Donald Tashkin’s is a tale cannabis pushers like to repeat. The physician and professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine set out to prove — via a study funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse — that marijuana is bad for you. Instead, a long-term study found no solid link between marijuana use and lung cancer, in sharp contrast to tobacco’s terrible effects on health.
Similar findings were repeated all over the world. In a collection and review of studies on marijuana’s effect on the lungs, published in the June issue of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, Tashkin concludes that compared to tobacco smoking, heavy marijuana use has “relatively small and far lower” risks.
This despite an average joint marijuana having four times the tar of a typical American Spirit. How can this be?
It’s worth remembering that this is not a new development — Tashkin’s long-term study was published in 2006. And well before that — as in the 19th Century, when cannabis tinctures and other marijuana medicines were sold in pharmacies — doctors were prescribing marijuana as a treatment for asthma patients.
There’s more similarities between tobacco and marijuana that most cannabis advocates would like to admit. There are similar levels of ammonia and other carcinogens, and marijuana smokers inhale about four times the tar, Tashkin notes.
Yet several long-term studies found no positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer. And others — judging lung function and health by lung capacity, function, and things like levels of sputum and phlegm — found no positive link between marijuana use, even heavy, long-term use, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Marijuana use does have deleterious effects, but they are short-term. Other than bronchitis that goes away after the pipe is put away, it appears there’s not much else long term harm done to the lungs by marijuana.
The key appears to be in the THC. Marijuana’s main psychoactive ingredient has also shrank tumor cells in lab rats. It’s possible that the THC encourages lung tissue to die before it can become cancerous, Tashkin suggests.
One of marijuana’s most confounding effects is bronchodilation, or expansion of the lungs when exposed to marijuana smoke. Cigarette smoke, by contrast, leads to bronchoconstriction, or narrowing of air passages.
So that’s what the 19th-century pot docs were after. And perhaps there will be some modern-day folks who catch on to this. A frequent critique of medical marijuana’s existence is that nothing that is smoked can be medicine. Perhaps not — but cannabis certainly cannot kill you, now or later
The healing benefits of “medical marijuana” are far-reaching, widespread, and long-term. Because of the way marijuana impacts the Autonomic Nervous System and how the cannabinoids are so rejuvenating, its potential for health and healing are enormous. And it’s been completely unrealized by Western Medicine for too long.
1. Cancer
The American Association for Cancer Research has found the marijuana actually works to slow down tumor growth in the lungs and brain considerably. Read this story from Underground Health on how marijuana could be a cancer cure…
2. Seizures
Marijuana is a muscle relaxant and has “antispasmodic” qualities that have proven to be a very effective treatment for seizures. There are actually countless cases of people suffering from seizures that have only been able to function better through the use of marijuana. See the amazing store here on Underground Health…
3. Migraines
Since medicinal marijuana was legalized in California, doctors have reported that they have been able to treat more than 300,000 cases of migraines that conventional medicine couldn’t through marijuana.
4. Glaucoma
Marijuana’s treatment of glaucoma has been one of the best documented. There isn’t a single valid study that exists that disproves marijuana’s very powerful and popular effects on glaucoma patients.
5. Tourette’s and OCD
Just like marijuana can treat seizures and multiple sclerosis, marijuana’s effects slow down the tics in those suffering from Tourette’s, and the obsessive neurological symptoms in people with OCD.
6. Multiple Sclerosis
Marijuana’s effects on multiple sclerosis patients became better documented when former talk-show host, Montel Williams began to use pot to treat his MS. Marijuana works to stop the neurological effects and muscle spasms that come from the fatal disease.
7. ADD and ADHD
A well documented USC study done about a year ago showed that marijuana is not only a perfect alternative for Ritalin but treats the disorder without any of the negative side effects of the pharmaceutical.
8. IBS and Crohn’s
Marijuana has shown that it can help with symptoms of the chronic diseases as it stops nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.
9. Alzheimer’s
Despite what you may have heard about marijuana’s effects on the brain, the Scripps Institute, in 2006, proved that the THC found in marijuana works to prevent Alzheimer’s by blocking the deposits in the brain that cause the disease.
10. Premenstrual Syndrome
Marijuana can help women relieve the pain and alleviate the symptoms associated with PMS. Using marijuana for PMS actually goes all the way back to Queen Victoria. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Could Marijuana May Be Best Medication For Those With PTSD?
A new study by researchers at the New York University School of Medicine, and funded by the National Institute of Health, has found a connection between the number of cannabinoid receptors in the brain and the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), paving the way towards an effective medication, according to an New York University press release.
The study, which was published online in Molecular Psychiatry and will be presented at the Society of Biological Psychiatry’s annual meeting, is the first to use brain imaging to show that PTSD sufferers have lower concentrations of anandamide than the average person – anandamide is an endocannabinoid that binds to CB1 receptors.
The researchers examined 60 individuals from three different groups: Those who have been diagnosed with PTSD, those who have had a history of trauma but no PTSD, and those with a history of neither.
Researchers than administered a radioactive, though apparently “safe” tracer, which illuminated the participants’ CB1 receptors when exposed to a PET scan. The scan found that the PTSD sufferers, especially among women, had more CB1 receptors in the parts of their brains linked to fear and anxiety than those without PTSD. Individuals with PTSD were also found to have lower levels of anandamide, leading to an increased number of CB1 receptors.
What Does This Mean?
What this indicates is that using marijuana (cannabis), or cannabinoid-rich medication, could help alleviate some of the problems associated with PTSD, by bringing about equilibrium in their brain’s CB1 receptors, which could greatly reduce the stress, anxiety and fear that many who suffer from the condition feel on a regular basis. The cannabinoids found in the marijuana are what provide such strong medicinal value for the PTSD patients.
“There’s not a single pharmacological treatment out there that has been developed specifically for PTSD,” stated researcher Alexander Neumeister, lead author of the study, “That’s a problem. There’s a consensus among clinicians that existing pharmaceutical treatments such as antidepressant simple do not work.” He notes that, anecdotally, PTSD sufferers typically find more relief from consuming marijuana, than using antidepressants.
Not only will these findings help doctors accurately diagnose PTSD in the future, it could finally lead to a non-narcotic and effective medication
.undergroundhealth.com
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