figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are available, 830,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges, most of them for possession rather than trafficking.

 

That works out at a marijuana arrest every 38 seconds. A study last year estimated the cost of these arrests at $10.7 billion.

 

"This is an enormous waste of law enforcement resources that should be focused on violent and serious crime," says Allen St. Pierre, who heads the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the marijuana smokers' lobby in Washington. "With alcohol we acknowledge the distinction between use and abuse, and we focus our law enforcement on efforts to stop irresponsible use. We do not arrest or jail responsible drinkers. That should be our policy for marijuana as well."

 

The Bush administration's drug czar, John Walters, will have none of this. He talks about marijuana in terms reminiscent of the apocalyptic warnings issued by Harry Anslinger, the first head of the Bureau of Narcotics in the 1930s and a driving force behind the 1937 marijuana prohibition. Anslinger deemed marijuana "an addictive drug which induces in its users insanity, criminality and death." Walters often takes issue with "the perception that marijuana is about fun and freedom. It isn't. It's about dependency, disease and dysfunction." (For a vivid portrayal of the dysfunction Walters warns about, see a mock documentary produced for the White House Office of National Drug Policy. It is entitled Stoners in the Mist, a play on the 1988 film on mountain gorillas in the Congo.)

 

Americans who have admitted smoking marijuana at one point or another but escaped dependency, disease and dysfunction include President George W. Bush, Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senator John Kerry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Vice President Al Gore and Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for next November's presidential election.

 

Former President Bill Clinton falls into a special category. When he studied in England, away from the long reach of U.S. law, he experimented with marijuana "a time or two," he once told a television interviewer. "I didn't inhale and I didn't try again." Hollywood, conscious of a mass audience that does inhale, has produced a slew of new "stoner" movies this year. The pot-smoking protagonists include an investment banker and a medical student (Harold & Kumar), a psychiatrist (The Wackness), and a process server (Pineapple Express).

 

But sympathetic portrayals of marijuana use in popular culture do not necessarily translate into faster progress towards legalization. Government anti-drug fighters are serious in their opposition. When Barney Frank, at a news conference to explain the rationale for his bill, was asked what timeline he had in mind, he quipped: "Not soon ... but eventually, you'll see the development of a marijuana futures market." David Murray, the chief scientist in the drug czar's office who had listened to the briefing, was not amused. "It's not funny," he said, "not funny at all."

 

But not impossible either, in the long run.

 

- Article from Reuters, August 6th 2008

 

- You can contact the author at [email protected]

[Moontanman]

The powers that be in government have been pumping this stuff into each other for so long it's like talking to an echo. One claims lies and propaganda as the truth the other confirms it and tells it back to the first one he confirms it and so on. The public is so often caught in the middle of this echo chamber they either believe it too or don't know what to believe. Even people who know better engage in the Echo chamber discussion to simply avoid being ostracized from the conversation. It never ends......

[Michaelangelica]

the audio wil be at the site for four weeks. The transcript much longer

Cannabis receptors target for stroke treatment - Science Show - 25 October 2008

 

25 October 2008

Cannabis receptors target for stroke treatment

 

listen now | download audio

 

There are 2 types of stroke, one with bleeding, the other with a blood clot in the brain. When a clot blocks blood flow, there is a death of nerve cells. Over the following days and weeks, the immune system brings forth inflammation. The purpose of this is to clear any possible infection. The immune system doesn't differentiate between stroke and brain injury. Treatment is difficult. Drugs are required quickly.

 

Now, a link has been found with brain receptors for cannabis. One cannabis receptor, CB2 becomes more prevalent in the brain following an injury such as stroke. This may be a drug target for attacking the process of inflammation.

 

Echinacea, the popular herbal medicine is an immune stimulant. Some compounds have been isolated from echinacea which are similar to some of the body's own cannabonoids. It may some therapeutic effects

Cannabis receptors target for stroke treatment - Science Show - 25 October 2008

Robyn Williams: SWhere does Echinacea come into this story?

 

John Ashton: Echinacea has been around since...North American Indians used to use it for toothache to chew on it, and of course it's been used as a popular herbal medicine, and some people use it as an immune stimulant. And we know it is an immune stimulant because it is in fact contraindicated. People who are taking certain drugs, like HIV drugs, shouldn't take it.

So it's been a mystery why it works or what it does and what are the active chemical ingredients. In just the last few years a group in Switzerland have isolated some compounds from Echinacea which looked very similar in their chemical structure to some of the body's own internal cannabinoids.

These drugs, it turns out, are very selective in their activation of the CB2 receptors.

 

So you can't get high on Echinacea because it doesn't stimulate the CB1 receptor, but it may have these therapeutic effects that CB2 activation does, and it's already been shown in some pain trials that it does have analgesic effects, and now we're trying to see whether Echinacea compounds will help with neuropathic pain.

The excitement whenever you get a natural compound or a natural product extract like this is it's more straightforward to get through into the clinical development process than a completely new synthetic compound because it has been tried in people in various ways for a long time, so the toxicology safety profile of it is somewhat established and the ethics behind pushing it forward is a little bit easier. So we're quite excited about where that's going.

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2400515.htm#transcript

[Turtle]

Had to put this somewhere; fascinating discovery of ancient marijahoochy! I did not inhale & it depends on whatcha mean by 'medicine' :) :)

 

Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia -- Russo et al. 59 (15): 4171 -- Journal of Experimental Botany

The Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, China have recently been excavated to reveal the 2700-year-old grave of a Caucasoid shaman whose accoutrements included a large cache of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial conditions. A multidisciplinary international team demonstrated through botanical examination, phytochemical investigation, and genetic deoxyribonucleic acid analysis by polymerase chain reaction that this material contained tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis, its oxidative degradation product, cannabinol, other metabolites, and its synthetic enzyme, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, as well as a novel genetic variant with two single nucleotide polymorphisms. The cannabis was presumably employed by this culture as a medicinal or psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent, and contribute to the medical and archaeological record of this pre-Silk Road culture.

[Michaelangelica]

Fascinating Turtle Thanks

2,700 years !

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.waytoomany.com/pictures/529.jpg

 

 

Grazing animals seem to know what is good for them. :weather_snowing:

[Moontanman]

http://www.waytoomany.com/pictures/529.jpg

Grazing animals seem to know what is good for them:)

 

I wonder if it makes them feel better? :)

[Moontanman]

Had to put this somewhere; fascinating discovery of ancient marijahoochy! I did not inhale & it depends on whatcha mean by 'medicine' :) :hyper:

 

Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia -- Russo et al. 59 (15): 4171 -- Journal of Experimental Botany

 

Maybe this guy was just the first victim of the drug wars and was sealed up in this tomb alive with his pot as punishment!

[Michaelangelica]

Marijuana May Present Or Reverse Memory Loss In Alzheimer's

 

"Marijuana's memory paradox" from MSN reports that marijuana may provide beneficial effects for Alzheimer's patients as the ingredients in cannibis - THC may be helpful in preventing and even reversing the memory loss associated with Alzheimer's.

 

But new research suggests that one of the active ingredients in marijuana—THC—and similar compounds could possibly prevent or even reverse one of the most devastating memory disorders of all: Alzheimer's disease.

 

In a paper published in the December 2008 issue of the journal Neurobiology of Aging, researchers found that a compound that affects the same brain receptors as THC reduced brain inflammation and improved memory in older rats. (The rodents were the human equivalent of age 65 to 70.) Although there's debate over the role played by inflammation in Alzheimer's, many researchers believe it's an important part of the process that causes dementia.

PAXALLES: Marijuana May Present Or Reverse Memory Loss In Alzheimer's