Survey: 40% of Medical Pot Users Able to Stop Using Pharmaceuticals

Julie Fidler
Natural Society

Medical marijuana is a touchy subject and many people are still on the fence about whether it’s a legitimate medicine and should be legalized. If you’re one of those people who remain unconvinced, perhaps this new study will change your mind.



In a survey of 450 adults who identified as current cannabis users, 78% said they used cannabis to treat a medical or health condition. Nearly half of those users – 42% – said they were able to give up pharmaceutical drugs because cannabis did the trick.

Another 38% of current cannabis users reported they were able to cut back on their use of pharmaceuticals because of cannabis.

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Nevada Traffic Deaths Plunge 10% Following Marijuana Legalization

Zero Hedge

It is the one-year anniversary of recreational marijuana in Nevada – how has the state fared?

Newly published data from the Nevada Department of Public Safety reveals an unexpected finding: traffic deaths in the state have plunged by 10 percent in the first year since recreational marijuana was legalized.

According to a report from NBC Reno, about 310 people died in traffic accidents in Nevada between July 2016 and May 2017. From July 2017 to May 2018 — the first 11-months of legal recreational marijuana — just 277 people died in car crashes across the state. KRNV noted that the Nevada Department of Public Safety was unable to provide data for June.

Marijuana became legal in Nevada on January 01, 2017. The law allows anyone 21 and older to possess marijuana and consume it from a licensed dealer.

Some of the narratives of recreational marijuana spun by opponents were that traffic fatalities and DUI arrests would surge if legalized. 

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Senate Votes to Finally Legalize Hemp After 80 Years of Prohibition

Carey Wedler 
Anti-Media

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate approved a bill to legalize hemp, an industrial crop that has been banned for decades.

In April, Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) submitted a separate bill to legalize hemp, and those provisions were then incorporated into the broader farm bill. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry approved that version before the upper house of Congress voted to approve it this week by a margin of 86-11. The bill would legalize the cultivation, processing, and sale of hemp.

“Consumers across America buy hundreds of millions in retail products every year that contain hemp,” McConnell said Thursday. “But due to outdated federal regulations that do not sufficiently distinguish this industrial crop from its illicit cousin, American farmers have been mostly unable to meet that demand themselves. It’s left consumers with little choice but to buy imported hemp products from foreign-produced hemp.”

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Illinois Decriminalizes Marijuana

Chicago Tribune

Getting caught with small amounts of marijuana will result in citations akin to a traffic ticket instead of the possibility of jail time under legislation Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law Friday.

Rauner's approval of the decriminalization measure comes after he used his amendatory veto powers last year to rewrite legislation he argued would have allowed people to carry too much pot and fine violators too little.

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The government ignores the truth: Opioid use plummets in states with legal cannabis

Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project

Yesterday we reported how Congress' "opioid bill," or Comprehensive Addiction & Recovery Act (CARA), was a hollow achievement, as it ignored medical cannabis alternatives and said nothing about the role of Big Pharma in the opioid abuse epidemic.

Among the information missing from the conversation was an eye-opening study done last year. A JAMA Internal Medicine study looked at ten years of data in all 50 states, concluding that states with medical cannabis laws had significantly lower rates of opioid overdose mortality.

There is no indication this important fact was heard when a federal "pain panel" advised Congress. The FDA, one of several agencies on the panel, had already been exposed as being stacked with members linked to drugmakers, including one caught up in an OxyContin scandal.  

The JAMA study was presented in a recent Congressional panel on pain management. Despite the clear evidence of real-world results, prohibitionists rejected an amendment to study the "potential for marijuana to serve as an alternative to opioids for pain management."

Now, a second study has confirmed the powerful effect that medical cannabis has on reducing opioid abuse.

In 17 states with medical cannabis laws in place by 2013, the researchers "found that the use of prescription drugs for which marijuana could serve as a clinical alternative fell significantly, once a medical marijuana law was implemented."

Prescriptions fell dramatically for opioid painkillers, with 1,826 fewer doses being prescribed per year by the typical physician in a medical cannabis state. Amazingly, the trend also applied to prescriptions for depression, seizure, nausea and anxiety. 

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Licensing Scheme for Medical Marijuana Market May Be a Boon for the Black Market in Washington State

The Narcosphere

Critics contend current cap on new cannabis stores is too low and could force many patients to turn to back-alley providers

The state of Washington’s medical-marijuana industry has been in disarray since the passage of legislation last spring that calls for pushing businesses in that now-unregulated “grey market” into the state’s regulated recreational-cannabis market.

The turmoil has been exacerbated by a new licensing cap established for cannabis outlets, which critics contend is based on a dramatic underestimation of the demand for medical marijuana (MMJ) in the state. Those critics argue further that the “under-licensing” will only lead to an expansion of the black market — and associated social woes — that the cannabis-legalization movement is designed to negate.

A recent public-records request by Narco News has produced a series of emails and documents that tend to support the MMJ community’s concern that state regulators may have low-balled the number of new retail-store licenses being issued to address the state’s medical-cannabis demand.

Washington’s MMJ grey market has operated for years in the open, under a thin veneer of legal protections and absent formal regulation. That all comes to an end as of July 1 of this year, when a select number of MMJ dispensaries, or storefronts, will be issued recreational licenses based on an elaborate rank-ordering review system, and the balance of the dispensaries will be forced out of business by the state.

The assumption by some cannabis experts is that many of the grey-market MMJ entities that do not make the licensing cut, along with the patients they serve, will essentially slip into the black market — opening them up to potential criminal prosecution. Many MMJ advocates see the new recreational licensing scheme for the MMJ market as a slap in the face to long-suffering patients who will lose access to the specialized services and products they need if forced into the commercialized recreational market. They would have much preferred a dual-track licensing system that set up a specialized regulatory scheme for medical marijuana designed with patients in mind.

Regardless, that is not what is playing out in Washington at this time. The state’s MMJ dispensaries, or at least some fraction of them, are being rolled into the recreational market, so getting the licensing count right for this newly regulated MMJ market is critical, or patients will suffer because their needs won’t be served — as will the entire legalization movement if large numbers of MMJ operators slide from the grey market into the illicit market.

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Marijuana Kills Cancer, Says National Cancer Institute

Kit Daniels

The institute recently updated its ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page about marijuana to include various studies revealing how cannabis “may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking cell growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow” while also protecting normal, healthy cells.

“A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells showed that it caused cancer cell death while having little effect on normal breast cells,” the NCI stated. “Studies in mouse models of metastatic breast cancer showed that cannabinoids may lessen the growth, number, and spread of tumors.”

Here’s the NCI’s full list:

• Studies in mice and rats have shown that cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking cell growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow. Laboratory and animal studies have shown that cannabinoids may be able to kill cancer cells while protecting normal cells.
• A study in mice showed that cannabinoids may protect against inflammation of the colon and may have potential in reducing the risk of colon cancer, and possibly in its treatment.
• A laboratory study of delta-9-THC in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) cells showed that it damaged or killed the cancer cells. The same study of delta-9-THC in mouse models of liver cancer showed that it had antitumor effects. Delta-9-THC has been shown to cause these effects by acting on molecules that may also be found in non-small cell lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells.
• A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells showed that it caused cancer cell death while having little effect on normal breast cells. Studies in mouse models of metastatic breast cancer showed that cannabinoids may lessen the growth, number, and spread of tumors.
• A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in human glioma cells showed that when given along withchemotherapy, CBD may make chemotherapy more effective and increase cancer cell death without harming normal cells. Studies in mouse models of cancer showed that CBD together with delta-9-THC may make chemotherapy such as temozolomide more effective.

Additionally, the National Institute on Drug Abuse also referenced similar, recent studies which revealed “marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others.”
“Evidence from one animal study suggests that extracts from whole-plant marijuana can shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumors,” the NIDA said in April. “Research in mice showed that these extracts, when used with radiation, increased the cancer-killing effects of the radiation.”

But you’re still going to jail if you get caught using it as medication in most states.

Only Six Days After Starting Cannabis Oil, This Little Girl’s Leukemia Went into Remission

Free Thought Project

Diagnosed with cancer at the age of seven, Mykayla Comstock was declared in remission of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia three years ago yesterday. Although her family credits cannabis for saving Mykayla’s life and cannabis has been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory, the FDA still refuses to approve cannabis as a cancer treatment.

Three years ago, Mykayla began showing symptoms, including a hacking cough, body aches, fever, night sweats, and a rash across her legs. Suspecting Mykayla had strep throat, her doctor placed her on antibiotics, but her health continued to deteriorate. A second doctor found a large mass in her chest pressing against her internal organs. After enduring spinal taps and bone marrow biopsies, she was diagnosed with aggressive T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

To treat the symptoms of her daughter’s chemotherapy, such as nausea, loss of appetite, and restlessness, Mykayla’s mother, Erin Purchase, started giving her a gram of cannabis oil each day. Mykayla usually ingests the cannabis either in a pill form or a brownie baked with marijuana-laced butter.

Under Oregon law, pediatric cancer patients are allowed to treat the symptoms of cancer and the side effects of chemotherapy with medical marijuana if the children have parental consent and a doctor’s approval. Although her father, Jesse Comstock, is concerned about the long-term effects of cannabis on his daughter, Mykayla’s mother credits the plant for helping to save her daughter’s life.

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Meet The Woman Who Says She Beat Her Lung Cancer With Cannabis Oil

Medical Jane

When 54-year-old wife and mother Sharon Kelly began experiencing sharp pains on the left side of her body near her ribs, she thought it was a result of a strong massage she’d had sometime earlier, and failed to give it much thought. After several days passed and the pain failed to subside, she began to think she might be suffering from something more serious, and as it turns out, she was right.

Only a few days after noticing the pain, Kelly was diagnosed with non-small-cell lung cancer, and in the weeks to come, her prognosis only worsened. Kelly was told that the cancer in her body had made its way to her lymph nodes and the lining of her stomach, and that she could expect to survive for somewhere between six and nine months. Understandably devastated by the news, she pleaded with her doctors to start treatments like radiation or chemotherapy in hopes of changing her prognosis.

She was informed that radiation and chemo were not valid treatment options for a patient with stage four lung cancer, as they would likely only make her sicker, and that “…the horse had bolted and was way too late to do anything.” Instead, they urged her to return home to her family and live out what was left of her life as enjoyably as possible.

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How Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are rushing to cash in on cannabis.

Wired
Mat Honan

PART 1

Like many people in San Francisco, Sasha Robinson is working on a startup out of his home. His living room is a riot of wires, battery packs, pliers, and metal casings. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a bomb maker. But these are just the raw materials for a new gadget he’s creating. It’s something revolutionary, he thinks, and he should know. In the 2000s, Robinson ran software development at industrial design firm Moto, where he oversaw new product development for the Flip HD camcorder. 

Before that he was at Juniper Systems and Silicon Graphics, two of the Valley’s foundational tech firms. 

His cofounder, Mark Williams, has also bounced around Valley software firms, but his main experience was at Apple, where he managed a Mac OS design team. These guys have tech cred.

They also met at a Burning Man party. “We would hang out socially and always ended up talking about ideas and inventions,” says Williams, explaining how they came up with their new product in his living room. “We were sitting on my couch in my apartment, smoking. I was over 40 then, we could really feel it in our bodies. We were social smokers, but we both felt it …”

“Wait. Are you talking about tobacco here,” I interjected.

“Yes … ,” Williams says, looking sideways and grinning. “I am?” Pregnant pause. Robinson chuckles. 

“That’s what the line has to be from any manufacturer importing into the US,” he says. Openly acknowledging that your product—in this case a high tech vaporizer called the Firefly–is intended for marijuana use exposes you to classification as a distributor of drug paraphernalia, opening you up to the risk of the federal government seizing your assets and bank accounts. And that makes it difficult to pay a lawyer.

Sasha Robinson and Mark Williams in Robinson’s San Francisco home, which doubles as Firefly’s prototyping lab and office.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich

So, officially, the Firefly is for pipe tobacco. But I didn’t try any pipe tobacco in it. You probably won’t either. I did, however, sample some marijuana, for which it’s really, really great. A personal disclosure: I’ve smoked a lot of pot. I’m no stoner, but I’ve been smoking it for more than 25 years, and in that time I’ve used all sorts of vaporizers. They’ve evolved a great deal over the years, from giant complex tabletop devices to today’s generation of e-cig-style vapes that deliver brain-hammering doses of butane-extracted cannabis oil. The Firefly does those devices one better, magically and almost instantly vaporizing actual plant material at the touch of a button. It is just wonderful.

It offers all the convenience of a pipe—it’s portable and downright stealthy; you can slip it in your pocket, carry it loaded up with marijuana—but it’s less harmful than a conventional pipe, because you are inhaling vapor, not smoke. The Firefly uses a lithium-ion battery to power a convection heating element that reaches 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The chamber is insulated by air, which means the Firefly’s housing doesn’t get hot enough to burn your fingers, or anything else, when you slide it back into your pocket.

[...]

If the future of pot is being plotted in Silicon Valley, it’s playing out in Colorado. In 2012, the state passed a law legalizing marijuana for recreational use. It went into effect this year, and storefronts inviting any adult with some cash to walk in and buy pot opened up all over Denver. The state set up a rigorous tracking system designed to keep pot out of the black market. So far it’s been a success. Defying projections, crime has dropped since the law went into effect January 1, and the flow of new tax revenue, more than $2 million a month, is on par with the state’s haul from alcohol taxes. Is this what the pot-friendly future of America looks like?

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Molecular Biologist Explains How THC Kills Cancer Completely

Natural Society

From Compultense University in Madrid, Spain, Dr. Christina Sanchez has been studying the anti-tumor effects of THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, for over a decade. She delivers sound information that explains exactly how THC kills cancer cells entirely – without adverse effects to healthy cells.

Her research is an addition to other’s work, such as British scientist, Wai Liu, an oncologist at the University of London’s St. George’s medical school. Liu’s research also reveals how THC has ‘potent anti-cancer activity,’ and can significantly ‘target and switch off’ pathways that allow cancers to grow.
Liu points out that pharmaceutical companies spend billions on drugs that do the very same thing, while the cannabis plant does it naturally. In the following video, Dr. Sanchez explains exactly how THC does the dirty work of eliminating cancer cells by activating the body’s own cannabinoid receptors, creating endocannabinoids. What’s more, is cannabis can do this without any psychoactive effects.

“There’s quite a lot of cancers that should respond quite nicely to these cannabis agents,” Liu said. “If you talk about a drug company that spent billions of pounds trying to develop these new drugs that target these pathways, cannabis does exactly the same thing – or certain elements of cannabis compounds do exactly the same thing – so you have something that is naturally produced which impacts the same pathways that these fantastic drugs that cost billions also work on.”

This comes at an important time when states are legalizing medical marijuana and the federal government is receiving pressure to de-list cannabis as an illegal drug – an archaic and erroneous definition of a plant which the Feds say ‘has no medicinal value’, even though they hold numerous patents on the plant. The feds are still fighting marijuana, despite having numerous patents on the plant.

Patent No. 6,630,507, for example, is for cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants. Could this be why they are dragging their feet on declassifying this valuable plant?

In fact, three scientists from the Department of Health and Human Services said in the abstract — or summary — of their findings submitted with the patent application:

“The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroproectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke or trauma, or the treatment of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”

Surely they knew it could treat cancer too.
In Hindu texts cannabis was known as ‘sacred grass.’ It has also been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries. Cannabis can replace toxic medications, and drastically reduce pain. Dr. Sanchez’s studies just add to the age-old wisdom surrounding the medicinal use of this phenomenal plant.

With 22 Military Veterans Killing Themselves Everyday, Cannabis University Trains Vets to Grow, Sell and Advocate for Pot Medicine

Alternet

 

Casey Robinson of Santa Cruz, Calif. served in the Marine Corps from March 2001 to March 2006, completing three tours in Iraq. He was injured in 2003, and again in 2005. After completing his term he was honorably discharged due to his injuries, then referred to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for treatment. That treatment involved a cocktail of different pharmaceutical drugs, which Robinson says made him feel unbearably numb, “like a zombie.” 

That zombie effect, or inability to feel anything after using pharmaceutical drugs prescribed to veterans for psychological issues and pain, is  commonly reported, as is suicide, which is listed as a possible side effect on most of the drugs commonly prescribed through the VA to treat psychological symptoms in veterans. 

Robinson was luckier than many vets, an22 of whom take their own lives every day in the U.S. according to a study released by the VA. He found relief in an alternative form of medicine, which more and more veterans are advocating for the right to consume: cannabis. 

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