Is There Anything CBD Can’t Do? Then Why Is It Illegal?
October 9th, 2008 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy DirectorShare this Article
While the prohibition of cannabis is absurd, the ban on the plant’s non-psychoactive components is even more mind-boggling — particularly when it’s apparent that these compounds possess amazing therapeutic properties. Case in point: cannabidiol (CBD).
A just published scientific review by Sao Paulo University (Brazil) researcher Antonio Zuardi reports that there’s been an “explosive increase” of interest in CBD over the past five years. It’s apparent why.
“Studies have suggested a wide range of possible therapeutic effects of cannabidiol on several conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral ischemia, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, other inflammatory diseases, nausea and cancer,” Zuardi writes. Let’s look at a few of these in detail, shall we?
1. Antiepileptic action
“In 1973, a Brazilian group reported that CBD was active in … blocking convulsions produced in experimental animals.”
2. Sedative action
“In humans with insomnia, high doses of CBD increased sleep duration compared to placebo.”
3. Anxiolytic action
“CBD induce[s] a clear anxiolytic effect and a pattern of cerebral activity compatible with an anxiolytic activity.”
4. Antipsychcotic action
“[C]linical studies suggest that CBD is an effective, safe and well-tolerated alternative treatment for schizophrenic patients.”
5. Antidystonic action
“CBD … had antidystonic effects in humans when administered along with standard medication to five patients with dystonia, in an open study.”
6. Antioxidative action
“[I]t was demonstrated that CBD can reduce hydroperoxide-induced oxidative damage as well as or better than other antioxidants. CBD was more protective against glutamate neurotoxicity than either ascorbate or a-tocopherol, indicating that this drug is a potent antioxidant.”
7. Neuroprotective action
“A marked reduction in the cell survival was observed following exposure of cultured rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cells to beta-A peptide. Treatment of the cells with CBD prior to beta-A exposure significantly elevated the cell survival.”
8. Antiinflammatory action
“CBD, administered i.p. or orally, has blocked the progression of arthritis.”
9. Cardioprotective action
“CBD induces a substantial cardioprotective effect.”
10. Action on diabetes
“CBD treatment of NOD (non-obese diabetic) mice before the development of the disease reduced its incidence from 86% in the non-treated control mice to 30% in CBD-treated mice. … It was also observed that administration of CBD to 11-14 week old female NOD mice, which were either in a latent diabetes stage or had initial symptoms of diabetes, ameliorated the manifestations of the disease.”
11. Antiemetic action
“The expression of this conditioned retching reaction was completely suppressed by CBD and delta9-THC, but not by ondansetron, [an] antagonist that interferes with acute vomiting.”
12. Anticancer action
“A study of the effect of different cannabinoids on eight tumor cell lines, in vitro, has clearly indicated that, of the five natural compounds tested, CBD was the most potent inhibitor of cancer cell growth.”
In sum, the past 45 years of scientific study on CBD has revealed the compound to be non-toxic, non-psychoactive, and to possess a multitude of therapeutic properties. Yet, to this day it remains illegal to possess or use (and nearly impossible to study in US clinical trials) simply because it is associated with marijuana.
What possible advancements in medical treatment may have been achieved over the past decades had US government officials chosen to advance — rather than inhibit — clinical research into CBD (which, under federal law, remains a Schedule I drug defined as having “no currently accepted medical use”)? Perhaps it’s time someone asks John Walters or the DEA?
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Tags: , anticancer, antiepileptic, antiinflammatory, antioxidant, antipsychotic, anxiolytic, cannabidiol, cardioprotection, CBD, diabetes, ischemia, neuroprotection, Zuardi
October 9th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
GREED is why it is illegal. Pharmaceutical companies can’t make money off of something you can grow in your back yard. They will try to bastardize it and sell it.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I am so ashamed of my country. What will it take to make it a schedule II? Must it bring the dead back to life before it has considered medicinal value to some of these political zombies?
October 9th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
What would be the point of asking Walters about this? He will lie through his teeth, like he always does. Let us not forget the 800,000 + unicorns out there. His entire job revolves around lying the the American public. Barry McCaffery did it before Johnnie boy, and there will be some clone in with the next administration. The arrogance astounds me.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
There are many reasons why cannabis is illegal. I posted many reasons on my blog. Click the question above to read them.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I assure you greed has caused many, many more deaths than any “drug” ever has — Entheogen, Psychedelic, Stimulant, Addictive Killer, The New Threat To Your Kids, whatever you want to call them. Everyone is so focused on their own greed and money nowadays, especially in America. I never imagined that humans could become so materialistic, it’s beyond our nature. Their things and their money will be destroyed and lost, and when it is they’ll have nothing.
This capitalist nation is becoming more and more fragile as it becomes top-heavy (the upper class). It’ll fall, and the only thing to survive will be what has always been forces working with and against man — war, ideas, and nature.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
This is why when I use marijuana, I feel as if I am not harming my body, but moreso helping my body.. I often feel refreshed after a long day
It has SO many PROVEN effective ways of decreasing many deadly and painful illnesses. I am completely unhappy with it’s reputation.. Some adults criticize marijuana and then two hours later they’re sleeping after having 4 or 5 beers
If the government said heroin was a helpful and non-harmful drug.. people would do it
October 9th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Well, actually, Pharmaceuticals are ready to make money off of it. I was just reading about research done on CBD inhibiting the spread of breast cancer, and in one of the last lines in the Report to the Breast Cancer Research, the researcher said: “and we are filing a patent on it”. They also talked about making small (as in molecular) “changes” to make drugs even more effective (read patentable) than CBD.”
So, if we can just get big business to see how American researchers are getting shut out of the cannabinol revolution, and they still have a chance to get a nice big piece of the pie, if only they support the end of prohibition, . . . well then, wouldn’t our elected officials begin to take notice.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Case in point-
I tried to make a deal with a Canadian company
that grows hemp for seed (oil and protein powder)
to buy their leftover plant material after harvesting
the seeds, which would be the female cola or bud,
sans seeds-
BECAUSE the flowers are loaded with CBD which I wanted
to use therapeutically.
There is resin (trichomes) in the buds of hemp that is very poor in THC - I’m not interested in that or any of the other psychoactive cannabinoids -
I just mainly wanted the loose bulk plant material for the rich content of CBD
and you know what the guy at Manitoba Harvest told me?
“I’m sorry we can’t sell that to you because by Canadian law, we have to immediately plow under all the plant material after we have extracted the seeds.”
Now,
what the hay does that tell you about the laws surrounding cannabis/hemp and the agenda behind them?
October 10th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I have an auto-immune/inflammatory condition known as IGA Nephropathy and when I was diagnosed I was put on huge doses of Prednisone, so I still have to deal with the side effects from taking that drug some 3-4 years ago. About 2.5 years ago I found Cannabis and haven’t looked back. I’ve always assumed, and have read many supportive studies suggesting that Cannabis is a nearly perfect medicine for my condition. It has very minimal and manageable side effects and I wont die if I take too much. I also don’t have to take multiple other drugs to counteract the side effects as I did with Prednisone.
Thank you NORML for keeping me in the loop - you’ve helped to make my life so much better.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:27 am
If marijuana had never been used in the past untill now and some american scientist went to india or some remote mountains and found a marijuana plant and started studing it. Our news paper headlines would read
“Plant with the cure, Finally Found” and he or she would be hailed as a hero…… When will our government realize?
October 10th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Its all about the money my friends, think higher than big pharma…. The illegal drug trade profits banks the most. They lend out all that laundered money and protect the drug cartels… Big pharma may be a small factor, but keeping the most popular illegal recreational drug illegal is a big profit for banks.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Why is it Illegal? The question has been answered, MONEY. I have been treating Basal Cell Carcinoma, and Squamous Cell Carcinoma with Cannabis Oil, and achieving considerable success. I have removed all visual signs of the cancer from my head neck, and face. I have not, as yet gotten the “Definative Proof” doctors demand. A negative result on a biopsy. I do feel, however that removing all outward signs of cancer should warant some serious investigation into the cancer curing properties of this plant. NOT here in the good ol USA.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Another great article from Paul Armentano. Let’s hope this gets coverage like the cannaboids vs. MRSA article.
I like how the prohibitionists like to discredit our movement by attacking Keith Stroup, because no prohibitionists can survive in a debate verses Allen St. Pierre and/or Paul Armentano.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Is There Anything CBD Can’t Do?
Eradicated Marijuana Is 98 Percent Ditchweed. If we let sick people use the non psychoactive CBD’s, or healthy people prevent illness, or family farmers grow it without poisons and fossil fools fuels. It would be cost prohibitive at this juncture. A risk to the synthetic companies with no American allegiance to get in the way of production. Can’t sell treatments when you cure or prevent.
Think of the message being sent to the kids?
Drug worriers couldn’t boast how they’re keeping the kids burlap free, possibly leading them to canvas and omega 3’s. CBD’s can’t keep the phony baloney Dick Czar in 6 figure salaries with an undisclosed multi-billion dollar budget, borrowed from the same International Banksters who just heisted $850 bil from Congress. For this privilege we’ll throw in a few hundred more billion for vested ignorance’ interest and have Pat Robertson pray for good weather.
SACRAMENT
CANNABIS CULTURE MAGAZINE
CBD’s or the THC’s run the chance of unraveling the unholy alliance between physicians and preachers, prayers and pharmaids, including booze and chemical cigarettes to get through another week of labor. Homegrown CBD’s vs white powders and labcoats with trippy little name tags. Finding God without the preacher or his trinkets and tithings, helping get through a white powder addiction with Ganja might let on it’s a disease not a sin. The CBD’s don’t need a fleet of trucks or vats or kegs or bottles or caps. Or ingredients to bind the powder or color it or a mold to shape it or the side effect white powders to buy alongside.
Wall street’s Spontaneous Abortionists
The 2.2 million US prisoners eating taxes for blankets and flip flops, half non-violent committing the wrong place wrong time crime of nobody’s business. Prohibition violence or from liquid drugs, create jobs. Drunk drivers feed tow trucks and ambulances all running on Exxon. Bloody fights buy casts and band aids and medical employment farmed in, textile jobs sent out, leaving a lot of Vets and failed pisstastes on the streets, for us to see and remind us not to question it.
<img src=”http://i34.tinypic.com/2h6645h.jpg” height=”209″ width=”355″
October 13th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I believe the government and congress are still afraid of the thought of marijuana being legal. The sight people would finally see.. Freedom. Truth is what we need. Nixon fucked it up for all of us, the shaffer report slapped him in the face. The people know there is an injustice. We will overcome this travesty! LEGALIZE!!
October 14th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Cannabis must be legalized!
October 17th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Every Job I have had, There are mutliple pot smokers there. military, white collar, blue collar. and everyjob I see the most productive, most counted on employees get fired because they popped on a drug test, even though they used it at home on their own time. I am sick of all this! I am not harming anybody, but the government is controlled by big companies. so while suffering americans and good, hard wooking citizens are being denied natural theraputic medicine and denied jobs…… The pharm companies and still getting paid. Wake Up America…. there is strength in numbers! Together we have a chance…. sepreated we will forever loose!
October 19th, 2008 at 8:59 am
what can this do for Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis:
October 21st, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Greed - and who suffers - the sick & disabled
schedule one drug - “No medical bennifits” Yet we have 12 states that say it does.
republican is another word for IDIOT
October 24th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
marijunana{ cannabis} really needs to be firstly taken off schedule 1 it truely dosent belong there We need to stop filling courts and jail with petty marijuna offenders . Cannabis has some miraculous affects on pain anxiety and depression LEGALIZE ALREADY
October 26th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
As my congressman put it “The FDA has a procedure” congressman Tom Price MD, 6th district GA, at least that is what the letter he sent me said. My sentor responded “i would not want childern to think that it was not dangerous” Sentor Saxby Chamblsis Republician GA when i asked him to stop the raids on CA clinics. vote them all off the island!!