According to a paper published in the Journal of Opioid Management in 2009, more than 15,000 peer-reviewed scientific and medical studies of cannabis were published world-wide between 1960 and mid-2008. A number of those studies showed that cannabis can be an effective treatment for a variety of different medical conditions such as glaucoma, muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis, neuropathic and other kinds of pain, nausea, weight loss in wasting syndrome and several psychological conditions including PTSD and Tourette syndrome. Others showed that compounds found in cannabis may prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV-related dementia, and may limit neurological damage in strokes and trauma. This month, we will look at some of the evidence supporting the use of cannabis to treat pain.
Recent studies (the earliest documented use of cannabis as an analgesic was in China some 2,800 years BCE ) have demonstrated the efficacy of cannabis in alleviating acute pain resulting from chemical exposure, mechanical injury such as surgery, and burns. Other studies have shown that cannabinoids are very effective treatments for chronic neuropathic pain and pain caused by inflammation such as those associated with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. Cannabis has also been found to be an effective treatment for migraine headaches and to enhance the effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and opiate pain medications.
In addition to its remarkable effectiveness in relieving a variety of different kinds of pain, two other factors make cannabis a particularly good treatment option: its incredible safety and low toxicity. There has never been a verified report of a death due to a cannabis overdose in its more than 4,000 years of use as a medicine. The same cannot be said of narcotic pain medicines, nor can it be said of prescription and over-the-counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications. Deaths from opiate overdoses rose nearly 97 percent between 1997 and 2002, to more than 12,000 a year in American metropolitan areas. Today, some nine years later, narcotic overdoses are the second leading cause of accidental death in the United States, just behind traffic accidents, according to the CDC. Furthermore, in the late 1990s a conservatively estimated 16,500 patients with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis were thought to have died each year from the effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications, according to the June, 1999 New England Journal of Medicine. That number has continued to rise each year since then. Given these kinds of statistics, maybe cannabis deserves more than a just a fleeting glance as a treatment option for pain.
Please join us again next month as we continue to explore the use of cannabis as a treatment for a variety of different medical conditions.
Alan Shackelford, M.D., graduated from the University of Heidelberg School of Medicine and trained at major teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School in internal medicine, nutritional medicine and hyperalimentation and behavioral medicine. He is principle physician for Intermedical Consulting, LLC and Amarimed of Colorado, LLC and can be contacted at Amarimed.com.
Marijuana can be used to treat really advanced stage brain cancer according to a recent scientific study by scientists of the Complutense University, Spain. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is highly resistant to current anticancer treatments, which necessitates finding of new therapeutic strategies to improve the poor prognosis of patients suffering from this disease.
Medical Marijuana Plant
It was discovered that Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is an active ingredient of marijuana as well as other cannabinoid receptor agonists, inhibits tumor growth in animal models of cancer, including glioma. This particular effect relies partly on the stimulation of autophagy-mediated apoptosis in tumor cells. Thus the combined administration of THC and temozolomide (TMZ; the benchmark agent for the management of GBM) produces a strong anti-tumoral action in glioma xenografts. This effect is also observed in tumors that are resistant to TMZ treatment.
Administration of submaximal doses of THC and cannabidiol (CBD (a plant-derived cannabinoid that also induces glioma cell death through a mechanism of action different from that of THC) remarkably reduces the growth of glioma xenografts. Treatment with TMZ and submaximal doses of THC and CBD produces a strong antitumoral action in both TMZ-sensitive and TMZ-resistant tumors.
Abovementioned findings by investigators at Complutense University in Spain prove that the combined administration of TMZ and cannabinoids could be thus therapeutically exploited for the management of GBM. The combined administration of THC and the pharmaceutical agent temozolomide (TMZ) therefore establishes strong anti-cancer activity in brain tumors which become resistant to conventional anti-cancer treatments.
The authors of these investigations have accordingly derived that the administration of THC in combination with TMZ “enhanced autophagy” (programmed cell death) in malignant tissue. According to them, “The combined administration of THC, CBD, and TMZ remarkably reduced the growth of glioma xenografts … [and] produced a strong antitumoral action in both TMZ-sensitive and TMZ-resistant tumors. Altogether, our findings support that the combined administration of TMZ and cannabinoids could be therapeutically exploited for the management of GBM (gliobastoma multiforme).”
Earlier in the year 2006 a study was published in the British Journal of Cancer. This study had reported that the intra-tumoural administration of THC is associated with reduced tumor cell proliferation in two out of nine human subjects with GBM (which is highly resistant to conventional anti-cancer treatments).
Separate preclinical studies which assessed the anti-cancer activity of cannabinoids and endocannabinoids also show that these substances can inhibit the proliferation of various types of cancerous cells which includes breast carcinoma, prostate carcinoma, colorectal carcinoma, gastric adenocarcinoma, skin carcinoma, leukemia cells, neuroblastoma, lung carcinoma, uterus carcinoma, thyroid epithelioma, pancreatic adenocarcinoma, cervical carcinoma, oral cancerbiliary tract cancer and lymphoma.
These studies have proved beyond doubt that marijuana ingredient THC is set to play a major role in combating GBM that has already become resistant to conventional anti-cancer drugs. Indeed a ray of new hope for the cancer patients!
The infamous marijuana bears of British Columbia have woken after their winter hibernation, and they have the munchies — but they seem to be weaning themselves off dog food, according to the man who was once feeding them $100 of kibbles a day.
Allen Piche of Christina Lake, B.C., pleaded guilty in March to feeding the roughly two dozen wild black bears on his remote property after the B.C. Conservation Service last summer charged him and ordered him to stop, reports CBC News. Piche was charged after police found the mellow bears when they raided a marijuana grow operation on his property last August.
Initially there was speculation the bears might be guarding the cannabis crop, but Piche denied that.
Allen Piche: “I’m counting on the bears to do the right thing. So far, they have.”
He was allowed to continue feeding the bears until they went into hibernation, but was ordered not to feed them when they woke up in the spring. If the bears couldn’t kick their dog foot habit, they might have to be shot, conservation officers said.
Most of the bears did come back to his remote property this spring, according to Piche, but once they figured out he wasn’t going to feed him, they left.
“I’ve had 80 percent of the bears come and now 80 percent are gone,” Piche said. “I’m counting on the bears to do the right thing. So far, they have.”
However, Piche said he is worried that the bears might come back this summer; they tend to return in early July after mating.
Piche, who describes himself as an “aging hippie,” said his former partner began feeding the bears, and he carried on when she was warned to stop because the bears kept returning.
The feeding continued for years until Piche was visited by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police last summer. RCMP officers arrested him and three others for allegedly tending a large outdoor marijuana growing operation.
That’s when the bears came ambling out of the forest and nuzzled up to police officers. One even sat on a police cruiser for awhile.
Piche has pleaded not guilty to the cannabis cultivation charge.
A 125-year-old woman, said to be one of the oldest women in India, died at her home in Orissa, her family said Sunday. Fulla Nayak claimed that smoking cannabis every day was her secret to long life.
Fulla Nayak, a resident of Kanarpur village in the coastal district of Kendrapada, died of old age complications Saturday.
According to her 72-year-old grandson, Fulla was 125. But as per a voter photo identity card issued by the government in 1995 she was 120 years.
The grand old woman lived in a small mud-walled thatched house in Kanarpur, about 25 km from the district headquarters. She is survived by two of her four daughters and around two dozen relatives.
Her eldest daughter, Jamuna, 92, lives in the same village. Her husband died at the age of 50.
Fulla was in the news when her grandson Narayan Nayak claimed last week that she could be the oldest woman living in the world. He had said that he would write to the Guinness book authorities to record the claim.
Fulla was known for her love of smoking ganja and cigars and palm juice. She also loved steaming hot tea.
She had never suffered any debilitating ailment throughout her life. Except for her weak eyesight, Fulla maintained good health and used to walk without support.
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According to a paper published in the Journal of Opioid Management in 2009, more than 15,000 peer-reviewed scientific and medical studies of cannabis were published world-wide between 1960 and mid-2008. A number of those studies showed that cannabis can be an effective treatment for a variety of different medical conditions such as glaucoma, muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis, neuropathic and other kinds of pain, nausea, weight loss in wasting syndrome and several psychological conditions including PTSD and Tourette syndrome. Others showed that compounds found in cannabis may prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV-related dementia, and may limit neurological damage in strokes and trauma. This month, we will look at some of the evidence supporting the use of cannabis to treat pain.
