"THC Acts In Ways That Counter The Cancer-Causing Chemicals In Marijuana Smoke"

[Gold9472]

Pot not a major cancer risk: report

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051026/hl_nm/pot_cancer_dc

(Gold9472: Need I go to Dr. Guzman's study (http://www.fluxview.com/library/health/Guzman-Cancer-nrc1188.pdf)?)

By Amy Norton Wed Oct 26,12:29 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although both marijuana and tobacco smoke are packed with cancer-causing chemicals, other qualities of marijuana seem to keep it from promoting lung cancer, according to a new report.

The difference rests in the often opposing actions of the nicotine in tobacco and the active ingredient, THC, in marijuana, says Dr. Robert Melamede of the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

He reviewed the scientific evidence supporting this contention in a recent issue of Harm Reduction Journal.

Whereas nicotine has several effects that promote lung and other types of cancer, THC acts in ways that counter the cancer-causing chemicals in marijuana smoke, Melamede explained in an interview with Reuters Health.

"THC turns down the carcinogenic potential," he said.

For example, lab research indicates that nicotine activates a body enzyme that converts certain chemicals in both tobacco and marijuana smoke into cancer-promoting form. In contrast, studies in mice suggest that THC blocks this enzyme activity.

Another key difference, Melamede said, is in the immune system effects of tobacco and marijuana. Smoke sends irritants into the respiratory system that trigger an immune-regulated inflammatory response, which involves the generation of potentially cell-damaging substances called free radicals. These particles are believed to contribute to a range of diseases, including cancer.

But cannabinoids -- both those found in marijuana and the versions found naturally in the body -- have been shown to dial down this inflammatory response, Melamede explained.

Another difference between tobacco and marijuana smoking, he said, has to do with cells that line the respiratory tract. While these cells have receptors that act as docks for nicotine, similar receptors for THC and other cannabinoids have not been found.

Nicotine, Melamede said, appears to keep these cells from committing "suicide" when they are genetically damaged, by smoking, for instance. When such cells do not kill themselves off, they are free to progress into tumors.

THC, however, does not appear to act this way in the respiratory tract -- though, in the brain, where there are cannabinoid receptors, it may have the beneficial effect of protecting cells from death when they are damaged from an injury or stroke, according to Melamede.

All of this, he said, fits in with population studies that have failed to link marijuana smoking with a higher risk of lung cancer -- though there is evidence that pot users have more respiratory problems, such as chronic cough and frequent respiratory infections.

If marijuana does not promote lung cancer, that could factor into the ongoing debate over so-called medical marijuana. Melamede said he believes "marijuana has loads of medicinal value," for everything from multiple sclerosis, to the chronic pain of arthritis, to nausea caused by cancer treatment.

U.S. government officials, however, maintain that the evidence for medical marijuana is not there. Ten states allow people to use marijuana with a doctor's prescription, but the Supreme Court has ruled that federal law trumps state law.

SOURCE: Harm Reduction Journal, October 18, 2005.

[Gold9472]

This letter was sent to every elected official in the United States (that I could get an email address for)... It was written mostly by Uber Commandante, but the Cancer research was written by me... It's a very educational letter...

Dear Representative,

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this rather lengthy email. I hope that it helps to educate, and motivate you to do what is right. Too many people are suffering when they don't have to, and the current administration is making every effort to arrest people that are just trying to get by.

My reasoning for this email stems from the fact that my grandfather, ***** ****, passed away 3 years ago from Pancreatic Cancer. Just recently, I found that In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute 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. In February 2000, researchers in Madrid reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.

Knowing this today, I'm infuriated by the fact that my grandfather had to suffer when the possibility existed that he didn't have to.

There are a couple of arguments that I think should be separated; most notably the distinction between industrial hemp and marijuana, which I will tackle first.

The DEA's current arguments for the continued prohibition of industrial hemp are 1) that it contains trace levels of THC, and 2) that it would be impossible to tell the difference between hemp farms and marijuana farms, and therefore, in order to continue the prohibition of marijuana, it is also necessary to outlaw hemp.

It is true that hemp and marijuana are both Cannabis sativa; however the important thing to acknowledge is that they are distinctly different cultivars. For the past 3000 years they have been bred for different purposes: Marijuana has been bred for large flowers, while hemp has been bread for long stalks. Marijuana cultivars need several feet of square feet per plant (when grown outdoors) to ensure enough sunlight for the flowers. Hemp on the other hand, is grown with dozens of plants per square foot. This intensive planting makes the individual plants grow tall and lanky, with few branches, in order to compete for sunlight. In addition, the flowers of a hemp cultivar are nearly non-existent; I have seen both types up close (hemp farm in Nova Scotia, Canada, and various indoor/outdoor marijuana plants), and one cannot mistake hemp for marijuana. This is analogous with saying that the DEA cannot distinguish between a Beagle and a Great Dane, which of course are both Canis familaris.

Another argument is that it would be easy to hide marijuana plants among hemp plants – again, because of the plant/square foot requirements this would not be as easy as it may sound. Indeed, you could grow a pot plant in a hemp field, but it would be drastically inferior due to constant struggle for sunlight, nutrients, and water. As it is, people are currently hiding pot plants in corn fields.

As to the THC argument, the weakest marijuana strain contains ~ 3% THC, while the average hemp plant contains ~.05% THC. Its true, hemp contains trace THC, but it is not true that you can get ‘high’ from it. There are inexpensive tests to ensure this.

What is VERY interesting, is the origin of hemp/marijuana prohibition. Prior to 1937 neither cultivar was illegal, but the marijuana tax act of 1937 made ALL variations of Cannabis Sativa to expensive to grow (though not technically illegal – that would follow later after an onslaught of racists newspaper reports, and outright lies perpetrated by lumber and newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and the US Commissioner of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger).

Oddly enough, 1937 was also the year that George Schlichten patented his ‘decorticating machine’ which was the first machine to efficiently separate the hemp fiber from the stalk; an advance that prompted the February 1938 issue of ‘Popular Mechanics’ to declare hemp the ‘First Billion Dollar Industry, due to its ability to compete with the petrochemical and lumber industries for the manufacturing of textiles, fuel, and treeless paper. Ironically, although the issue was written prior to the act, it was not published until several months after the act was in place. I have attached a scan of the article, and in the web sites listed below you can read of many of the environmental aspects of this crop.

Personally speaking, given that alcohol and cigarettes are legal, I feel that this is the true reason for the prohibition of Cannabis Sativa. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I believe this was the first or last time industrial lobbyists have affected political change for their benefit.

As this letter is already more lengthy then I intended, I will try to keep my arguments for the legalization of marijuana short.

Suffice it to say that, medicinally, thousands of people around the world have offered experiential evidence that it works to alleviate their suffering. In fact, THC is proven to reduce swelling in glaucoma patients, reduce nausea in chemotherapy and AIDS patients allowing them to eat, and to decrease the chronic pain that many people suffer with daily for a number of reasons. I will not judge them. If it works for them, and it is not hurting anyone, then what is the harm? One of the most common arguments is as follows:

“Everyone knows that like cigarettes, combustion of the lungs, no matter what is being smoked, greatly increases the risk of lung cancer. Since marijuana smoke is thicker than cigarette smoke, the chances of getting lung cancer or brain damage is a serious risk, not to be taken lightly”.

This may be true, but it doesn’t acknowledge alternative ways of consuming marijuana via orally or through a device known as a ‘vaporizer’. A vaporizer will heat the plant material to 400 degrees Fahrenheit; not hot enough to combust the dried flower, but enough to turn the THC resin into a gas and then run through a cooling mechanism to be inhaled.

I am not an advocate of a national pot smoking orgy – but neither am I an advocate of legislation that depends on obfuscation and logical chicanery to make its arguments. In the trial of Ed Rosenthal, a man who was deputized and hired by the city of Oakland to grow medicinal marijuana, the judge refused to let the jury know that this was the case. They were only allowed to know that he was a man growing a lot of pot. That was it. He was convicted, and after the conviction when the jury was informed by the media of who he was, the jury came forward as a whole and publicly apologized to Rosenthal. Fortunately, a fair-minded California judge who criticized the federal government for interfering with a law that was passed with the majority of voters on a ballot initiative only sentenced Rosenthal to time served: one day. Enter Ed Rosenthal in any search engine for the full story.

These are the types of ‘strategies’, as well as the DEA hemp arguments above, that start the alarm bells ringing in one’s head. If the federal government’s stance was based on reason then the Truth could stand on its own. But since it is NOT based on reason, then they must use alternative means to twist the arguments.

The last point I would like to make is the notion that pot makes you lazy. I would like to remind you that we live in a nation where the average American watches 8 hours of television every day!! If sitting on a couch staring at a TV doesn’t make one lazy, then I don’t know what does. As well, I am familiar with many well-educated, motivated, intelligent, creative, and family-oriented individuals who make marijuana one aspect of their lives; Business owners, artists, salespeople, social workers, etc. They are not drop-outs, they are not 30 or 40 year olds with the brain of a 5 year old (despite sometimes decades of smoking) and they are definitely NOT lazy.

I have no doubt that there are people who abuse marijuana. But I cannot see that alone as a reason to prohibit it for all. If the abuse of something by some were the ONLY criteria for prohibition, there really would not be much out there that was legal.

If any of these arguments pique your interest in the topic, I have included a short resource list.

RESOURCE LIST:

"The Emperor Wears No Clothes" - Jack Herer. This is a fully documented book regarding the origins of marijuana/hemp illegality. It also takes the unusual step of adding photocopies of actual documents regarding this issue, so that you don't have to look elsewhere for the footnote sources (although you can if you like)

Web sites:

HEMP
• http://www.hempcar.org
• http://www.naihc.org/ (North American Industrial Hemp Council)

MEDICINAL MARIJUANA
• http://www.mpp.org/medicine.html

GENERAL
• www.mpp.org (marijuana policy project – where you can read White House commissioned reports recommending the decriminalization of marijuana)
• www.norml.com
• www.cannabisculture.com

I hope that these arguments shed some more light on a topic that has spent too many decades stuffed in a closet in order to line the pockets of the few.

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.
Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives

"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear to me than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use. . . . Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana."

President Jimmy Carter
Speech delivered to Congress August 2nd, 1977

Sincerely,

Gold9472

[ThotPolice]

Good news!!
:weed2: :bong1: :rauch08: :smokeup: :smilie-ha :lach019:

[Gold9472]

Good news!!
:weed2: :bong1: :rauch08: :smokeup: :smilie-ha :lach019:

Unfortunately, it's not really "new" news...

[Gold9472]

Ya know... that was a damn good letter Uber... now write a 9/11 one. :)

[ThotPolice]

Really? Just suppressed?

Everything I’ve read suggests that the actual burning of anything is carcinogenic from french fries to pot leaves, when consumed. Plus the tar is at a much higher % in pot.

It is new news to me, and good because I happen to be high right now.



Did I type that out loud?

[Gold9472]

Really? Just suppressed?

Everything I’ve read suggests that the actual burning of anything is carcinogenic from french fries to pot leaves, when consumed. Plus the tar is at a much higher % in pot.

It is new news to me, and good because I happen to be high right now.

Did I type that out loud?

I was referring to the fact that THC has been known to decrease, and in some cases eliminate cancerous tomers in rats... in other words... THC should be SERIOUSLY looked at in regards to cancer research...

Yes you did.

[Gold9472]

Here's a book I HIGHLY recommend... it was written by Jack Herer, and is considered the "Marijuana Bible".

Click Here (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4423)

You will see A LOT of similarities between the "War On Drugs", and the "War On Terror". There's also A LOT of information regarding the Bush Family's illegitimate business dealings...

[Gold9472]

The Bush/Quayle/Lilly Pharmaceutical Sellout
In America, marijuana's most outspoken opponents are none other than former First Lady Nancy Reagan (1981-1989) and former President George Bush (1989-1993), the former Director of the CIA under Gerald Ford (1975-1977) and past director of President Reagan's "Drug Task Force" (1981-1988).

After leaving the CIA in 1977, Bush was made director of Eli Lily to none other than Dan Quayle's father and family, who owned controlling interest in the Lilly company and the Indianapolis Star. Dan Quayle later acted as go-between for drug kingpins, gun runners and government officials in the Iran-Contra scandals.

The entire Bush family was large stockholders in Lilly, Abbott, Bristol and Pfizer, etc. After Bush's disclosure of assets in 1979, it became public that Bush's family still has a large interest in Pfizer and substantial amounts of stock in the other aforementioned drug companies.

In fact, Bush actively lobbied illegally both within and without the administration as Vice President in 1981 to permit drug companies to dump more unwanted, obsolete or especially domestically-banned substances on unsuspecting Third World countries.

While Vice President, Bush continued to illegally act on behalf of pharmaceutical companies by personally going to the IRS for special tax breaks for certain drug companies (e.g. Lilly) manufacturing in Puerto Rico. In 1982, Vice President Bush was personally ordered to stop lobbying the IRS on behalf of the drug companies by the U.S. Supreme Court itself. (See Appendix.)

He did - but they (the pharmaceuticals) still received a 23% additional tax break for their companies in Puerto Rico who make these American outlawed drugs for sale to Third World countries.

(Financial disclosure statements; Bush 1979 tax report; "Bush Tried to Sway a Tax Rule Change But Then Withdrew" NY Times, May 19, 1982; misc. corporate records; Christic Institute "La Penca" affidavit; Lilly 1979 Annual Report.)

[ThotPolice]

Thanks gold, I can read it right now.

You had heard of Marc Emry I guess?

[Gold9472]

Thanks gold, I can read it right now.

You had heard of Marc Emry I guess?

"Overgrow the Government"

[Gold9472]

Ever hear of Ed Rosenthal?

[ThotPolice]

The Bush/Quayle/Lilly Pharmaceutical Sellout
In America, marijuana's most outspoken opponents are none other than former First Lady Nancy Reagan (1981-1989) and former President George Bush (1989-1993), the former Director of the CIA under Gerald Ford (1975-1977) and past director of President Reagan's "Drug Task Force" (1981-1988).

After leaving the CIA in 1977, Bush was made director of Eli Lily to none other than Dan Quayle's father and family, who owned controlling interest in the Lilly company and the Indianapolis Star. Dan Quayle later acted as go-between for drug kingpins, gun runners and government officials in the Iran-Contra scandals.

The entire Bush family was large stockholders in Lilly, Abbott, Bristol and Pfizer, etc. After Bush's disclosure of assets in 1979, it became public that Bush's family still has a large interest in Pfizer and substantial amounts of stock in the other aforementioned drug companies.

In fact, Bush actively lobbied illegally both within and without the administration as Vice President in 1981 to permit drug companies to dump more unwanted, obsolete or especially domestically-banned substances on unsuspecting Third World countries.

While Vice President, Bush continued to illegally act on behalf of pharmaceutical companies by personally going to the IRS for special tax breaks for certain drug companies (e.g. Lilly) manufacturing in Puerto Rico. In 1982, Vice President Bush was personally ordered to stop lobbying the IRS on behalf of the drug companies by the U.S. Supreme Court itself. (See Appendix.)

He did - but they (the pharmaceuticals) still received a 23% additional tax break for their companies in Puerto Rico who make these American outlawed drugs for sale to Third World countries.

(Financial disclosure statements; Bush 1979 tax report; "Bush Tried to Sway a Tax Rule Change But Then Withdrew" NY Times, May 19, 1982; misc. corporate records; Christic Institute "La Penca" affidavit; Lilly 1979 Annual Report.)

It never ceases to amaze me how blatantly hypocritical and immoral it all is weather a corruption, drugs or war, they create the problem, secure support by fighting to solve it whilst chastising the general public about how immoral and wrong it is to be corrupt use drugs or terrorize.

It’s right in everyone’s face. It sucks.

[Gold9472]

It never ceases to amaze me how blatantly hypocritical and immoral it all is weather a drugs or war, they create the problem, secure support by fighting to solve it whilst chastising the general public about how immoral and wrong it is to use drugs/terrorize.

It’s right in everyone’s face. It sucks.

It's a good book...

[ThotPolice]

yes thank you.

[ThotPolice]

"Overgrow the Government"

Our more left wing parties really need to combine the issues.

[ThotPolice]

Ever hear of Ed Rosenthal?

Just now.

Wow he was actually given authority to grow medical marijuana and is now facing charges? Just as an example because he was out spoken like Marc Emery I guess.


The thing that steamed me about Emery was that the states reached over the border and grabbed him.

It's so true that the punishments are more damaging than the use of the drug.

It’s all so hypocritical and morally skewed on so many levels

[911=inside job]

check out what ed has going on this weekend in sf...

http://www.wondersofcannabis.com/

[ThotPolice]

check out what ed has going on this weekend in sf...

http://www.wondersofcannabis.com/

Heh heh... We have cannabis day in my town (Pun for canada day), throngs of people head to the legislative building and toke up under the ever-watchful eye of the cops.



My god they might eat chips or something!!!