THC // Current

Study clears cannabis of schizophrenia

In terms of estimated rate ratios, persons who develop cannabis-induced psychosis are as predisposed to schizophrenia spectrum... more

breakthepower
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Cancer experts hope tiny 'torpedo' will blast away tumours

A tiny ‘torpedo’ that sails through the body to seek out and destroy tumours could help fight cancer. The device,... more

Enjoy_Cannabis
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Medical marijuana's eco boomtown

It's estimated that $143 million in medical marijuana sales have netted $11.4 million in state and local taxes annually,... more

Enjoy_Cannabis
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Drug Test Tricks

Vinegar. Lemon juice. Drain-cleaning products. At least one of these items is probably in your kitchen. And any of them can be... more

JackHerer
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Emerging from the Drug War Dark Age

Here are a few excerpts from the article which I find telling and encouraging to anyone who has any opinion in this field. Please take the time to sit back and read some of this.

The return flight from Switzerland was a mix of hope and solemnity for Rick Doblin, the only American to attend the funeral of Dr. Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD who had just died at the age of 102. Doblin, a Harvard-educated Ph.D and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, an organization that conducts legal research into the healing and spiritual potentials of psychedelics and marijuana, had spent his entire career trying to break through the virtually impenetrable wall of obstinacy that surrounds psychedelic compounds and their potential benefits to society.

More than anyone else in his field, Doblin is all too familiar with what he refers to as the "40-year-long bad trip" that researchers like him have faced in dealing with the fallout from the introduction of LSD and other psychedelic compounds to the Western psyche in the mid 1960s. This 40-year intellectual Dark Age, Doblin says, has been characterized by "enormous fear and misinformation and a vested interest in exaggerated stories about drugs to keep prohibition alive."

A Return to Respectability

Much greater than usual media attention accompanied the most recent World Psychedelic Forum held in March in Basel, Switzerland, the home of Albert Hofmann. A headline in the May issue of the staid British medical journal The Lancet -- known for challenging the Pentagon's Iraq casualty numbers -- read, "Research on Psychedelics Moves into the Mainstream."

The Healing Potential of Psychedelics

Unlike other treatments, which have shown pitifully low success rates, psychedelic-assisted therapy focuses on the emotional context under which a patient suffers addiction, not the use of the drugs themselves. "This," says Tom Roberts, a professor of psychology at Northern Illinois University and the co-editor of a new two-volume compilation, Psychedelic Medicine, "is what makes them uniquely effective. They allow negative ideas and feelings -- where most addictions have their origins -- to surface into consciousness. With the guidance of a mental health professional, the person can let them go." Once these negative feelings are gone, Roberts says, the person no longer feels the need to deaden them with drugs or alcohol.

Here are a few excerpts from the article which I find telling and encouraging to anyone who has any opinion in this field. Please... more

Psychedelic
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2 responses

5 months ago

Pot Kills! Be Scared! New Study! WTF

When will the government stop funding these ridiculous scary studies? Read some of the quotes: “The potency of marijuana... more

Psychedelic
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9 responses

5 months ago

Body's own 'cannabis' is good for the skin, scientists find

"Scientists from Hungary, Germany and the UK have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to... more

oahspe
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4 responses

5 months ago

The Stoned Age

Cannabis has been enjoyed for centuries, this modern day war on drugs is a farce. watch An American Drug War... more

Enjoy_Cannabis
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3 responses

6 months ago

9,350 marijuana plants found in Georgia. Biggest bust in county's history!

momsword
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54 responses

6 months ago

Cannabis: Cancer Research’s Most Surprising Story

Once again the cancer diagnosis of a well-known national figure -- in this case Sen. Ted Kennedy -- has sparked a flurry of interest in efforts to treat and cure this frustrating, complex and deadly illness. One of the most promising areas of research involves a group of chemicals whose origins may seem shocking.
The chemicals, called cannabinoids, are the active components in marijuana.
Yes, marijuana, the very same drug that seems to generate endless controversy here and abroad, and that our government still claims causes cancer -- a claim that appears to stand reality on its head.
The first solid data showing the anticancer effects of cannabinoids was developed by U.S. government researchers and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute back in 1975. The scientists found that THC, the component that produces marijuana's "high," inhibits the growth of lung cancer cells in the test tube and in mice.
In a world that made sense, this discovery would have set off a frenzy of new research. After all, President Richard Nixon had declared "war on cancer" just a few years before, and vast sums of money were being spent investigating new approaches. But Nixon had also declared "war on drugs," with marijuana at the top of the demon-drugs list, so our government -- by far the world's largest source of medical research funding -- never pursued these remarkable findings. Research ground to a near-complete halt until the late 1990s.
Since then, THC and other marijuana components have been shown to block growth not only of lung tumors but a variety of other cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and cancers of the breast and skin. These effects seem to occur through a variety of different cellular mechanisms.
As Spanish researcher Dr. Manuel Guzman, one of the world's leading experts in the field, wrote in a 2003 review in the journal Nature Reviews: Cancer, "Cannabinoids are selective antitumor compounds, as they can kill tumor cells without affecting their non-transformed counterparts. It is probable that cannabinoid receptors regulate cell-survival and cell-death pathways differently in tumor and nontumor cells."
That is exactly what you want in a cancer drug: Something that kills the malignant cells without harming healthy cells. It's because most chemotherapy drugs aren't selective enough that they cause such terrible nausea, vomiting, hair loss and other side effects.
One of the most fruitful areas of research has involved gliomas, the same type of brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy is battling. A search of PubMed, the U.S. government's medical database, using the search terms "cannabis" (the scientific name for marijuana), "cannabinoid," and "glioma" turned up 94 scientific journal articles, most of them published since 2000.
Most are lab or animal studies, demonstrating various mechanisms by which these marijuana chemicals kill glioma cells or stop glioma tumor growth. Amazingly, despite all this evidence, there has been only one, tiny, human study thus far, conducted by Dr. Guzman.
Guzman and colleagues injected THC directly into brain tumors in a handful of patients with recurring, inoperable gliomas -- patients considered terminal. It was primarily a safety study, and the THC injections proved completely safe.
Although the researchers concluded that the injection method they used may not have adequately distributed the medicine to all parts of these large tumors, two patients seemed to show definite (albeit temporary) improvement due to the treatment. The researchers urge that additional trials testing THC and other cannabinoids in this and other types of tumors be undertaken.
This is an exciting area of research, but one that has been needlessly -- and perhaps lethally -- slowed down by the U.S. government's slavish devotion to anti-marijuana dogma. That most of the work testing these marijuana derivatives as anticancer drugs is occurring outside the United States is a sad commentary indeed.
By Bruce Mirken Once again the cancer diagnosis of a well-known national figure -- in this case Sen. Ted Kennedy -- has sparked a flurry of... more