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.

Study: Marijuana potency increases in 2007
via Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Marijuana potency increased last year to the highest level in more than 30 years, posing greater health risks to people who may view the drug as harmless, according to a report released Thursday by the White House.

The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.

The 9.6 percent level represents more than a doubling of marijuana potency since 1983, when it averaged just under 4 percent.

“Today’s report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana,” said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He cited baby boomer parents who might have misguided notions that the drug contains the weaker potency levels of the 1970s.

“Marijuana potency has grown steeply over the past decade, with serious implications in particular for young people,” Walters said. He cited the risk of psychological, cognitive and respiratory problems, and the potential for users to become dependent on drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

While the drug’s potency may be rising, marijuana users generally adjust to the level of potency and smoke it accordingly, said Dr. Mitch Earleywine, who teaches psychology at the State University of New York in Albany and serves as an adviser for marijuana advocacy groups. “Stronger cannabis leads to less inhaled smoke,” he said.

The White House office attributed the increases in marijuana potency to sophisticated growing techniques that drug traffickers are using at sites in the United States and Canada.

…

“The increases in marijuana potency are of concern since they increase the likelihood of acute toxicity, including mental impairment,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the University of Mississippi study.

When I was in journalism school, the rule of thumb was that you needed to have your facts confirmed by three separate sources before a news story was ‘fit to print.’ By that standard, the ‘three sources’ cited in the story above — White House Drug Czar (and chronic liar) John Walters, NIDA’s (US National Institute on Drug Abuse) Potency Monitoring Project, and Nora Volkow, who heads the rabidly anti-drug propaganda agency that paid for the Monitoring Project study — don’t even add up to one.

Fortunately, the AP did at least demonstrate the good sense to speak with SUNY Albany Professor (and NORML Advisory Board member) Mitch Earleywine, who stated the obvious factoid overlooked by the White House: As the potency of pot rises, people simply smoke less of it. Mitch could have also 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. Or he could have mentioned how doctors may legally prescribe a FDA-approved non-toxic pill that contains 100 percent THC, and curiously, nobody at NIDA or at the Drug Czar’s office seems particularly concerned about it. Strangely, AP writer Hope Yen felt the need to identify Dr. Earleywine, who has authored numerous peer-reviewed studies and books on various aspects of cannabis, as “an adviser for marijuana advocacy groups,” but felt no such need to identify Mr. Walters or Ms. Volkow as “those who favor arresting and jailing adults who use marijuana, even when their use is for medical purposes.”

Of course, in an effort to get to the bottom of the so-called “potent pot” story, Ms. Yen might have thought to inquire why the US National Drug Intelligence Center’s 2007 National Drug Threat Assessment states, “Most of the marijuana available in the domestic drug markets is lower potency commercial-grade marijuana.” Geez, you’d think that the various prohibitionist branches of the US government would at least get their stories straight!

Oh well, since lying about the alleged dangers of allegedly more potent pot is now an annual tradition (Remember “Pot 2.0” anybody?), there’s always next year.

“This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you.”– Mark R. Trouville, DEA Miami, speaking to the Associated Press (June 22, 2007)

Having spent over a decade debunking the ‘potent pot myth‘ — the false yet wildly popular notion that today’s cannabis is dramatically more potent, and thus more dangerous (or as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown likes to say, “more lethal“) than the marijuana of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, it’s nice to finally get some back up.

Writing in the forthcoming issue of the scientific journal Addiction, researchers at the University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, examined the potency of over 100,000 pot seizures from around the word. They concluded (drum roll please), “Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency and about the adverse mental health effects of cannabis contamination are not supported currently by the evidence.”

The investigators also addressed the equally popular myth that ‘potent pot’ is responsible for an increase in the number of people seeking ‘treatment’ for cannabis, finding, “Another reason for increase in treatment seeking could be the introduction of cannabis diversion programmes, some of which involve mandatory treatment for those who have committed a cannabis-related offense” — a point we’ve made here on several occasions.

Want more details? NORML podcaster extraordinaire Russ Belville has an extensive summary of the study here.

You can listen to host Dean Becker and I debunk the latest marijuana myths regarding potency, cancer risk, driving, and a plethora of other issues on the February 6 edition of the syndicated radio show Cultural Baggage.

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