Just days after the New York Times, Scientific American, and other MSM outlets finally got wind that cannabis’ germ-fighting properties can halt the spread of MRSA and other multi-drug resistant pathogens, along comes a second just-released study identifying several new non-cannabinoid compounds in the plant which possess anti-bacterial properties.

Investigators at the University of Mississippi report the discovery of eleven new non-cannabinoid constituents in cannabis, several of which possess “anti-microbial” (think MRSA), “anti-malarial,” and “anti-leishmanial” (a common skin parasite) activity. Scientists also reported that several of the compounds also possessed anti-inflammatory properties and acted as potent anti-oxidants.

(The US government, Depart of Health and Human Services actually holds a patent on the use of certain cannabinoids as anti-oxidants and neuroprotectants, which you can read here.)

In other words, when we speak about the healing powers of the cannabis plant, we really mean the entire cannabis plant. We’re not talking about isolating particular cannabinoids, and we’re most certainly not suggesting patients be forced to consume an oral synthetic version of a single compound a la Marinol.

Therapeutic cannabis means just that — the therapeutic prowess of the whole plant. We should not advocate for, or accept, anything less.

Well what do you know? A mainstream media outlet finally picked up on this story!

Sure it’s been over a week since I first blogged about it here and here. But given the MSM’s long history of sweeping similar medi-pot revelations under the rug, this is case where I gladly say ‘better late than never.’

Of course, given the media’s current fixation with the Republican National Convention, it’s unlikely that this story will have any legs.

That said, give Web MD credit for acknowledging pot’s germ-killing power against MRSA, and for not letting these important findings slip down the ‘memory hole.’ No doubt there’s plenty of folks at the Drug Czar’s office who are wishing that they had.

Chemicals in Marijuana May Fight MRSA
via Web MD

Sept. 4, 2008 — Chemicals in marijuana may be useful in fighting MRSA, a kind of staph bacterium that is resistant to certain antibiotics.

Researchers in Italy and the U.K. tested five major marijuana chemicals called cannabinoids on different strains of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). All five showed germ-killing activity against the MRSA strains in lab tests. Some synthetic cannabinoids also showed germ-killing capability. The scientists note the cannabinoids kill bacteria in a different way than traditional antibiotics, meaning they might be able to bypass bacterial resistance.

At least two of the cannabinoids don’t have mood-altering effects, so there could be a way to use these substances without creating the high of marijuana. (NORML note: by this author’s count, four of the five cannabinoids tested in this study lack demonstrable psychoactivity.)

MRSA, like other staph infections, can be spread through casual physical contact or through contaminated objects. It is commonly spread from the hands of someone who has it. This could be in a health care setting, though there have also been high-profile cases of community-acquired MRSA.

It is becoming more common for healthy people to get MRSA, which is often spread between people who have close contact with one another, such as members of a sports team. Symptoms often include skin infections, such as boils. MRSA can become serious, particularly for people who are weak or ill.

In the study, published in the Journal of Natural Products, researchers call for further study of the antibacterial uses of marijuana. There are “currently considerable challenges with the treatment of infections caused by strains of clinically relevant bacteria that show multi-drug resistance,” the researchers write. New antibacterials are urgently needed, but only one new class of antibacterial has been introduced in the last 30 years. “Plants are still a substantially untapped source of antimicrobial agents,” the researchers conclude.

You can hear Russ Belville and I discuss this study on the NORML podcast here.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

You can also comment on this story at the Huffington Post by clicking here. Help spread the truth about medicinal cannabis by commenting, ‘Digging,’ and passing this story on to others.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, colloquially known as MRSA or ‘the superbug,’ is now responsible for more annual US deaths than AIDS. Yet despite this sobering statistic, it’s unlikely that either JAMA or anyone in the mainstream US media will report on the findings of a forthcoming Italian study — you didn’t actually think I was going to say that this took place in America did you? — demonstrating that compounds in cannabis possess “exceptional antibacterial activity” against multi-drug resistant pathogens, including MRSA.

“Although the use of cannabinoids as systemic antibacterial agents awaits rigorous clinical trials, … their topical application to reduce skin colonization by MRSA seems promising,” the study’s authors write. “Cannabis sativa … represents an interesting source of antibacterial agents to address the problem of multidrug resistance in MRSA and other pathogenic bacteria.”

(You can read the full text ahead of publication here.)

Ironically, the study notes that preparations from cannabis were “investigated extensively in the 1950s as highly active topical antiseptic agents.” Predictably — in yet another ‘victory’ for prohibition — authors declare that little, if any, research into this potential clinical application has taken place since.

Several years ago, when I first began writing the booklet Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids, I mused about what sort of advancements in the treatment of disease may have been achieved over the past 70+ years had U.S. government chosen to advance — rather than stifle — clinical research into the therapeutic effects of cannabis.

Now, more than ever, this is a question that our elected officials — both Republican and Democrat — must answer.

Oh, so this is why the Feds do everything they can to discourage any investigation into the safety and efficacy of inhaled cannabis.

Medicinal Marijuana Eases Neuropathic Pain in HIV
via The Washington Post

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) — Medicinal marijuana helps relieve neuropathic pain in people with HIV, says a University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine study.

It included 28 HIV patients with neuropathic pain that wasn’t adequately controlled by opiates or other pain relievers. The researchers found that 46 percent of patients who smoked medicinal marijuana reported clinically meaningful pain relief, compared with 18 percent of those who smoked a placebo.

The study, published online Aug. 6 in Neuropsychopharmacology, was sponsored by the University of California Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR).

“Neuropathy is a chronic and significant problem in HIV patients as there are few existing treatments that offer adequate pain management to sufferers,” study leader Dr. Ronald J. Ellis, an associate professor of neurosciences, said in an UCSD news release. “We found that smoked cannabis was generally well-tolerated and effective when added to the patient’s existing pain medication, resulting in increased pain relief.”

The findings are consistent with and extend other recent CMCR-sponsored research supporting the short-term effectiveness of medicinal marijuana in treating neuropathic pain.

“This study adds to a growing body of evidence that indicates that cannabis is effective, in the short-term at least, in the management of neuropathic pain,” Dr. Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry and director of the CMCR, said in the UCSD news release.   

By my count, this is the third clinical trial published in just over a year to conclude that inhaling cannabis significantly reduces neuropathic pain. (Read about the others here and here.) And that’s not even including this study that found that low doses of inhaled cannabis are more therapeutic for HIV-positive patients than Marinol (oral synthetic THC).

Kudos to The Washington Post for publicizing this important story. And an extra ’shout out’ to the Post’s editors for highlighting that this trial was sponsored by California’s Center for Medical Cannabis Research and not by the US government.

So if rats can deduce that whole cannabis works better as a medicine than a single synthesized molecule, what’s stopping our federal politicians and bureaucrats from reaching this same conclusion?

Antihyperalgesic effect of a Cannabis sativa extract in a rat model of neuropathic pain: mechanisms involved
via PubMed

This study aimed to give a rationale for the employment of phytocannabinoid formulations to treat neuropathic pain. It was found that a controlled cannabis extract, containing multiple cannabinoids, in a defined ratio, and other non-cannabinoid fractions (terpenes and flavonoids) provided better antinociceptive efficacy than the single cannabinoid given alone, when tested in a rat model of neuropathic pain.

On a separate but related note, am I the only one offended that most scientists appear to be more inclined to document pot’s healing powers in rats and mice than in, say, human beings?

Of course, if you want to enroll in clinical trials intent on documenting so-called “marijuana abuse,” you can take your pick here.

The extent of the federal government’s hypocrisy on the issue of medicinal cannabis truly knows no bounds. Don’t believe me? Just click here.

(Thanks to Huffington Post blogger Brinna for the link.)

US Patent 6630507 – Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants

Application: filed on 2/02/2001

US Patent Issued on October 7, 2003

Assignee: The United States of America, as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services  

And there you have it. The same federal government that steadfastly denies pot has any medicinal value also holds the medical patents on the plant’s various therapeutic cannabinoids. And they aren’t the only ones who do.

NORML podcaster Russ Belville and I will be discussing this issue in depth — as well as the related issue of whether or not Big Pharma is behind the prohibition of pot — on the Daily Audio Stash next week.

Stay tuned.

For over a decade now I’ve been telling folks that compounds in cannabis can selectively target and kill malignant cancer cells. It seems like some media outlets finally starting to get the message.

Today, the good folks at HuffingtonPost.com published my latest essay on the subject, “What Your Government Knows About Cannabis And Cancer — And Isn’t Telling You.”

Since the Huffington Post is an online medium, I made it a point to include nearly a dozen links to pertinent research and clinical/pre-clinical trials demonstrating that cannabinoids possess anti-cancer properties.

Fortunately, in the past 10 years scientists overseas have generously picked up where U.S. researchers so abruptly left off, reporting that cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells — including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and brain cancer. (An excellent paper summarizing much of this research, “Cannabinoids for Cancer Treatment: Progress and Promise,” appears in the January 2008 edition of the journal Cancer Research.) A 2006 patient trial published in the British Journal of Cancer even reported that the intracranial administration of THC was associated with reduced tumor cell proliferation in humans with advanced glioblastoma.

For most visitors to the Huffington Post, my essay will be their first exposure to this information, but ideally, not their last. Hopefully, readers of the site — which is one of the most visited on the Internet — will join us in our calls to end the US government’s multi-decade long denial of this potentially groundbreaking research.

You can read the full text of my essay here.

Please feel free to leave a comment and/or circulate this article widely (Digg it, reddit, buzz up, etc.) My last Huff Post essay, “Don’t Buy The ‘Potent Pot’ Hype,” received nearly 100 comments, a personal response from the Drug Czar’s office, and earned me a guest spot on Dr. Drew Pinsky’s live nationally syndicated radio show. That said, in my opinion, the government’s cover-up of pot’s anti-cancer abilities is a far more important topic; hopefully we can get a similar buzz started.

PS: Those interested in learning more about this topic can download an audio file of my recent guest appearance on the radio show, “Sex, Drugs, and Civil Liberties,” (KOPN: Columbia, Missouri) here.

Okay, even I’m beginning to grow really, really tired of debunking this tripe.

Leave it to the ever exploitive folks at CASA (The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University) to jump on the phony “It’s not your father’s pot” bandwagon. Their bogus claim — which CNN embarrassingly bought hook, line, and sinker — is that today’s allegedly stronger pot is responsible for the spike in the number of Americans enrolled in ‘drug treatment’ for cannabis.

Via Marketwire.com

From 1992 — 2006:

– There was a 175 percent jump in the potency of marijuana (3.2 to 8.8 percent THC concentration in seized samples).

– There was a 492 percent increase in the proportion of teen treatment admissions with a medical diagnosis for marijuana abuse or dependence, compared with a 54 percent decline for all other substances of abuse.

– There was a 188 percent increase in the proportion of teen treatment admissions for marijuana as the primary drug of abuse, compared with a 54 percent decline for all other substances of abuse.  

Notwithstanding that the potency figures cited by U-Miss are by the government’s own admission utter bullcrap, let me try to once again set the record straight in as few words as possible.

The recent spike in so-called marijuana ‘treatment’ admissions has nothing to do with marijuana; rather, it has everything to do with the public policies that criminalize its possession and use.

Noticeably absent from CASA’s press release (and CNN’s hatchet job) is the fact that marijuana arrests skyrocketed during this same period — from a modern low of 288,000 in 1991 to a record 830,000 in 2006.

Predictably, as record numbers of minor marijuana offenders have been arrested, a record number of judges and drug courts have been ordering defendants to attend ‘drug treatment’ in lieu of jail or as a requirement of their probation.

Nationally, according to data compiled by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Services Administration and published here, nearly 60 percent of all adolescents admitted to drug treatment for cannabis were ordered there by the criminal justice system. This percentage is almost a 50 percent increase since 1992. During this same time frame, “The proportion of admissions from [all] other referral sources declined.”

In other words, if Drug Czar John Walters and his ilk hadn’t been on a pot-arresting rampage over the past decade and a half — a rampage largely fueled by lies perpetuated by the likes of CASA and regurgitated by the talking heads at CNN — there would likely be fewer Americans in drug treatment for pot now than there were 16 years ago!

On a final note, I want to thank NORML podcaster extraordinaire Russ Belville for so diligently assisting me these past few days in debunking these ‘potent pot’ myths. If you have not heard his articulate call in to The Dr. Drew radio show yesterday — a call that left the good doctor tongue-tied — I suggest you immediately download an archive of the show (of which Drug Czar John Walters and I were both guests) here. Russ also has a comprehensive transcript of and rebuttal to the Drug Czar’s ridiculous on-air statements here.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! (AGAIN)

I’ll be appearing live this afternoon on the Dr. Drew (Pinsky) Live nationally syndicated radio show to discuss this issue further. I will be appearing at 12:35pm pst (3:35pm est), just minutes after Drug Czar John Walters, who no doubt will claim that supposedly ‘potent pot’ supposedly causes brain damage, depression, addiction and every other malady known to man.

To stream the show live, click here. To find a local radio affiliate in your area, click here.

Several media outlets, including the influential Huffington Post, have run with my rebuttal to last week’s Associated Press story regarding the federal government’s specious claims of ridiculously potent pot.

My personal favorite: Today’s op/ed in The Daily Mississippian, which is the daily newspaper for the University of Mississippi. For those who don’t know, the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy is home to NIDA’s Potency Monitoring Project, the very group responsible for this questionable ‘study.’

Let’s hope that Dr. ElSohly and all of his PMP colleagues read the morning paper!

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

It’s just come to my attention that the following essay is making waves at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, where the Drug Czar’s minions have actually taken the time to respond to it. Now, I know that nobody actually reads the Drug Czar’s blog on their own, so here’s the link. (You can also read Russ Belville’s excellent deconstruction of the Czar’s reply here.)

As Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Well, I guess it’s safe to say we’re at the stage where they finally fight! You know what comes next.

‘Potency pot’ is all hype
via The Daily Mississippian

by Paul Armentano

Government claims of highly potent pot must be taken with a grain of salt (”Marijuana THC potency levels highest in 30 years,” June 16, 2008). As is the case with any black market commodity, definitive facts are difficult if not impossible to come by.

That said, even by the University of Mississippi’s own admission, the average THC in domestically grown marijuana — which comprises the bulk of the US market — is less than five percent, a figure that’s remained unchanged for nearly a decade.

By contrast, the average strength of imported cannabis has grown in recent years. Nevertheless, non-domestic marijuana comprises only a small fraction of the domestic market. To imply that this rare, unusually potent cannabis is reflective of what is typically available on the US market is highly (and purposely) misleading.

Furthermore, it must be noted that THC — regardless of potency — is non-toxic and incapable of causing a fatal overdose. Currently, doctors may legally prescribe a FDA-approved pill that contains 100 percent THC, and curiously, nobody at the University of Mississippi or at the Drug Czar’s office seems particularly concerned about it.

It should also be noted that most cannabis consumers actually prefer less potent pot, just as the majority of those who drink alcohol prefer beer or wine over hard liquor. If and when consumers encounter unusually strong varieties of marijuana, they adjust their use accordingly and smoke less.

Of course, if lawmakers and government researchers were really concerneda bout potential risks posed by potent marijuana, they would support regulating the drug, so that its potency would be known to the consumer.

So if today’s pot is essentially the same plant it’s always been with any marginal increase in potency akin to the difference between a cup of tea and an espresso why is the government claiming otherwise? Mainly to scare parents, particularly those millions of parents who may have, without incident, experimented with marijuana in the 1970s, when they were about the same age as their children are today. Fortunately for them, while the feds’ latest “reefer rhetoric” may sound alarming, there’s little substance behind the hype. 

Lawmakers in New York continue to debate legislation that seeks to legalize medical cannabis for qualified patients. Meanwhile, opponents of this compassionate and common sense measure argue that acknowledging the known therapeutic benefits of cannabis and protecting those who could benefit from its use inexplicably “exploits” the seriously ill.

Unlike medi-pot opponents, I actually interact with cannabis patients. Often, they seek me out — writing me testimonials like the one below. Perhaps if more politicians and, God forbid, members of law enforcement shared in these sort of one-on-one interactions, they’d change their tune. Or perhaps, they would do what Presidential hopeful John McCain did, and simply turn their backs.

Letters for June 16, 2008
via The Oneonta Daily Star

Marijuana works as a medicine

Kudos for your editorial support in favor of legally protecting patients who use cannabis therapy under the guidance of their physician (”Medical marijuana makes sense,” June 7).

While authoring the recent publication, “Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review of the Scientific Literature” (NORML Foundation 2008), I reviewed more than 150 clinical and preclinical studies assessing the therapeutic value of cannabis and its active compounds to treat symptoms — and in some cases moderate disease progression — in a variety of illness, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, diabetes and Lou Gehrig’s disease. Nearly all of the studies cited in my work were published within the past eight years.

Unlike many politicians and law enforcement officials, I frequently interact with medical marijuana patients. Many of them write to me daily, as do their physicians. Often they tell me stories like this: “I was recently diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor inside the left temporal lobe of my brain. I had surgery, and I’ve just started chemotherapy and radiation. The surgeon actually apologized for the fact that he could not write me a prescription for marijuana, but he told me it was safe to smoke. … Marijuana is saving my life right now; it has helped to kill my seizures, nausea, dizziness, and calm my headaches. If marijuana can help me with all my other problems in addition to possibly reducing the size of my tumor and extending my life, then why on earth would our government not allow me to have it?”

Why indeed?

Paul Armentano

Washington, D.C.

Armentano is deputy director of NORML and the NORML Foundation. 

Television ads in favor of pending medical cannabis legislation are now airing in select markets of New York state. To view the ad, click here. To learn more about what you can do to support efforts to legalize medical marijuana in New York, please click here.