The National Cancer Institute has proclaimed marijuana to have medical uses. Why is this significant? Because for the government mules to be able to carry on the Holy Drug Inquisition, Schedule I drugs can't have medical uses.
The new NCI assessment could have an impact on the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the harshest possible drug classification, which has resulted in a prison population in which 1 in 8 prisoners in the U.S. is locked up for a marijuana-related offense. One of the principal criteria for a Schedule I determination is that there be “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” The U.S. Justice Department may have a hard time maintaining that claim if challenged, considering a federal agency now recognizes marijuana’s medical use in cancer treatment.
My bold. But that's not all. Even more significantly, in my humble opinion, is the National Cancer Institute's claim of marijuana purportedly having a "direct antitumor effect."
The summary cites clinical trials demonstrating the benefit of medical marijuana. Part of it reads:
The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.
http://washingtonindependent.com/...
More on the antitumor effects of marijuana:
Cannabis may be bad for the lungs, but the active ingredient in marijuana may help combat lung cancer, new research suggests.
In lab and mouse studies, the compound, known as THC, cut lung tumor growth in half and helped prevent the cancer from spreading, says Anju Preet, PhD, a Harvard University researcher in Boston who tested the chemical.
While a lot more work needs to be done, the results suggest THC has therapeutic potential, she tells WebMD.
Moreover, other early research suggests the cannabis compound could help fight brain, prostate, and skin cancers as well, Preet says.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Please keep in mind that those mice didn't smoke their marijuana.
More on that study:
Then, for three weeks, researchers injected standard doses of THC into mice that had been implanted with human lung cancer cells, and found that tumors were reduced in size and weight by about 50 percent in treated animals compared to a control group.
"The beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer," said Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/...
My bold.
Like with alcohol or coffee, you get diminishing returns if abused and that threshold is likely so low with marijuana that it's better to imbibe it in ways other than smoking. While I've played harder than the average bear when I was younger, I now have a child and don't advocate for anyone to smoke anything, whether pot or cigarettes or whatever. It cooks your throat and lungs. That's not good.
Now these mice DID smoke their pot:
Scientists know that marijuana smoke has adverse effects on the lungs. However, there is little knowledge about marijuana's potential to cause lung cancer due to the difficulty in identifying and studying people who have smoked only marijuana.
The new study begins to address that question by comparing marijuana smoke vs. tobacco smoke in terms of toxicity to cells and to DNA. Scientists exposed cultured animal cells and bacteria to condensed smoke samples from both marijuana and tobacco. There were distinct differences in the degree and type of toxicity elicited by marijuana and cigarette smoke.
Marijuana smoke caused significantly more damage to cells and DNA than tobacco smoke, the researchers note. However, tobacco smoke caused chromosome damage while marijuana did not.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/...
H/T to Raw Story once again for reporting on marijuana news: http://www.rawstory.com/...
While marijuana is one of the least harmful drugs, probably less harmful than legal drugs alcohol, tobacco or coffee, not to mention sugar, it is quite obvious at this point that it shouldn't be a Schedule I drug and that the Prison Industrial Complex is just wants marijuana illegal so they can make make a profit off of poor people's suffering, including their slave labor. Our democracy depends on their defeat. They are quite simply fascists who want to profit on slave labor. They and their Republican Party benefactors should be stopped because they corrupt our "democracy." It's not democracy when it's bought and paid-for by thugs.