Cannabidiol (CBD) Reveals Potential for Prevention of Colon Cancer

Colon cancer is the most common cancer afflicting the Western world, with over 100,000 new cases and nearly 50,000 deaths each year in the United States alone. Cancers are generally considered a cellular disease, characterized by unlimited cell proliferation, causing tumors and subsequent metastasis (migration from the tumor). In past studies, CBD, a constituent of medical cannabis called cannabidiol, has already shown many potential benefits in the treatment of cancer as an anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-oxidative and neuroprotective agent. In these cases, CBD seems to protect normal cells while attacking those that are diseased. New research shows that CBD shows potential to be a preventative measure against colon cancer.

A recent article from the Journal of Molecular Medicine showed that CBD administered to mice which are predisposed to developing colon cancer, significantly decreased the formation of pre-cancer (tissue aberrance and polyps) and cancer growths (tumors). Additionally, this study showed that CBD induces cell death and inhibits tumor formation in cultured colon cancer cells through a variety of cellular pathways. By exploiting these disease-dependent pathways together, CBD may create an inescapable means of killing off and prohibiting the growth of cancer cells. This is a truly remarkable task for any single molecule — to attack multiple disease pathways while maintaining function in healthy cells. This study strengthens the evidence for CBD’s anti-tumor effects and provides evidence for CBD as a novel preemptive strike against colon cancer.

Brandie M. Cross is a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology Program. She is a recipient of the Thomas J. Kelly Award, specializes in the mechanisms of calcium signaling and transport in the body, and was formerly a professional breakdancer. She is a guest blogger for MPP.

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Huge news broke today in the world of marijuana policy reform. Governors Christine Gregoire (D-WA) and Lincoln Chafee (I-RI) announced in a joint conference call that they had petitioned the federal government to reschedule marijuana. We can expect that this will produce headlines across the country. We can also expect that the coverage will tout this as a far more significant – and positive, from the perspective of patients – event than it actually is.

Before harping on the negative, let’s appreciate the positive aspect of the announcement. What we have here is two governors filing a petition with the federal government, backed by extensive documentation, saying that marijuana has an accepted medical use in our society. We have known this for years, but it is nice that it is becoming the general consensus. Unfortunately, that’s about all we have on the positive side of the ledger. After that, it is mostly bad news wrapped in good news clothing.

The misleading coverage started the moment the news broke, when The New York Times published its exclusive on the announcement. Describing how the governors wanted marijuana moved from Schedule I to Schedule II, the Times wrote, “Such a classification would allow pharmacies to dispense marijuana.” While technically true, in the sense that pharmacies cannot dispense Schedule I drugs, the reader is led to believe that marijuana would be available in pharmacies as soon as it is rescheduled. This is far from certain and could be a long way off on the horizon.

Given the long-held position of the federal government that it is the FDA that determines whether a substance is a medicine, it is likely that marijuana will not be available in pharmacies until it has made its way through the FDA approval process.* This is a process that could take up to a decade under the best of circumstances. But marijuana research does not exist in this country under the best of circumstance. In fact, as I wrote about recently in a Washington Post piece about stalled research on the use of marijuana for PTSD, it is almost impossible to conduct research on marijuana in this country. Moving marijuana to Schedule II will not change the rules under which marijuana research is (or is not) conducted.

Even if we were to ignore this not-so-minor problem about research and FDA approval, the governors clearly left the impression that they were pursuing rescheduling over embracing, implementing and defending existing medical marijuana laws in their own states. Yet they know that the rescheduling process will take years, perhaps more than a decade. In the meantime, patients in their states will suffer. The best Gov. Gregoire could say about this unfortunate delay during the press conference was that she was going to “encourage the federal government to not take nine years” to consider the petition. Woo. Hoo.

Finally, there is the additional matter of the specific request for Schedule II, a category of drugs defined under law as having a “high potential for abuse” that “may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.” Drug like cocaine and morphine fall in this category. Marijuana does not belong there. At worst, marijuana should fall in Schedule III – where Marinol, which is synthetic THC is placed – a category of drugs that “may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.”

The New York Times article even included a quote from Governor Gregoire, suggesting that marijuana was not on the same level as the more dangerous Schedule II drugs.

Ms. Gregoire noted that many doctors believe it makes no sense to place marijuana in a more restricted category than opium and morphine. “People die from overdose of opiates,” she said. “Has anybody died from marijuana?”

No, Ms. Gregoire, they haven’t. And the harms from marijuana overall are quite limited. You and Mr. Chafee have come a long way today. Now it is time to step entirely out of the world of negative marijuana stereotypes and allow medical marijuana programs to move forward in your states. Rescheduling will happen eventually — and we commend you for petitioning for it — but you shouldn’t make patients in your state suffer in the meantime.

* The author would like to include a clarification, or perhaps it is a correction, here. After consulting with experts, he believes that a lengthy FDA approval process, meaning full trials to prove that marijuana is effective for a specific condition, would not be needed before marijuana could be available in pharmacies. However, there could still be a significant delay before marijuana appears in pharamacies after rescheduling (a process that could be quite lengthy itself). The DEA would have to license entities to cultivate the marijuana — a process likely to be slow, given the DEA’s history in this area. Then, maybe six months to a year later, the FDA would need to examine the marijuana produced by any entity to ensure that it is a consistent, reliable and pure product. And even after all of these steps have concluded, patients may have to deal with obstacles stemming from marijuana being listed as a Schedule II drug, including the fact that doctors and pharmacies would have to report every prescription to the DEA and that there would be no refills allowed, increasing the number of times patients would need to see doctors.

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The Obama administration calls prescription drug abuse the nation’s most pressing drug problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription drug deaths are at an all time high and account for more deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. than any other drug. Advocates of affordable health care are decrying the exorbitant price of prescriptions and the toll such costs take on them and their families.

Well, guess what non-toxic and inexpensive medicine patients use as a substitute for those expensive, dangerous pharmaceutical drugs? If you said marijuana, you are correct!

A recent survey conducted by the Berkeley Patients Group and reported in the American Psychiatric Association’s Institute on Psychiatric Services found that 66% of their medical marijuana patient clients reported using marijuana as a prescription drug substitute. Most patients said they used marijuana because it was more effective than their prescribed drugs and was accompanied with fewer, and less severe, side effects.

Unfortunately, the federal government insists that marijuana is a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use. Perhaps if it came in a pill, cost a fortune, and had debilitating side effects, it would sail right through the FDA approval process.

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Since the beginning of the White House’s “We the People” petition program, questions and requests about marijuana policy have dominated the site. Last week, the Obama administration lumped all of those detailed, nuanced questions together and answered them all by parroting the same old rhetoric. Very little in the way of an actual response was given to the questions, other than this: marijuana is dangerous and should remain illegal, but more research should be done on its medical properties.

This response is disingenuous, given the federal government’s repeated interference in medical marijuana research, including a recent denial of a study on the effects of marijuana on post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. It is also not an appropriate answer to the myriad policy issues addressed in the petitions.

Luckily, one Jon G from Michigan has started a petition that is sure to get an appropriate reply from the Obama White House:

Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.

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During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama instilled hope in medical marijuana supporters by pledging to respect state laws on the matter. And for the first two years of his term, he was generally faithful to his promise. Yet suddenly, and with no logical explanation, over the past eight months he has become arguably the worst president in U.S. history regarding medical marijuana.

1. In 1970, Nixon signed into law the Controlled Substances Act, which placed marijuana in Schedule I — the most restrictive of the five schedules, which declared that marijuana has no medical value whatsoever. Since then, all seven presidents have been content to keep marijuana in Schedule I, even going so far as to have (1) DEA bureaucrats overrule the DEA’s own administrative law judge on the matter, and (2) Health & Human Services reject scientific petitions for rescheduling.

Read more …

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