- Below is a repost of an article published on Americans
for Safe Access website: www.safeaccessnow.org in November of
2003. The article describes how cannabinoids, the active components of
marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals and also kill
cancer cells. Then it finishes off by saying that the US government has
known for more than 35 years and that the media which would normally go
crazy about a cancer cure story like this, doesn't at all and in fact seem
to be burying the story rather than promote it in any way. I for one am
amazed at the government's stance on marijuana and their failed war on
drugs, which is more like a war on it's own country. I guess too many people
get rich off of the war on drugs.
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- by Steve Kubby, Sierra Times
- November 10th, 2003
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- A new study published in Nature Reviews-Cancer provides
an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids
counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.
-
- The study by Manuel Guzmán of Madrid Spain found
that cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth
in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways,
thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well
as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.
-
- The Guzman study is very important according to Dr.
Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis:
"Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed
normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in
the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed
cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance
so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact
heed the signals, stop dividing, and die."
-
- "But, that is not all," explains Dr. Russo:
"The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished:
they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood
vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible,
and elegant."
-
- In other words, this article explains several ways in
which cannabinoids might be used to fight cancer, and, as the article says,
"Cannabinoids are usually well tolerated, and do not produce the generalized
toxic effects of conventional chemotherapies.
- Usually, any story that even suggests the possibility
of a new treatment for cancer is greeted with headlines about a "cancer
cure" however remote in the future and improbable in fact it
might be. But if marijuana is involved, don't expect any coverage from
mainstream media, especially since mainstream editors have been quietly
killing this story for the past thirty years
-
- That's right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink
tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College
of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes 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 Washington Post reported on the 1974 study - in the
"Local" section - on Aug. 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer
Curb Is Studied," it read in part: "The active chemical agent
in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may
also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants,
a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers
"found that 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."
- "News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been
virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29,
2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine
article," complained MarijuanaNews.com editor Richard Cowan ,
who said he was only able to find the article through a link that appeared
briefly on the Drudge Report Web page. "The New York Times, The Washington
Post, and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness
is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly
brain tumors," added Cowan.
-
- On March 29, 2001, the San Antonio Current printed
a carefully researched, bombshell of a story by Raymond Cushing titled,
"POT SHRINKS TUMORS; GOVERNMENT KNEW IN '74." Media coverage
since then has been nonexistant, except for a copy of the story on
Alternet.
-
- It is hard to believe that the knowledge that cannabis
can be used to fight cancer has been suppressed for almost thirty
years , yet it seems likely that it will continue to be suppressed.
Why?
-
- According to Cowan, the answer is because it is a threat
to cannabis prohibition . "If this article and its predecessors
from 2000 and 1974 were the only evidence of the suppression of medical
cannabis, then one might perhaps be able to rationalize it in some herniated
way. However, there really is massive proof that the suppression
of medical cannabis represents the greatest failure of the institutions
of a free society, medicine, journalism, science, and our fundamental values,"
Cowan notes.
-
- Millions of people have died horrible deaths and in many
cases, familes exhausted their savings on dangerous, toxic and expensive
drugs. Now we are just beginning to realize that while marijuana has never
killed anyone, marijuana prohibition has killed millions.
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