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Chapter 7
Therapeutic Use of Cannabis
There are more than 60 therapeutic compounds in
cannabis that are healing agents in medical and herbal treatments. The
primary one is THC, and the effectiveness of therapy is directly
proportionate to the herb's potency or concentration of THC. Recent
DEA reports of increasingly potent marijuana therefore represent a
major medical advance; but, incredibly, the government uses these very
numbers to solicit bigger budgets and harsher penalties.
On November 5, 1996, 56% of California citizens voted
for the California Compassionate Use Act (medical marijuana
initiative) ending all legal state efforts to keep marijuana from
being used as medicine by California citizens.
Arizona citizens, in November 1996, also passed, by an
even greater margin - 65% - a drug declassification initiative that
included medical marijuana, backed by, among others, the late U.S.
Senator Barry Goldwater.
Arizona's governor and legislature, exercising their
veto override ability on their state initiative laws for the first
time in 90 years, struck down this popular initiative passed by the
people Arizona citizens angrily responded by re-collecting more than
150,000 signatures in a 90-day referendum period and promptly returned
the medical marijuana initiative to the ballot for November 1998.
The following explains how people will benefit when
the freedom of choice of doctors and patients is once again respected.
Warning:
This writer, responsible scientists and doctors
advise:
There is no pharmacological free lunch in cannabis or
any drug. Negative reactions can result. A small percentage of people
have negative or allergic reactions to marijuana. Heart patients could
have problems, even though cannabis generally relieves stress, dilates
the arteries, and in general lowers the diastolic pressure. A small
percentage of people get especially high heart rates and anxieties
with cannabis. These persons should not use it. Some bronchial asthma
sufferers benefit from cannabis; however, for others it may serve as
an additional irritant.
For the overwhelming majority of people, cannabis
has demonstrated literally hundreds of therapeutic uses. Among them:
ASTHMA
More than 15 million Americans are affected by asthma.
Smoking cannabis (the "raw drug" as the AMA called it) would
be beneficial for 80% of them and add 30-a60 million person-years in
the aggregate of extended life to current asthmatics over presently
legal toxic medicines such as the Theophylline prescribed to children.
"Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown
asthma attack." (Personal communication with Dr. Donald Tashkin,
December 12, 1989 and December 1, 1997.) The use of cannabis for
asthmatics goes back thousands of years in literature. American
doctors of the last century wrote glowing reports in medical papers
that asthma sufferers of the world would "bless" Indian hemp
(cannabis) all their lives. Today, of the 16 million American asthma
sufferers, only Californians, with a doctor's recommendation, can
legally grow and use cannabis medicines, even though it is generally
the most effective treatment for asthma.
(Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA Pulmonary Studies (for
smoked marijuana), 1969-97; Ibid., asthma studies, 1969-76; Cohen,
Sidney & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Life
Insurance Actuarial rates; Life shortening effects of childhood
asthma, 1983.)
GLAUCOMA
Fourteen percent of all blindness in America is from
glaucoma, a progressive loss of vision. Cannabis smoking would benefit
90% of our 2.5 million glaucoma victims, and is two to three times as
effective as any current medicines for reducing ocular pressure!
Cannabis use has no toxic side effects to the liver and kidneys; nor
is there any danger of the occasional sudden death syndromes
associated with the legal pharmaceutical glaucoma drugs/drops. Many
California eye doctors, through the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, discreetly
advised their patients to use "street" marijuana in addition
to (or to mitigate) their toxic legal glaucoma medicines. Since
November 1996, California doctors can legally recommend, advise or
tacitly approve cannabis use by their glaucoma patients who may then
grow and smoke their own marijuana, or go to the few remaining
Cannabis Buyers' Clubs to acquire medical marijuana. (Harvard; Hepler
& Frank, 1971, UCLA; Medical College of Georgia; U. of North
Carolina School of Medicine, 1975; Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic
Potential of Marijuana, UCLA, 1976; National Eye Institute; Records of
Bob Randolph/Elvy Musika, 1975, 1998.)
TUMORS
A tumor is a mass of swollen tissue. Researchers at
the Medical College of Virginia discovered that cannabis is an
incredibly successful herb for reducing many types of tumors, both
benign and malignant (cancerous). The DEA and other federal agencies
had ordered these tumor studies done after hearing erroneous reports
of possible immunicological problems associated with cannabis smoke.
But, in 1975, instead of health problems, an apparent medical
breakthrough occurred and successful tumor reductions were recorded!
Following this remarkably positive discovery by the Medical College of
Virginia, orders were immediately handed down by the DE and the
National Institute of Health to defund all furter cannabis/tumor
research and reporting! Millions of Americans who might be alive today
are dead because of these and other DEA orders regarding marijuana.
Since 1996, the Medical College of Virginia has again applied to
receive grants for cannabis research and has been turned down by the
DEA.
NAUSEA RELIEF (e.g., AIDS, CANCER THERAPY, SEA
SICKNESS)
Though it is known to be extremely damaging to the
immune system, chemotherapy is claimed by practitioners to benefit
cancer and AIDS patients. But chemo has some other serious side
effects too, including nausea. "Marijuana is the best agent for
control of nausea in cancer chemotherapy," according to Dr.
Thomas Ungerleider, who headed California's Marijuana for Cancer
research program from 1979 to 1984. This is also true in AIDS and even
in the unsettled stomach common in m otion sickness. Pharmaceutical
nausea control drugs come in pills that are often swallowed by the
patient, only to be thrown back up. Because cannabis can be ingested
as smoke, it stays in the system and keeps working even if vomiting
continues. Throughout the state's 10-year Compassionate Marijuana
Medical law, George Deukmejian, both as attorney general and as
governor, with no regard for the suffering or dying cancer patients,
made it virtually impossible for them to get cannabis. Californa
Governor Pete Wilson was following the same course until the medical
marijuana initiative passed in November 1996.
EPILEPSY, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, BACK PAIN, MUSCLE
SPASMS
Cannabis is beneficial for 60% of all epileptics. It
is definitely the best treatment for many, but not all types of
epilepsy, and for victims' post-seizure mental traumas. Cannabis
extract is more effective than Dilantin (a commonly prescribed
anti-epileptic with severe side effects). Medical World News reported
in 1971: "Marijuana . . . is probably the most potent
anti-epileptic known to medicine today." (Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D.,
Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972, page xxii.) Cannabis users'
epileptic seizures are of less intensity than the more dangerous
seizures experienced by users of pharmaceuticals. Similarly, smoking
cannabis has proven to be a major source of relief for multiple
sclerosis, which affects the nervous system and is characterized by
muscular weakness, tremors, etc. Aside from addictive morphine,
cannabis, whether smoked or applied as an herbal pack or poultice, is
also the best muscle relaxant, back spasm medicine and general
antispasmodic medication on our planet. In September 1993, in Santa
Cruz County, California, Sheriffs rearrested eqileptic Valerie Corral
and confiscated the five marijuana plants she was growing for medicine
even though 77% of the citizens of Santa Cruz voted in November 1992
to instruct local law enforcement not to prosecute medical marijuana
users. Charges against Corral had been dropped earlier in March 1993
because she was the first person in California to meet all six points
of a medical necessity defense. In 1997, Valerie, who runs a
compassionate use club, was named Citizen of the Year in Santa Cruz.
(Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976;
Consult U.S. Pharmacopoeia prior to 1937; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D.,
Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972.)
ANTIBIOTIC CBD DISINFECTANTS
Young un-budded hemp plants provide extractions of
CBDs (cannabidiolic acids). There are many antibiotic uses of the
cannabidiols, including treatment for gonorrhea. A 1990 Florida study
indicated its use in treating herpes. The acid side of
tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiols occur inversely to the amount of
the plant's THC and is therefore more acceptable to prohibitionists
because "it won't get you high." For virtually any disease
or infection that can be treated with terramycin, cannabis derivatives
did better in Czechoslovakian studies, 1952-1955. The Czechs in 1997
still published farm crop reports on strategies to grow cannabidiol
rich hemp. (Also see Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of
Marijuana; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers; Roffman,
Marijuana as Medicine, 1982; International Farm Crop abstracts.)
ARTHRITIS, HERPES, CYSTIC FIBROSIS AND RHEUMATISM
Cannabis is a topical analgesic.2 Until 1937,
virtually all corn plasters, mustard plasters, muscle ointments, and
fibrosis poultices were made from or with cannabis extracts.
Rheumatism was treated throughout South America until the 1960s with
hemp leaves and/or flower tops heated in water or alcohol and placed
on painful joints. In fact, this form of herbal medicine is still
widely used in rural areas of Mexico, Central and South America, and
by California Latinos for relief of rheumatism and arthritis pain.
Direct contact with THC killed herpes virus in a University of South
Florida (Tampa) 1990 research study by Dr. Gerald Lancz, who warns
that "smoking marijuana will not cure herpes." However,
anecdotal reports indicate a faster drying and healing of the outbreak
after topical application of "strong bud," soaked in rubbing
alcohol and crushed into a paste.
LUNG CLEANER AND EXPECTORANT
Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the
human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use.
Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the
bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also
the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the
bronchial tubes - making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator
for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor
negative reactions). (See section on asthma - a disease that closes
these passages in spasms - UCLA Tashkin studies, 1969-97; U.S. Costa
Rican, 1980-82; Jamaican studies 1969-74, 76.) Statistical evidence -
showing up consistently as anomalies in matched populations -
indicates that people who smoke tobacco cigarettes are usually better
off and will live longer if they smoke cannabis moderately, too. (Jamaicna,
Costa Rican studies.) Millions of Americans have given up or avoided
smoking tobacco products in favor of cannabis, which is not good news
to the powerful tobacco lobby - Senator Jesse Helms and his cohorts. A
turn-of-the-century grandfather clause in U.S. tobacco law allows 400
to 6,000 additional chemicals to be added. Additions since then to the
average tobacco cigarette are unknown, and the public in the U.S. has
no right to know what they are. Many joggers and marathon runners feel
cannabis use cleans their lungs, allowing better endurance. The
evidence indicates that cannabis use will probably increase these
outlaw American marijuana-users' lives by about one to two years - yet
they may lose their rights, property, children, state licenses, etc.,
just for using that safest of substances: cannabis.
SLEEP AND RELAXATION
Cannabis lowers blood pressure, dilates the arteries
and reduces body temperature an average of one-half degree, thereby
relieving stress. Evening cannabis smokers in general report more
restful sleep. Using cannabis allows most people a more complete rest
with a higher amount of "alpha time" during sleep as
compared with prescription or sleep-inducing patent sedatives.
Prescription sleeping pills (the so called "legal, safe and
effective" drugs) are often just synthesized analogs of truly
dangerous plants like mandrake, henbane and belladonna. As late as
1991, doctors, pharmacists and drug companies were fighting off new
legislation to restrict these often abused compounds. (L.A. Times,
April 2, 1991). Unlike Valium, cannabis does not potentiate the
effects of alcohol. It is estimated that cannabis could replace more
than 50% of Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Stelazine, other "-zine"
drugs and most sleeping pills. It is unconscionable that, over the
past two decades, tens of thousands of parents have committed their
own children, aged 11 to 17, to be treated by massive doses of
so-called "-zine" drugs in order to get them off pot, at the
urging of parent groups, the PDFA, the feds and administrators and
doctors from federally approved, private and high-profit drug
rehabilitation centers. Often, "-zine" drugs do work to stop
these youths from using pot. They also stop a kid from loving his or
her dog, too - and children stand a one-in-four chance of suffering
from uncontrollable shaking for the rest of their lives.* But at least
they're not high. * The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta
said that 20-40% of "-zine" drug users have or will develop
permanent lifetime pasies (shakes), November 1983. These prescription
neurotoxins are chemically related to the pesticide and warfare nerve
gas Sarin. Hundreds of private drug-rehabilitation centers and their
leaders keep this policy alive and in front of the media, often
quoting discredited reports from NIDA or DEA (see Chapter 16,
debunking) - because they earn fat profits selling their useless or
destructive "marijuana treatment" for children. After all, a
relapse just means using marijuana against after a number of bouts
with an "authority." This is mind control and an attempt to
destroy individual free will.
THERAPEUTIC EMPHYSEMA POTENTIAL
Medical research indicates that light cannabis smoking
might be useful for a majority of mild emphysema victims. It would
improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and extend their
life spans. The U.S. government and DEA (since 1976) saky the side
effect of being "high" is not acceptable, no matter how many
years or lives it saves; even though some 90 million Americans have
tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million Americans have tried marijuana
and 25 to 30 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30
million still smoke marijuana relaxationally, or use it responsibly as
a form of daily self-medication, without one single death from
overdoes - ever! All research into the oxygen blood transfer effects
cause by cannabis indicates that the chest (lung) pains, extremity
pains, shallowness of breath, and headaches we may experience on heavy
smog days are usually alleviated by cannabis smoking throughout the
day. Dr. Donald Tashkin, the U.S. government's leading scientist on
marijuana pulmonary research, told us in December 1989*, and again in
December 1997, that you cannot get or potentiate emphysema with
cannabis smoking. * See Tashkin's Marijuana Pulmonary Research, UCLA,
1969-1997. Since 1981, this author has personally taken part in these
studies and has continuously interviewed Tashkin on cannabis' medical
indications; last personal interview was in December 1997.
STRESS AND MIGRAINE HEADACHE RELIEF
Most of all: it is best for the world's number one
killer - stress. It can safely curtail or replace Valium, Librium,
alcohol, or even Prozac, for millions of Americans. While cannabis
intoxication varies with psychological set and social setting,
"the most common response is a calm, mildly euphoric state in
which time slows and a sensitivity to sights, sounds and touch his
enhanced." In contrast to marijuana's safe, therapeutic action,
benzodiazepine (Valium) abuse is the number one drug abuse problem in
the country, and is responsible for more emergency room admissions in
the United States than either cocaine-related problems or morphone and
heroin-related admissions combined.* While tobacco constricts
arteries, cannabis dilates (opens) them. Because migraine headaches
are the result of artery spasms combined with over-relaxation of
veins, the vascular changes cannabis causes in the covering of the
brain (the meninges) usually make migraines disappear. Evidence of
vascular change caused by cannabis can be seen in the user's red eyes,
which are extensions of the brain. However, unlike most other drugs,
cannabis has no apparent effect on the vascular system in general,
except for a slightly increased heart rate during the onset of the
high.
TO INCREASE APPETITE
Users of marijuana often (but not always) experience
"the munchies," a stimulated appetite for food, which, at
this time, makes cannabis the very best medicine on the planet for
anorexia. Hundreds of thousands of Americans in old age, convalescent
wards or hospital situations have anorxia. Most could be helped by
cannabis - yet these Americans are being denied a healthy life by
governmental policy dictated by government police! This effect can
also extend the lives of AIDS and pancreatic cancer (eat or die).
However, the DEA and U.S. government prevented any research or use of
cannabis in pancreatic cancer therapy since 1976. They have
effectively allowed tens of thousands of people to die each year,
denying them the right to live otherwise normal, healthy and
productive lives.
TO REDUCE SALIVA
Marijuana smoking can help dry your mouth for the
dentist. This is the best way to dry the mouth's saliva non-toxically
in what is known among smokers as its "cotton mouth" effect.
According to the Canadian Board of Dentistry in studies conducted in
the 1970s, cannabis could replace the highly toxic Probathine
compounds produced by Searle & Co. This may also indicate that
cannabis could be good for treating peptic ulcers.
IN ADDITION. . .
AIDS, DEPRESSION & HUNDREDS OF OTHER PRIMARY
MEDICAL USES
One well known effect of THC is to life the spirit, or
make you "high." Cannabis users in Jamaica praise ganja's
benefits for meditation, concentration, consciousness-raising and
promoting a state of well being and self assertiveness.5 This kind of
attitude adjustment, along with a healthier appetite and better rest,
often represents the difference between feeling like you are
"dying of" AIDS or cancer and feeling like you are
"living with" AIDS or cancer. Cannabis also eases small
pains and some big ones and helps senior citizens live with aches and
pains like arthritis, insomnia and debilitating infirmities, and enjoy
life in greater dignity and comfort. Legend has it, and medical
evidence indicates, that cannabis is the best overall treatment for
dementia, senility, and maybe Alzheimer's disease, for long-term
memory "gain" and hundreds of other benefits. U.S.
statistics of the 1970s indicated that you will live eight to 24 years
longer if you substitute daily cannabis use for daily tobacco and
alcohol use. New research is outlawed, of course.
ACCEPTABLE RISKS
Every U.S. commission or federal judge who has studied
the evidence has agreed that cannabis is one of the safest drugs
known. With all its therapeutic uses, it has only one side effect that
has been exaggerated as a concern: the "high." The DEA says
this is not acceptable, so cannbis continues to be totally illegal in
utter disregard for both doctor and patient. Every day we trust
physicians to determine whether the risks associated with therapeutic,
yet potentially dangerous drugs are acceptable for their patients.
Yet, doctors are not allowed to prescribe the herb that Federal Judge
Francis Young in 1988 called "one of the safest therapeutically
active substances known to man." We don't put out doctors in
charge of stopping violent crimes. The police, prosecutors and prison
guards should not be in charge of which herbal therapies people may
use to treat their personal health problems.
Footnotes:
1. Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of
Marijuana, UCLA, 1976; personal interviewd in Washington, D.C. (1982)
with researchers from the Medical College of Virginia.
2. Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of
Marijuana, UCLA, 1976; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical
Papers 1839-1972, Medi-Comp Press, Oakland, CA, 1973. 3. The
Antibiotic Effect of Cannabis Indica, 1952-53-55. The Antibacterial
Effect of Cannabis Indica, 1955, from Marijuana Medical Papers; Cohen
& Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, UCLA, 1976.
4. Harvard Medical School Mental Health Letter, Vol.
4, No. 5, November 1987.
5. Ruben, Vera & Comitas, Lambros, Ganja in
Jamaica, A Medical Anthropological Study of Chronic Marijuana Use,
Mouton & Co., The Hague an Paris, Anchor Books, U.S.A., 1976.
6. Stopping Valium Public Citizen Health Research
Group, 2000 P St. NW, Washington, DC.
Hempseed Nutrition
Cannabis hempseeds contain all the essential amino
acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human
life. No other single plant source provides complete protein in such
an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential to life in as
perfect a ratio for human health and vitality.
Hempseed is the highest of any plant in essential
fatty acids. Hempseed oil is among the lowest in saturated fats at 8%
of total oil volume. The oil pressed from hempseed contains 55%
linoleic acid (LA) and 25% llinolenic acid (LNA). Only flax oil has
more linolenic acid at 58%, but hempseed oil is the highest in total
essential fatty acids at 80% of total oil volume.
"These essential fatty acids are responsible for
our immune response. In the old country the peasants ate hemp butter.
They were more resistant to disease than the nobility." The
higher classes wouldn't eat hemp because the poor ate it. - R.
Hamilton, ED.D., Ph.D. Medical Researcher-Bichemist U.C.L.A. Emeritus.
LA and LNA are involved in producing life energy from
food and the movement of that energy throughout the body.
Essential fatty acids govern growth, vitality and
state of mind. LA and LNA are involved in transferring oxygen from the
air in the lungs to every cell in the body. They play a part in
holding oxygen in the cell membrane where it acts as a barrier to
invading viruses and bacteria, neither of which thrive in the presence
of oxygen.
The bent shape of the essential fatty acids keep them
from dissolving into each other. They are slippery and will not clog
arteries like the sticky straight-shaped saturated fats and the
trans-fatty acids in cooking oils and shortenings that are made by
subjecting polyunsaturated oils like LA and LNA to high temperatures
during the refining process.
LA and LNA possess a slightly negative charge and have
a tendency to form very thin surface layers. This property is called
surface activity, and it provides the power to carry substances like
toxins to the surface of the skin, intestinal tract, kidneys and lungs
where they can be removed. Their very sensitivity causes them to break
down rapidly into toxic compounds when refined with high heat or
improper storage exposes them to light or air.
Nature provides seeds with an outer shell that safely
protects the vital oils and vitamins within from spoilage.
It's a perfect as well as perfectly edible container.
Hempseed can be ground into a paste similar to peanut butter only more
delicate in flavor. Udo Erasmus, Ph.D. nutritionist says: "Hemp
butter puts our peanut butter to shame for nutritiounal value."
The ground seeds can be baked into breads, cakes and casseroles.
Hempseed makes a hearty addition to granola bars.
Pioneers in the fields of biochemistry and human
nutrition now believe cardiovascular disease (CVD) and most cancers
are really diseases of fatty degeneration caused by the continued
over-consumption of saturated fats and refined vegetable oils that
turn essential fatty acids into carcinogenic killers. One out of two
Americans will die from the effects of CVD. One out of four Americans
will die from cancer. Researchers believe cancers erupt when immune
system response is weakened. And more Americans are succumbing to
immune deficiency diseases than ever before. Promising studies are now
under way using the essential oils to support the immune systems of
HIV virus patients.
The complete protein in hempseed gives the body all
the essential amino acids required to maintain health, and provides
the necessary kinds and amounts of amino acids the body needs to make
human serum albumin and serum globulins like the immune enhancing
gamma globulin antibodies.
The body's ability to resist and recover from illness
depends upon how rapidly it can produce massive amounts of antibodies
to fend off the initial attack. If the globulin protein starting
material is in short supply, the army of antibodies may be too small
to prevent the symptoms of sickness from setting in.
The best way to insure the body has enough amino acid
material to make the globulins is to eat foods high in globulin
proteins. Hempseed protein is 65% globulin edestin plus quantities of
albumin (present in all seeds) so its easily digestible proteen is
readily available in a form quite similar to that found in blood
plasma.
Hempseed was used to treat nutritional deficiencies
brought on by tuberculosis, a severe nutrition blocking disease that
causes the body to waste away. (Czechoslovakia Tubercular Nutritional
Study, 1955.)
The energy of life is in the whole seed. Hempseed
foods taste great!
They will insure we get enough essential amino acids
and essential fatty acids, to build strong bodies and immune systems,
and to maintain health and vitality. Please copy. Excerpted from
Hempseed Nutrition by Lynn Osburn. Produced by Access Unlimited, P.O.
Box 1900, Frazier Park, CA 93225.
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