Marijuana helped shrink one of the most aggressive brain cancers
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
1: http://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1535-71...
2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/18/h...
And as far as testing marijuana on cell lines, that can be problematic too. Just because something kills cancer cells doesn't mean it is a useful therapy. Alcohol would kill cancer cells but that doesn't mean it is the cure to cancer. You also have to show that it leaves healthy cells alone.
It used to be, but somebody pleaded the case that they occasionally have solid articles, so we moved it from banned outright to lightweight, which means the articles get penalized by default but various conditions can override the penalty. A lot of big media sites are in this category. It's not a perfect solution, but it works better than the alternative.
In the case of specialized technical papers that aren't in the local sweet spots such as computing, HN tends to prefer the best popular article on the subject, with the paper linked to in comments. It's not a fixed rule but it works well. For that reason, we wouldn't replace the Huffpo url with [1]. However, [2] is clearly a more original source, so we'll swap Huffpo out. Thanks!
(Submitted url was http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/18/marijuana-brain-can...)
But just because these components are present in marijuana I can almost bet that it will be reduced to an argument in the fight for legalization of smoking weed.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be legalized (perhaps it should, perhaps it shouldn't), but that it's an entirely different question.
In one paragraph they talk about treatment using of purified cannabinoids, in the next about THC isolated alone, while in the paragraph after they start talking about marijuana being classified as a Schedule I drug and then shortly after about the legalization of marijuana.
Ah. In that case, this research was already done with extracted compounds. The mice were not smoking. I'm sure that medically, if this were ever to be a treatment, it would be done through refined compounds as in the study, not by simply smoking. Medically it would be crazy to leave dosage to such an unreliable method.
As for this being used to argue in favor of smoking, well, it's a grave mistake to hold back science because somebody, somewhere, might use it to poorly argue for something. There's always some way something could be misinterpreted. Besides, per my previous point, if you want to take advantage of this smoking just isn't the way to go, and it's especially not the way to go if you're just smoking "something" with no idea how much of the relevant compounds is in it, or at least not enough of an idea. On the cost/benefit analysis, with "better brain cancer treatment" on the benefit side, potentially, I need to see some costs a great deal more significant than "somebody may use this to argue in favor of smoking pot", which "potheads" do at every available opportunity and more anyhow, before I start to worry.
Unless we finally redefine what "medically" means. "One-size-fits-all" is not necessarily the most effective way to treat medical issues, either. When it's in the context of pain relief, smoking/vaping is the easiest way for patients to manage their pain without getting "too much" or "too little" from other methods available. Medicine is starting to enter the age when solutions tailored to specific bio-chemistries are available.
he meant 'read the fucking article'
Correct. The study tested two cannabinoids isolated from marijuana, not whole-bud marijuana.
"But just because these components are present in marijuana I can almost bet that it will be reduced to an argument in the fight for legalization of smoking weed."
Well, yes, it's going to go there eventually. Pretty much all conversations about the medical efficaciousness of marijuana (or marijuana-derived compounds) bump up against the legalization topic. This is because conducting research on a substance currently deemed illegal by the federal government is very difficult. It's also because the government labels marijuana not just illegal, but a drug "...with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." (This is the 'Schedule I' classification).
Marijuana's classification in Schedule I, a category for "the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence," is ridiculous. For what it's worth, here are some drugs legally considered less dangerous, or psychologically and physically dependence-forming than marijuana: cocaine, opium, methamphetamine, oxycodone, morphine, codeine, fentanyl, Dexedrine, Adderall, Ritalin, Vicodin, Valium, Ambien, ketamine, and anabolic steroids.
"I'm not saying it shouldn't be legalized (perhaps it should, perhaps it shouldn't), but that it's an entirely different question."
Absolutely. Marijuana's legalization as a consumer item has little to no bearing on this finding, or vice versa. That said, its current medical status is in debate, and whenever a potential medical usage comes up, that topic is going to come up with it.
Surely the DEA has a mailing address to which it's possible to send relevant research papers?
Surely they read the literature?
The DEA, as a government agency, was created with the mission of eradicating drugs. They aren't really in the business of doing scientific evaluation of the drugs themselves, and I would be surprised if there are any scientists on staff, and if there are, even more surprised if they have any pull.
At any rate, the DEA doesn't set drug policy, the federal government does.
The federal governments' track record when it comes to controlling substances has not often been in line with scientific or social needs, as is evidenced by the extreme cost of the current war on drugs and the consequent negative effects on society. For example, cocaine is a refinement of cocoa which was included in things like coca-cola as a mild stimulant. When it became controlled, smuggling economics came to bear, and thus refining it into cocaine allowed for more value-per-unit-shipment in smuggling. Being more addictive, and thus worse for society, was a side effect of this. Worse, with the war on cocaine that occurred an even further refinement was done for the same economic reasons resulting in crack.
I posit that if the wellbeing of society were the primary importance for the federal government there would be no drug war, and thus no drug related violent crimes (or very few) and a lot less addiction.
English has a simple grammar to figure out, but things like this remind me why it's a difficult language to truly grok.
(I am Italian. Our government does occasionally do things like this, but at least they have to employ four paragraphs of byzantine quasi-latin, not get away with five words of non-language).
I mean, if some words are in a law that causes public expense, arrests, killings, etc. I would say it's pretty important that their meaning is set in stone and universally understood! I suppose there are problems with the US Constitution in that sense, but in this case the language used is current, not 300 years old.
Their classification of marijuana as having "no accepted medical use" is silly on its face, and I hope I adequately gave that impression in my comment. I'm not agreeing with it. I'm just pointing it out.
Unfortunately, changing the DEA's opinion is harder than just sending them the medical literature, and pointing out the contradictions in their position. This is a problem that needs to be addressed through the legislative process. (The DEA follows federal policy; it doesn't necessarily establish or alter federal policy). Fortunately, change is happening at the state level. If we reach the point where most states recognize medical uses for marijuana, then eventually, the federal government will have to cave on its hard line. Or so the thinking goes.
English is indeed a complex language, and it's also filled with the sorts of loaded terms with which lawyers have a field day. For instance, consider the word "accepted" in the phrase "accepted medical use." Accepted by whom? Who decides whether to officially "accept" a medical use? Is it the DEA? Is it the medical and scientific community? Is it the legislative branch of the federal government? Is it the judicial branch? Is it someone else? If this issue were ever to come to court, the DEA could argue that there is no "accepted" consensus. It would be a weaselly argument, but English is a fantastic language for weaselly, semantic arguments like that.
[1] http://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1535-71...
Obviously they should be researching all angles but a concentrated hash oil perhaps high in CBDs could be the solution instead of just isolating one compound.
So I disagree. It could be the marijuana alone used in oil form and not smoking it.
I do take issue with your point as there are millions of people suffering from cancer. Marijuana is a well tolerated drug used by humans for thousands of years. People are suffering right now, and every day, and most are unable to obtain marijuana to help ease symptoms or for potential cancer fighting abilities.
I don't care about recreational use. I though am upset that I have to break the law to treat my cancer and that a family member with a potential recurrence gets told, oh don't worry you likely have 8 years before your cancer metastasizes. And there's nothing you can do about it except take estrogen. Which I believes increases cellular apotosis but comes with other risks.
Correct -- has no bearing on the issue of recreational use.
Rather, and more importantly: another gentle reminder that we (as a society) need to turn our backs on the unrelenting tide of fear, misinformation, and outright deception that has characterized most discussion on the medicinal (and recreational) use of controlled substances in the public sphere for the past several decades (nearly a full century, actually) -- and back to basic science.
So, the question I ask is: Should it be illegal? And the resounding answer is 'No' because I don't believe in taking away people's freedom to do what they wish with their own bodies.
"In a paper published Friday in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapies, a team of researchers from St. George's University of London outlined the "dramatic reductions" they observed in high-grade glioma masses, a deadly form of brain cancer, when treated with a combination of radiation and two different marijuana compounds, also known as cannabinoids. In many cases, those tumors shrunk to as low as one-tenth the sizes of those in the control group."
So the tumors are being treated with radiation in the current study, as well as with cannabinoids.
"Liu and his colleagues examined mice that had been infected with glioma and subsequently treated with radiation alone or in combination with varying levels of two cannabis compounds: THC, the psychoactive compound associated with the "high" sensation, and CBD, which doesn't produce psychoactive side effects."
So far this is a study in a mouse model organism, which may or may not generalize to human patients. This is worth looking at further, but the trade-offs of safety and effectiveness for drug treatments of all kinds can often differ between human beings and mice.
Liu pointed out that while research surrounding marijuana's cancer-fighting properties is nothing new, his team is the first to document its effect on the disease when used alongside radiation. "The results showed that the final effect was superior to the sum of the parts," he said. "Hopefully, these results will support calls for formal trials in humans to test these combinations."
I strongly believe a lot of science is not done on marijuana because of the vocal critics or the fear of vocal critics. Just in the US, certain people can be pretty vindictive when it comes to their causes.
That appears to be changing for the better. The most important thing is to somehow make sure that non-physicians and non-scientists such as the DEA are removed from the decision making process (of what gets studied, and of drug scheduling).
>Just in the US, certain people can be pretty vindictive when it comes to their causes.
I hope that it isn't vindictiveness. I've always assumed that it is either an inability to sympathize, or an indifference to other peoples' suffering; also, ignorance.
McKenna was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. For the next several months he underwent various treatments, including experimental gamma knife radiation treatment. According to Wired magazine, McKenna was worried that his tumor was caused by his 35 years of smoking cannabis, although his doctors assured him there was no causal relation. -Wikipedia
If so, that would certainly complicate what I'm assuming you're implying, that McKenna's case runs counter to the [edit: findings communicated in the] HuffPo article...
Edit: Also, it's significant that the treatment in the study was a "combination of radiation and two different marijuana compounds", not simply a correlation to historical cannabis use.
The variables are different from top to bottom. Is this post meant to dispute the validity of pure form THC-BDS + irradiation as a effective treatment for brain tumors? If so, yeesh.
I recently got cancer and smoking marijuana was indispensable for dealing with treatment. And now I am using hash oil as my doctors say there is nothing I can do, no diet to eat, no exercise nor anything else I can do to reduce my chance of having the cancer come back.
Nothing.
I'm sure there will be a difference between eating McDonalds and drinking carbonated sugar water every day, and not, to how your body will respond to new cancer cells forming and spreading.
From what I've gathered, and my own experience, digestion, and healing, are on the opposite ends of the spectrum (contradictory to what common sense and common knowledge say - that you should eat more when sick).
When your body is digesting food, it's a very taxing process, and the majority of your immune system is in your intestines.
Animals and humans loose their appetite when sick for a reason, and gain it back quite well after the healing process takes hold.
Periodic sea salt flushes, and water fasting, was known to be the best course of action for many ailments before the age of medicine, and is still used today.
The biochemical changes during fasts will aid your body with taking out bad cells and damaged tissue.
In this case, smoking would be quite sensical not only because it will make you feel better. Stress is a known killer, symptoms such as nausea (and it's side effect known as 'not being able to eat') or pain increase stress. Ergo, it can be quite easily seen that there are many instances where a person would be quite sensical in choosing to smoke marijuana instead of continuing to suffer, negative side effects of smoking marijuana included.
This of course does not go into the debate of marijuana versus addictive opiates or more "traditional" forms of medication which opens up an additional set of conversation topics, many of which conclude that marijuana is more than likely to be preferred over traditional forms of Western medication.
A lot of research has been done which leans heavily against this point of view. If you want to ignore that research or pretend that it doesn't exist (or can't easily be found), that's fine, of course.
But rather that it isn't simply, as you state, "nonsensical" as form of medicine.
Terence McKenna: "There are only about 1,000 of these GBMs a year, so it's a rare disease. I never won anything before - why now?" Like everybody else, he suspected a lifetime of exotic drug use may have been to blame. [0]
[0] http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.05/mckenna_pr.html
>"Listen," McKenna told them, "if cannabis shrinks tumors, we would not be having this conversation."
That said the reason they are doing these mice trials is because there have already been several cases of it working in humans.
Vaporize then condense the resins. Apply resin to skin cancer spots sparingly.