New Study Explains
How Pot Kills Cancer Cells
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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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