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PRESS RELEASE - 3rd September 2002
Medical Cannabis News
Med-pot news
by Dana Larsen (03 Sept, 2002)
THC destroys cancer cells, but the research is buried and ignored.
A study published in the July 2002 edition of the medical journal
Blood found that THC and some other cannabinoids produced
"programmed cell death" in different varieties of human
leukemia and lymphoma cell lines, thereby destroying the cancerous cells
but leaving other cells unharmed.
This reaffirms results by researchers at Madrid's Complutense University,
who destroyed otherwise uncurable brain cancer tumors in rats by
injecting them with THC (CC#25,
THC destroys
brain cancers). Their study
was published in the March 2000 issue of Nature Medicine. This
ground-breaking research received almost no media attention, and has not
been pursued as the researchers couldn't get further funding (CC#29,
No funding
for THC tumor
research).
The lack of funding is typical of how such research is usually not
followed up. For example, a 1974 study by researchers at the Medical
College of Virginia, funded by the US National Institute of Health, found
that THC slowed the growth of lung cancer, breast cancer and
virus-induced leukemia in rats.
The 1974 study, titled "Antineoplastic activity of
cannabinoids," appeared in a 1975 edition of the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute. Yet despite their promising results, no
further research was made, and the study has essentially disappeared from
the scientific literature.
Similarly, a 1994 study, which documented that THC may protect against
malignant cancers, was also buried by the US government. The $2 million
study, funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services' national
toxicology program, sought to show that large doses of THC produced
cancer. Instead, researchers found that massive doses of THC retarded
certain types of stomach cancer in rats. The rats given THC lived longer
than their non-exposed counterparts.
The study was unpublished and the results hidden for almost three years,
until it was leaked to AIDS Treatment News in 1997, and the Boston Globe
broke the story days later (CC#17,
THC for
tumors).
A study by Italian scientists, published in the July 1998 Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, found that anandamide inhibited the
growth of breast cancer cells. Anandamide is the naturally occurring body
chemical which is mimicked by cannabinoids.
Other studies have shown that cannabinoids can also help prevent the
death of brain cells during a stroke, head trauma and nerve gas exposure
(CC#16,
Marijuana
protects your brain.
Click here for the abstract of the lymphoma study in the journal Blood
Click here for a United
Press article on the Madrid brain cancer study:
www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n289.a09.html
For an abstract of the Madrid brain cancer study, click here, then select the subject area
"Cancer" and click "search":
abstract of the Madrid brain cancer study
Click here for a mainstream
media article on the suppressed 1974 study on THC and lung cancer, breast
cancer and leukemia:
www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01.n572.a11.html
Click here for a mainstream media article about media bias and the suppressed 1994 US
government study showing THC protects from malignant cancers.
www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n460/a07.html
Click here for the complete text of the 1998 study showing anandamide inhibits growth of
breast cancer cells
Click here for links: To many studies on the therapeutic effects of cannabinoids
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