Pubdate: Thu, 22 Aug 2013
Source: Westword (Denver, CO)
Column: Ask A Stoner
Copyright: 2013 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.westword.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.westword.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1616
Author: William Breathes

CAN MARIJUANA CURE CANCER?

Dear Stoner: Can this hippie medicine really cure cancer, or are all 
of these activists just getting too high off their own supply?

Key Mo

Dear Key: Yes, some parts of the cannabis plant have been shown to 
kill cancer cells in certain cases - though to say outright that 
marijuana cures cancer is oversimplifying things a wee bit. We 
stoners do that sometimes.

On the one hand, there's a load of grassroots information and 
testimonials from patients who swear that concentrated cannabis oil 
has put their cancer into remission or killed it off entirely. Among 
the most wellknown is the story of Rick Simpson, who insists that his 
whole-plant extract called Phoenix Tears banished his skin cancer. He 
even has a series of online videos dubbed "Run From the Cure" to 
prove it. Simpson's not alone, though: Dozens of patients have 
similar stories. For example, four-year-old Cash Hyde gained national 
attention last year after his parents - desperate for anything to 
help save their son from advancing brain cancer - began giving him 
cannabis oil for his nausea and pain. They also claim that the oil 
helped keep tumors at bay.

Even if you don't believe in any of that "hippie medicine" stuff (and 
we're not saying we buy every claim, either), there's been some 
actual scientific research done on cannabis and cancer, and a lot of 
it is promising. Spend a half-hour browsing around the National 
Center for Biotechnology Information website (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) and 
you'll find numerous studies on how various cannabinoids have been 
shown to slow or even kill tumor growth in everything from breast 
cancer to prostate cancer to skin cancer, thanks to our body's 
natural endocannabinoids system.

At this point, all we have is anecdotal evidence and a few 
small-scale studies. But a lot of what we are seeing is very 
positive. As a bonus, trying cannabis as a treatment doesn't come 
with any of the deadly side effects of other "experimental" measures.

But simply smoking cannabis isn't going to keep anyone out of the 
oncologist's office, no matter what the guy wearing a fake weedleaf 
lei and green suit tells you outside the State Capitol on April 20. 
Phoenix Tears, for example, is most often swallowed like a pill or 
rubbed topically on tumors. And the scientific studies use specific 
cannabinoids like CBD that aren't in high concentrations in most 
strains of cannabis, and the studies themselves are done in very 
controlled environments.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom