Increasing numbers of people have been using Cannabis “oil” —plant extracts consisting of 50% or more THC and/or CBD— to treat conditions ranging from mild rashes to potentially fatal cancers. Reports of success are circulating among medical Cannabis users and on the internet. They gain plausibility from a parallel stream of papers published in scientific journals establishing that cannabinoids have anti-tumor effects on the cellular level and in animals. The anti-cancer properties of cannabinoids were a recurring theme at this year’s meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, and also in a course for physicians presented Oct. 24, 2012, at the University of California San Francisco. One speaker, Jeffrey Hergenrather, MD, described a particularly dramatic case seen by a San Diego colleague: a 90% reduction in the size of an infant’s brain tumor achieved over the course of a year by parents applying hemp oil to the baby’s pacifier before naptime and bedtime. Aptly dubbed “MMJ13001A” on the UCSF website, the half-day course on cannabinoid medicine included talks by three researchers whose findings about cannabis and cancer have been under-reported, to put it mildly: Stephen Sidney, MD, director of research for Kaiser-Permanente in Northern California; UCLA pulmonologist Donald Tashkin, MD; and Donald Abrams, MD, Chief of Hematology-Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital. Some 60 doctors received continuing medical education credits for attending the half-day course at UCSF’s Laurel Heights auditorium, which was organized by the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids, with help from Abrams and the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, and reprised the next day in Santa Monica
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:05:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015