Cancer?

[wildbilln864]

I see a lot of posts about family members with cancer here. My heart goes out to all of them who are suffering this terrible disease. A while back I ran across this video and posted about it a few times here.
I was just wondering what people here think about it.
Are these guys crazy? Are they liars? Or is it true? Does marijuana cure cancer?
One more related video

[Cleita]

1. I understand it helps the pain but it doesn't cure it. n/t

[wildbilln864]

3. How do you know? You didn't watch the video.

You're talking about smoking it.

[Cleita]

6. My next door neighbor is a medical doctor whose practice dispenses

medical marijuana. Sometimes we have coffee together in the afternoon when he's not at his practice. He's never said it's a cure, but perhaps I should ask him the next time we clatch together.

[wildbilln864]

7. did you watch the videos?

Maybe you can show them to him? :hi: Thanks for your response.

[Cleita]

8. Not yet. I'll watch them later. I'm listening to Randi right now so I can't

do both and post on DU as well.

[Hekate]

2. Pot is known to ease nausea, anxiety, and pain, & to increase appetite, all good for chemo patients

When it comes to "cure" though, I wouldn't go there.

I voted to make medical pot legal, btw. I wish my mother had had some.

Hekate

[wildbilln864]

4. So did you watch the first video?

I think not. :shrug:

[nc4bo]

9. Very good friend of ours took it in pill form. The chemo made him so sick

couldn't keep anything down and he was losing weight scary fast.

It helped some.

[arthritisR_US]

12. pot makes me paranoid but my nephew brought some joints to me for sleep. I was in

terrible pain and was terribly sleep deprived and not responding to the chemo. He insisted I try it, just three tokes and then I would put it out and have the most wonderful sleep. Shortly after starting this litle ritual I got my first positive report from the Dr's, I was reponding to the chemo in spades....remission followed.

[flyingfysh]

5. even heroin should be legal in some cases

It is superbly effective for terminal cancer cases; the British use it extensively. My dad could have benefited from it.

Yes, it is addicting. But in the case of terminal cancer, who cares?

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Why don't you post this in the Health forum?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=222

[wildbilln864]

11. I figured it'd get more exposure here. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

13. It won't.

It will sink like a stone, and hardly anyone will see it. The health forum moves way more slowly, so things stay visible for much longer, and the people who go there are actually interested in the subject.

[Forkboy]

14. Hasn't cured mine, despite my best efforts.

:smoke:

[wildbilln864]

16. Ha, haha, I don't think....

you followed the procedure they recommend.

[GardeningGal]

15. I'm watching it now - the whole series.

Very interesting - I've wondered for a long time if there are botanical cures that the pharmaceutical companies don't want us to know about.

[Contrary1]

17. Coincidently, I enrolled myself as a guinea pig in my own personal marijuana study

when I was diagnosed. I'm cancer free now (knock on wood), but I did do the chemo. The only thing I know that my study proved, was that those mass quantities of crunchy snacks I partook of, sure tasted good.

[wildbilln864]

18. lol.

Glad to hear you're doing well what ever the remedy. :hi:

[TZ]

19. I'm a biologist

Psuedoscience. There are ingredients IN marijuana that can be purified to help fight certain TYPES of cancer (remember cancer is not one disease nor one cause..its a very complex set of diseases) but smoking pot will NOT cure you. Keeps down the nausea from chemo mainly. And even if the compound in marijuana is shown to help fight cancer..thats the purified version..just smoking regular pot won't do much.

Oh, and I am currently working on a project that involves an anti-cancer monoclonal..so I *do* know what I'm talking about.
BTW..LEGITIMATE scientific breakthroughs are discussed in legitimate peer reviewed journals..not videos. The internet is NOTORIOUS for spreading this kind of pseudoscientific bullshit.

[Ghost in the Machine]

20. Have you read this, Bill?

Counterpunch Weekend Edition
May 3 / 4, 2008

Study: Smoking Pot Doesn't Cause Cancer--It May Prevent It!
The Greatest Story Never Told
By FRED GARDNER

Smoking Cannabis Does Not Cause Cancer
Of Lung or Upper Airways, Tashkin Finds;
Data Suggest Possible Protective Effect

The story summarized by that headline ran in O'Shaughnessy's (Autumn 2005), CounterPunch, and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Did we win Pulitzers, dude? No, the story was ignored or buried by the corporate media. It didn't even make the "Project Censored" list of under-reported stories for 2005. "We were even censored by Project Censored," said Tod Mikuriya, who liked his shot of wry.

It's not that the subject is trivial. One in three Americans will be afflicted with cancer, we are told by the government (as if it's our immutable fate and somehow acceptable). Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. and lung cancer the leading killer among cancers. You'd think it would have been very big news when UCLA medical school professor Donald Tashkin revealed that components of marijuana smoke -although they damage cells in respiratory tissue- somehow prevent them from becoming malignant. In other words, something in marijuana exerts an anti-cancer effect.

Tashkin has special credibility. He was the lead investigator on studies dating back to the 1970s that identified the components in marijuana smoke that are toxic. It was Tashkin et al who published photomicrographs showing that marijuana smoke damages cells lining the upper airways. It was the Tashkin lab reporting that benzpyrene -a component of tobacco smoke that plays a role in most lung cancers- is especially prevalent in marijuana smoke. It was Tashkin's data documenting that marijuana smokers are more likely than non-smokers to cough, wheeze, and produce sputum.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse supported Tashkin's marijuana-related research over the decades and readily gave him a grant to conduct a large, population-based, case-controlled study that would prove definitively that heavy, long-term marijuana use increases the risk of lung and upper-airways cancers. What Tashkin and his colleagues found, however, disproved their hypothesis. (Tashkin is to marijuana as a cause of lung cancer what Hans Blick is to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -an honest investigator who set out to find something, concluded that it wasn't there, and reported his results.

Please read the entire article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner05032008.html