That alcohol causes cancer isn’t really news, but how it does so hasn’t been fully understood. A new study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, adds an important new piece of information. Alcohol, it turns out, stimulates a type of cell transformation that turns cancer cells more aggressive and thus more likely to spread throughout the body.

As we’ve noted before, research shows that cannabinoids (marijuana’s unique, active components) interfere with tumor growth and may actually prevent cancer.

Anyone who wants to learn about these other cannabinoids should check out this recent review published in the journal Trends in Pharmacological Sciences.

The article devotes a lot of space to cannabidiol (CBD), the most studied of these compounds, noting that “CBD exerts several positive pharmacological effects that make it a highly attractive therapeutic entity in inflammation, diabetes, cancer and affective or neurodegenerative diseases.” Notably, CBD has antipsychotic actions, but fewer side effects than “typical antipsychotics.” Lots of other cannabinoids have potentially useful properties as well. For example, cannabichromene has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activity, plus “modest” analgesic effect.

The article tends to be a bit dismissive of THC because of its psychoactivity, and focuses mainly on cannabinoids as individual chemicals rather than as components of an herbal medicine that has proven extraordinarily useful in its natural form (biases that are pretty much typical in the medical literature), but even with these limitations, it’s an important read.

While this type of study cannot conclusively prove cause and effect, the combination of this new study and existing research — which for decades has shown that cannabinoids are fairly potent anticancer drugs — raises a significant possibility that marijuana use is in fact protective against certain types of cancer.

A team of researchers from several major universities conducted what is known as a “case-control” study, comparing patients who had squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth, larynx, and pharynx with control patients matched for age, gender, and residence location who did not have cancer. By looking at matched groups with and without cancer, researchers hope to find patterns indicating risk or protective factors. In this case they focused on marijuana use, but also took into account known risk factors for this type of cancer, including tobacco and alcohol use.

After adjusting for those confounding factors, current marijuana users had a 48% reduced risk of head and neck cancer, and the reduction was statistically significant. Former users also had a lower risk, though it fell short of being significant. The investigators crunched the numbers several different ways — for example, by amount of marijuana used or the frequency of use — and the findings stayed the same nearly across the board, with moderate users showing the strongest and most consistent reduction in cancer risk.

The scientists write, “We found that moderate marijuana use was significantly associated with reduced risk HNSCC [head and neck squamous cell carcinoma]. The association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use).”

Strikingly, among drinkers and cigarette smokers, those who also used marijuana reduced their cancer risk compared to those who only drank and smoked cigarettes. So marijuana may actually have been countering the known bad effects of booze and cigarettes.

This is important, and by any reasonable standard, it’s news. But this afternoon, a Google News search for coverage of this study produced a grand total of nine hits. None of these — none — was from a major newspaper, wire service, or TV network.

Here in the U.S., medical marijuana is still routinely branded as some sort of sinister “drug legalizer” conspiracy. In Israel, according to a fascinating article in the newspaper Haaretz, the leading conspirator appears to be the Ministry of Health.

Officials have authorized over 700 patients to use marijuana for medical purposes, and expect the number to rise to 1,200 within three months. Authorities are in the process of authorizing five or six producers to handle the needs of this growing patient population. Dr. Yehuda Baruch, who oversees the program, says the average prescription is for 100 grams — a little over three ounces — per month. So much for the claims of U.S. prohibitionists that allowing patients even an ounce or two would flood their communities with marijuana.

And doctors are finding marijuana amazingly useful. Haaretz reports:

When Cannabis was approved for medicinal purposes in 1999, it was originally intended for terminal cancer and AIDS patients. Today it is being used in earlier stages of illness and for a wider array of diseases, including Parkinson’s, Tourette Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, chronic pain and shell shock. The medical establishment is also increasingly recognizing Cannabis’ effectiveness in treating illness.

At the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital’s Bone Marrow Transplantation department, patients including children and babies are treated using drops of oil derived from Cannabis. “It has no side effects and is largely effective in treating patients,” said department chief, Professor Reuven Or. “I would say it is effective in 80 percent of patients, which is a lot.”

Professor Or continued, “It stimulates the appetite and minimizes nausea and vomiting, which is of great importance in Oncology. It also has anti-inflammatory properties, which helps in cases of infection or inflammation caused by radiation. Along with this, Cannabis eases the coping process for patients – it improves their morale and lowers depression, and these are important parameters for patients battling disease.”

One of the canards regularly raised by opponents of medical marijuana is that it just gets people high and doesn’t provide real medical relief. For example, last year former deputy drug czar Scott Burns told a California newspaper, ”Anybody can say something makes me feel better anecdotally. And I hear that a lot.  ‘Marijuana is the only thing that makes me feel good.’ I say you should try crack, because from what I hear, crack cocaine will make you feel really good as well.”

Anyone inclined to believe such nonsense should check out an article just published online by the journal Pharmacological Research. The article, by two researchers from the University of Naples, covers the potential benefits of cannabinoids in illnesses involving intestinal inflammation (e.g. Crohn’s disease) and in colorectal cancer.

The authors explain that “cannabinoids exert important physiological and pathophysiological actions in the digestive tract, including appetite regulation, emesis, protection of the gastric mucosa, intestinal ion transport, gastric emptying and intestinal motility.” They then go into a detailed and highly technical explanation of how the body’s CB1 and CB2 receptors — the route through which marijuana and the body’s own marijuana-like chemicals act — are involved in controlling the excessive inflammation that is the hallmark of Crohn’s and other forms of inflammatory bowel disease and how enhancing those actions can help.

The researchers then go into a similarly detailed discussion of the cellular mechanisms by which cannabinoids — including natural plant cannabinoids like THC and CBD — fight colorectal cancer, opening the discussion with this: “Cannabinoids exert antiproliferative, antimetastatic and apoptotic actions in colorectal carcinoma epithelial cells as well as antitumoural effects in experimental models of colon cancer.”

So, can we lay to rest once and for all the lie that medical marijuana is just about “getting high”?

A 1999 study showed a modestly increased risk of certain types of head and neck cancer among marijuana smokers. Due to methodological limitations, the researchers warned that their “results need to be interpreted with some caution in drawing causal inferences.” But warnings about this alleged risk have shown up from time to time in materials put out by prohibitionist types, including the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

A new study, just published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention, suggests this may have been a false alarm.

Researchers pooled data from five studies, totaling over 9,000 participants (nearly 30 times the number in the 1999 study) and found that the risk of head and neck cancer “was not elevated” among those who had ever smoked marijuana compared to those who hadn’t. Notably, “there was no increasing risk associated with increasing frequency, duration, or cumulative consumption of marijuana …”

The researchers note that, due to the small number of long-term, very heavy marijuana users in the studies, they can’t rule out increased risk from such very heavy use. But it is striking that the overall cancer risk among marijuana smokers was slightly lower than nonsmokers, though not enough to be statistically significant. That was also the case in a major lung cancer study a few years ago. In the new study, there were some subcategories in which the lowered risk among marijuana smokers came close to statistical significance.

But don’t expect mere data to put an end to hysterical claims that marijuana is more carcinogenic than tobacco.

Last November, I mentioned here that I’d undergone treatment for prostate cancer  – implantation of 85 tiny, radioactive seeds designed to zap the tumor before it zaps me. I’m happy to report that, six months later, it seems to have worked, according to the latest lab tests. Though the risk of recurrence never goes away entirely, I’m as close as one can be to being an official cancer survivor.

Endless thanks to all who sent kind thoughts. And since someone is bound to ask: No, I didn’t ever need medical marijuana. My treatment was happily quite low-impact: no chemo, no nausea, no hair loss, etc. I almost feel like I should refer to it as Cancer Lite, it was so comparatively easy. 

But the point I made last November still remains. If I had needed medical marijuana, that decision should have been between me and my doctor. Cops and politicians have no place in medical treatment decisions.

The good news is that this study got a decent amount of media attention. The bad news is that much of the coverage lacked context or presented information in a confusing or misleading way. Case in point: the April 1 story from the Reuters wire service.

Reuters reporter Michael Kahn presents the finding as if it were something brand new, failing to note the extensive evidence accumulated since the 1970s that cannabinoids fight various types of tumors. It reports that “studies have suggested” that marijuana may cause cancer, omitting the fact that the largest, most well-controlled studies have found precisely the opposite.

And finally, in a warning of possible risks of cannabinoid drugs, the article hopelessly jumbles cannabinoids — drugs like THC and its plant and synthetic cousins — with drugs designed to block the CB1 receptor through which these substances operate, mistakenly referring to these CB1-blocking drugs as cannabinoids. In fact, they’re more like anti-cannabinoids, and if anything the harmful effects of these CB1 blockers (increased rates of depression and anxiety, for example) reaffirm that cannabinoids often have good and helpful effects.

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, the committee backing Proposal 1 on the state’s November ballot, has gone on the air with its first TV spots. One commercial features George Wagoner, M.D., whose wife Beverly died of ovarian cancer in 2007. The other features Deb Brink, a registered nurse and four-time cancer survivor.

The initiative has been endorsed by many of the state’s leading newspapers, including the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and Lansing State Journal. MCCC has assembled a collection of recent news clips, including the endorsements.