Earlier today Reuters News Wirefinally took the time to report that lifetime marijuana use is associated with a reduced risk of head and neck cancer. That’s according to the findings of a population-based case control study of some 1,000 subjects, published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.
But you already know this because NORML initially posted the news in July.
Authors reported, “After adjusting for potential confounders (including smoking and alcohol drinking), 10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma … [as was] moderate weekly use.”
Subjects who smoked marijuana and consumed alcohol and tobacco (two known high risk factors for head and neck cancers) also experienced a reduced risk of cancer, the study found.
“This association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use). … Further, we observed that marijuana use modified the interaction between alcohol and cigarette smoking, resulting in a decreased HNSCC risk among moderate smokers and light drinkers, and attenuated risk among the heaviest smokers and drinkers.“
Notably, Reuters‘ writers took a much more skeptical view of the study’s findings, as evident by the headline:
Strange that Reuters would frame their headline in the form of a question. After all, the study’s authors expressed no such reservations, concluding in the final line of their abstract, “Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of HNSCC (head and neck cancer).”
Reuters skepticism continues:
It’s unclear why marijuana would prevent cancer, if in fact the study is borne out by others, but the authors note that chemicals in pot called cannabinoids have been shown to have potential antitumor effects. Other studies have linked marijuana use to a reduced risk of some cancers, such as cancer of the prostate, and now head and neck cancer.
… Overall, however, research on the effects of marijuana on human health is mixed. Some studies have suggested the drug can increase a person’s risk of heart attack or stroke and cause some cancers such as lung cancer.
Let’s take things one at a time, shall we. First, it’s hardly ‘unclear’ as to why marijuana would be cancer-preventive. To quote the scientific journal Nature Reviews Cancer from 2003:
Cannabinoids inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signaling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Cannabinoids are selective anti-tumor compounds, as they can kill tumor cells without affecting their non-transformed counterparts.
Reuters unnamed author(s) further add the caveat: “if in fact the study is borne out by others.” News flash: this study was performed precisely because pot’s cancer preventive effects had been “borne out in others,” such as this:
The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer. … “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,” he said. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”
Reuters further states: “Other studies have linked marijuana use to a reduced risk of some cancers, such as cancer of the prostate, and now head and neck cancer.” Notably, the wire service failed to include that cannabinoids also have documented anti-cancer fighting abilities in the treatment of: brain cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, and pancreatic cancer — just to name a few.
And finally, Reuters obligatorily adds that pot’s effects on health are ‘mixed,’ alleging that “some studies have suggested the drug can increase a person’s risk of heart attack or stroke and cause some cancers such as lung cancer.” Ah yes, the ever elusive “some studies.”
Well, as for cannabis smoking and lung cancer, that claim was rebutted by the largest study of its kind, profiled above. As for the alleged risk of “heart attack or stroke,” a large-scale population study by Kaiser Permanente reported “no association of marijuana use with cardiovascular disease hospitalization or mortality.”
That said, I’m all for the media espousing skepticism regarding claims about cannabis. Of course, were the MSM to apply this same attitude to the federal government’s claims about marijuana and pot prohibition, we wouldn’t have to suffer through stories like these, now would we?
For some 35 years the United States federal government has been well aware that cannabis possesses potent anti-cancer and anti-tumor properties. And for the past three years, government-funded researchers have speculated that these qualities may offer “protective” effects against the onset of various types of cancer in humans, including lung cancer.
Yet to date, virtually no investigators have taken the time to assess marijuana’s potential anti-cancer effects in humans — until now.
In a clinical abstract just published online on the Cancer Prevention Research website, a team of U.S. investigators report that marijuana use, even long-term, is associated with a “significantly reduced risk” of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Cannabinoids, constituents of marijuana smoke, have been recognized to have potential anti-tumor properties. However, the epidemiologic evidence addressing the relationship between marijuana use and the induction of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is inconsistent and conflicting. Cases (n = 434) were patients with incident HNSCC disease from nine medical facilities in the Greater Boston, MA area between December 1999 and December 2003. Controls (n = 547) were frequency matched to cases on age (+/-3 years), gender, and town of residence, randomly selected from Massachusetts town books.
… After adjusting for potential confounders (including smoking and alcohol drinking), 10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of HNSCC [odds ratio (OR)(10-<20 years versus never users), 0.38; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.22-0.67]. Among marijuana users moderate weekly use was associated with reduced risk (OR(0.5-<1.5 times versus <0.5 time), 0.52; 95% CI, 0.32-0.85). The magnitude of reduced risk was more pronounced for those who started use at an older age (OR(15-<20 years versus never users), 0.53; 95% CI, 0.30-0.95; OR(>/=20 years versus never users), 0.39; 95% CI, 0.17-0.90; P(trend) < 0.001).
Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of HNSCC.
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. What possible advancements in the treatment of cancer could have been achieved over the past 35 years had U.S. government officials, or for that matter members of the mainstream media, chosen to advance — rather than to suppress — clinical research into the anti-cancer effects of cannabis? It’s a shame we have to speculate; it’s even more tragic that tens of thousands of families must needlessly suffer while we do.
HOW TO HAVE YOUR TEETH DRILLED WITHOUT NOVOCAIN (OR GAS)
By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board of Directors, medical marijuana patient
Science and medicine run deep in my family. My dad and an uncle had Ph.D.s in parasitology and pathology. My dad’s dad was an M.D. Grandpa met my grandmother when they were both attending medical school at the Univ. of California, in 1915. My grandma’s grandmother learned surgical nursing during the Civil War and afterward was the “doctor” for Oroville, California for many years. My mother, brother, and several aunts are all Registered Nurses. For at least five generations, our family has been committed to science and healing. It is from this perspective that I view marijuana as a medicine.
Like most Americans, I discovered marijuana as a medicine quite by accident. 60-years old, I’ve used pot for over 41 years simply because it makes me feel good. I like it. But who would have ever guessed cannabis was actually helping me stay healthy at the same time?
A ‘bad back’ is one of medicine’s most oft heard adult complaints, and during my 35-years of farming and ranching, my body has written many a check my back couldn’t cash. Sometimes my back has hurt so bad that if I got down on the floor, I couldn’t get up without help. In the end, after trying numerous back treatments, I found that just plain walking and stretching was the best way to deal with my lower back pain, that is, walking and stretching while consuming marijuana. I had first bunched these activities together so as to allow me to get my hurting back “walked out”, and at the same time, I had the privacy to smoke a little pot out of the sight of my growing children. I soon found that walking and stretching while using cannabis was many times more effective for treating my back pain than just walking without it! Marijuana seemed to relax my muscles, reduce spasms and inflammation. When I later became acquainted with the scientific research on this subject, I found out that was exactly what cannabis, and its cannabinoids, had been doing for my body all along.
Decades of splitting firewood, pounding fence posts and other such farm work has left me with two ruptured discs in my neck and numbness and pain that sometimes plagues my hands and fingers. Nasty. Sometimes, very, very nasty. Cannabis helps control the pain from these pinched nerves and cannabis helps me sleep at night without killing my liver or kidneys, without causing gastric distress or constipation, and without damaging my sex drive or good humor. Cannabis helps me pursue my non-surgical options, while at the same time it reduces inflammation and muscle soreness from my on-going activities.
Along with the work-related injuries, I am also a walking encyclopedia of old football injuries, some that still have me hobbling around, four decades after the last touchdown. I’m a big guy, played defensive tackle and lacrosse, too. I loved banging heads. In the process, I’ve separated a shoulder, had a major knee operation and sprained both ankles numerous times. But, am I standing in line for a knee or hip replacement like my no-pot using baby sister or brother-in-law? NOPE! Why no replacements of my damaged joints? I honestly think it’s because of the four decades of cannabis use that I can still walk five miles every day on my banged-up knee and ankles without any pain or inflammation. As it turns out, even the cartilage in one’s joints has cannabinoid receptor sites.
Oh yes, sure a dislocated ankle really hurts, but for a real front-row seat to the world of pain, there is nothing like a migraine headache. I am one of the unfortunate millions of Americans who have diet-triggered migraine headaches. But fortunately, over the years, I’ve rooted out my dietary ‘triggers’, which include: chocolate, red wine, aged cheese, soy sauce,…and now, I rarely have a migraine anymore. I avoid those triggers like the plague. But in my medicine chest, just in case, to help me deal with one of those aura-producing, skull-splitting migraine headaches that still lurk along life’s path, marijuana is an essential medicine. Almost instant migraine relief is possible for me with vaporized or smoked cannabis.
In late January, this past winter, we had a freezing fog that glazed-over everything for miles around. I took a dramatic fall on the ice and landed flat on the back of my ass. Both feet went out from under me so quickly I had not even gotten an elbow or finger down to help break my fall onto the ice-covered concrete slab. Well, at least I hadn’t cracked my head, I thought, as I lay there on my back on the ice, testing for broken bones. Slowly I started to move. Yup, I was OK. No broken hip, thank God—just the start of one very, very sore ass from taking the full impact of that drop onto the ice-glazed concrete. I crawled back into the house, went directly to our freezer, and took out a double dose of my special medical marijuana spice cake. About an hour-and-a-half later, my wife and I walked out the door on the start of a slow, but enjoyable, three-mile hike. My pelvis was very sore but, with the cannabis properly applied, it was good to go. I repeated this treatment every day for the next week, cannabis edibles and walking.
As my bruised butt was healing, I went to see my dentist for a check-up. He looked into my mouth and said I needed a filling, “Nothing too major.” Fortunately I was prepared; I had taken a good dose of my cannabis edibles an hour or so before my appointment, to allow me to sit, despite my injury, without discomfort in the dentist’s chair. I said to my dentist, “No Novocain today, Doc.” He nodded and started to prepare his drill. He’d seen me do this before.
Cannabinoid receptor sites are primarily in the peripheral nervous system. As cannabis calms the underlying causes of most back pain, the inflammation and tightness of the muscles, the cannabinoids also act on the peripheral nervous system to modulate the pain messages transmitted to the major nerves. The pain from tooth drilling is a bit different, that kind of pain is hard-wired directly into the brain. Cannabis doesn’t block that pain so much as helps a person to simply look past the pain and ignore it.
In having one’s teeth drilled, due to the fear of pain, virtually everyone trades a very few moments of serious pain from the drilling, for about two hours of having one’s face defrost from the jaw-numbing shot of Novocain. I said, “No Novocain for me today, Doc,” because I chose the pain, knowing medical marijuana would help me overcome it.
Here’s how: Take cannabis edibles an hour or two before you are to sit in the dentist’s chair. Not flinching while the dentist is drilling your teeth is a big job. You must lie there absolutely still, melted into the chair, immobile. Cannabis is very useful in this process, not so much to block the high-voltage pain from the tooth drilling, but to help your mind reach the meditative state to deflect that pain, so you can let the pain flow over you like water.
Think of your time in that dentist’s chair like body surfing in big waves. When a crusher wave comes in, you must dive down deep, hold your breath, and let it roll over you. When it’s safe, you can come up again for air. The ocean is too big to fight; you have to hold on until the wave passes. And, it’s the very same thing having your teeth drilled without gas or Novocain. The very second the drilling stops, that tooth pain stops, as well, and you can safely come up for air. With modern high-speed dental drills, the actual total number of seconds of real pain are quite few, providing the excavation isn’t the Grand Canyon (your dentist can help you judge). So, just relax, it’s really not that bad, roll your eyes back, and let her rip! With a little pot spice cake behind you, you’ll be quite surprised, you can handle it! And, it’s only going to hurt for a few seconds, anyway. Afterward, when the drilling’s all done, putting in the filling doesn’t hurt a bit.
One very nice thing about dentistry without Novocain is you always get the occlusion right, the first time, everytime, because you can actually feel your mouth when the dentist tells you to bite down, and asks, “Is the new filling too high or low?” And then, when the dentist takes off your dental bib, it’s all over; it is really totally over—no frosted face, no needle marks in your gums, nothing else to recover from.
Without the Novocain shot as part of your dental work, you can walk out of your dentist’s office pain-free after a filling, your cannabis edibles still kicked in, whistling your favorite tune! Now, you try doing that for the next hour or two with your face and lower lip de-frosting from the Novocain!
I’ve been using cannabis as a medicine for over 30 years, 5 years legally. Washington State’s voters gave me the right to use marijuana as a medicine in 1998; I got my doctor’s recommendation in ‘04. President Obama’s Justice Department has said the Feds will no longer interfere with Washington State law in this area. Decades of worry and paranoia, the fear of a SWAT Team, with their guns drawn, bursting through our front door in the middle of the night, bringing drug dogs to search for my medicine has abated, at least for now. Help NORML end America’s marijuana prohibition for good.
Achieving proper titration: In the words of the DEA’s own Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young: “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances know to man…” Advances in technology have come in all areas of modern life and making marijuana use even safer is no exception! In the last five years, I have all but given up smoking pot in favor of using a vaporizer—it’s clean and very tasty, with no tars or fire-created carcinogens—although for mobility and socialization it will always be hard to replace a joint. Achieving proper dosing levels using a vaporizer or smoking is quite easy, full effects are seen in about ten minutes and last about an hour-and-a-half before declining. Homemade cannabis edibles take about 20-40 minutes to kick-in, a lot depending on what else is in your stomach, and some experimentation is needed to find the proper dosing levels; but for long term, high-dose pain relief, edibles are hard to beat.
About two years ago, when the pinched nerves in my neck were acting their very worst, I began using cannabis at dosing levels where pot’s marvelous, fun and useful psycho-active effects started disappearing for me as well. Damn, it’s the shits to be that sick! Thank goodness, I’m better now.
On the one hand, I’m thrilled to see that a study documenting the anti-cancer properties of cannabinoids is finally receiving some mainstream media attention.
On the other hand, I’m disappointed that its coverage is limited to a British tabloid that is better known for running anti-pot propaganda like this:
A mentally ill man driven to violent frenzies by cannabis was sentenced to life yesterday for stabbing a man 100 times.
… Kashmiri, 50, of Tooting, south London, sexually assaulted the woman at her south London home in June, 2006, and returned five nights later to attack her.
… Kashmiri, whose violent episodes are triggered by cannabis, denied murder but admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.
Of course, I’m accustomed to reading “Reefer Madness” in the British press.
But I’m less accustomed to reading “Reefer Madness” when it comes from the mouth of an established medi-pot researcher like Dr. Wai Man Liu.
Cannabis could be used to treat many forms of cancer, new research suggests.
The drug contains an ingredient which slows tumour growth and prevents the reproduction of cancer cells, doctors say.
Its effects are seen in all cancers but particularly in those of the lung and brain, and leukaemia, it is claimed.
But scientists warned against smoking the drug, saying the only safe version was that created in the lab.
Researcher Dr Wai Man Liu said: ‘I’m in no way encouraging people to take up smoking the ganja – there would be more harm than good.’
Previous research has shown cannabis-based medicines can help cancer patients as a painkiller, appetite stimulant and in reducing nausea.
The drug has also long been used by multiple sclerosis and arthritis sufferers to reduce pain.
Its medicinal benefits come from the main active ingredient, THC. The latest research, by St George’s University of London, shows that THC can weaken cancer cells to make traditional chemotherapy more effective.
Dr Liu said: ‘It’s another weapon against the armour of cancer. We are quite close but need to jump through certain hoops. I believe it could be used in two to three years.’
Dr Joanna Owens, from Cancer Research UK, said the latest studies were encouraging but needed to be followed up with more trials. She added: ‘Making cancer cells more vulnerable to chemotherapy or radiotherapy is a great concept but it is still early days.’
Having recently lost friends and family members to cancer, including one to leukemia, I can inform Dr. Liu that such a diagnosis — even when treated with standard radiation and chemotherapy — is a death sentence. For Dr. Liu to advise, with a straight face no less, that these patients would do “more harm than good” by smoking cannabis is a disgrace. Not only can cannabis alleviate cancer patients’ nausea and pain, elevate their mood, and increase their appetite, but also — as Dr. Liu’s own data demonstrates — it may help to alleviate the very disease that’s ravaging their bodies. Nevertheless, I suppose that Dr. Liu would rather have these patients shut up and die than expose the political hypocrisy surrounding criminalizing a plant.
Finally, as for Dr. Liu’s idyllic estimate that his pharmaceutically-approved pot-based anti-cancer drugs will be available in “two to three years,” don’t hold your breath (or, if you already have cancer, try not to die in the interim). I’m sure that these investigators made similar proclamations when they documented pot’s anti-cancer properties — in 1975!
Yet here we are 38 years later and the only ‘progress’ we’ve made on this issue is in the wrong direction — having moved from investigating the plant’s anti-cancer potential in animals to cells in vitro in a petri dish! Thank you Dr. Liu; now kindly get out of my sight.
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.
Well, that only took a month.
Now this really is a mixed blessing.
