Medical Cannabis Journal

Can Marijuana Prevent Cancer?

By Lanny Swerdlow, RN (California)

07-03-2010

Dr. Donald Tashkin is a widely published pulmonologist who for three decades has conducted investigations for the National Institute of Drug Abuse and other government agencies on the adverse effects of marijuana and other drugs on the human body.

Studies conducted by Dr. Tashkin in 1990 found that marijuana smoke has almost the exact same carcinogens (cancer causing agents) as tobacco smoke and that the concentration of these carcinogens was exceedingly higher in marijuana smoke. These studies are the basis for the government's warning in thousands of ads that smoking one marijuana joint does as much damage as smoking four cigarettes.

Since it is well documented that the carcinogens in tobacco smoke are directly responsible for the development of lung cancer in tobacco smokers, government marijuana prohibitionists reasoned that marijuana smoke must also cause lung cancer because it contains even stronger concentrations of these cancer causing agents.

To document a connection between lung cancer and marijuana smoking, Dr. Tashkin received a very large grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse. With over 2,200 subjects, the research was one of the largest case control studies of its kind ever!

The government was horrified at the results and did its best to ignore them as Dr. Tashkin failed to find any link between smoking marijuana and the development of lung cancer. In almost every category studied, a person was no more likely to develop lung cancer if they smoked marijuana than if they didn't smoke marijuana.

How can that be? The marijuana smokers should be developing lung cancer at a significantly higher rate than the non-smokers because they are taking carcinogenic agents into their lungs and the non-smokers are not. What is going on here?

Dr. Tashkin's study offers some evidence of what might be happening. In all the groups studied, the smoker of marijuana was no more likely to develop lung cancer than the non-smoker - save for one group in which there was a small, but still statistically significant difference. This was the group of people who only smoked marijuana and nothing else compared to people who did not smoke anything at all.

In this group of people the smokers of marijuana actually had a lower incidence of lung cancer than the people who did not smoke anything at all.

This makes no sense. How can people who are taking carcinogens directly into their lungs have a lower incidence of lung cancer than people who are not? It makes no sense unless perhaps the cannabinoids found in cannabis are such powerful anti-cancer agents that they can prevent the development of cancers even in the presence of cancer causing agents.

Does Dr. Tashkin's study prove this? No it does not. But there is a lot of scientific evidence out there that appears to show this is exactly what is happening.

In 2003 Dr. Manual Guzman from the University of Madrid authored a medically astounding report detailing current research into the ability of the cannabinoids in cannabis to control the spread of cancer including the results of his studies on cannabinoids injected into the brains of rats with brain tumors. Published in the peer-reviewed research publication Nature Reviews Cancer, he wrote:

Cannabinoids inhibit tumour growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumour cells, as well as by inhibiting tumour angiogenesis and metastasis. Cannabinoids are selective antitumour compounds, as they can kill tumour cells without affecting their non-transformed counterparts.

The cannabinoids found in cannabis can not only slow the growth of tumors, they can actually selectively kill cancer cells. This is amazing! There are lots of anti-cancer drugs available that are very good at killing cancerous cells. The problem with all of them is that there are also very good at killing all the other cells around them.

Cannabis, on the other hand, can selectively kill only the cancer cells and leave all the unaffected cells alone and does it without the generalized toxic effects of conventional chemotherapies.

Dr. Tashkin's and Dr. Guzman's investigations are part of a virtual cascade of recent research documenting the anti-cancer properties of the cannabinoids found in cannabis.
In November 2007, researchers at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute published a report showing that the non-psychoactive cannabinoid cannabidiol found in cannabis can inhibit the spread of breast cancer.

Investigators at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health reported in January 2008 that the administration of cannabinoids halts the spread of a wide range of cancers, including brain cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lymphoma. Like Dr. Guzman's research, the report noted that cannabis offer significant advantages over standard chemotherapy treatments because the cannabinoids in cannabis are both non-toxic and can uniquely target malignant cells while ignoring healthy ones.

Is the evidence incontrovertible that cannabis can inhibit the spread of cancer, kill cancer cells and prevent the development of cancer? No it is not – but people are spending billions of dollars and ingesting all kinds of supplements on way less evidence then there is to support the anti-cancer properties of cannabis.

When taking any kind of medicine or supplement, a person needs to decide if the claimed benefits of a product outweigh the risks. Many times the answer is no because many medicines and even supplements sold over the counter have significant debilitating and even deadly side effects.

Cannabis, however, is not one of these products as there has never been a single death attributed to cannabis or any other significant debilitating consequences. Further, the vast majority of cannabis users report numerous beneficial effects of taking cannabis including stress reduction, insomnia relief and a general feeling of well being.

If cannabis can prevent the development of cancer, then the appropriate ingestion of cannabis is desirable in the same way that the appropriate ingestion of calcium supplements can prevent or at least delay the onset of osteoporosis. Since for the vast majority of people, cannabis has no negative side effects and only beneficial effects, it would seem that the regular appropriate ingestion of cannabis as a cancer preventative agent would be a prudent course of action.

Resources:

1. Tashkin, D.P., Pulmonary Complications of Smoked Substance Abuse. Western Journal of Medicine 1990 May; 152:525-530. pg. 525-526
2. Guzman M., [2003] Cannabinoids: potential anticancer agents. Nat Rev Cancer. 3(10): 745-55
3. Mia Hashibe, Hal Morgenstern, Yan Cui, Donald P. Tashkin, Zuo-Feng Zhang, Wendy Cozen, Thomas M. Mack, and Sander Greenland, Marijuana Use and the Risk of Lung and Upper Aerodigestive Tract Cancers: Results of a Population-Based Case-Control Study
4. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prev. 2006 15: 1829-1834.
5. Sean D. McAllister, Rigel T. Christian, Maxx P. Horowitz, Amaia Garcia and Pierre-Yves Desprez Cannabidiol as a novel inhibitor of Id-1 gene expression in aggressive breast cancer cells, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, November 1, 2007 6, 2921
6. Cannabinoids As Chemo Treatment, Journal of Cancer Research, Jan. 31, 2008

© This article is copyrighted by Medical Cannabis Journal 07-03-2010

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Corey
Posts: 11

Re: Marijuana: Cancer Prevention?
Reply #11 on : Wed January 18, 2012, 20:17:02

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It's a shame the kind of people that run our government. Here we are with what could be THE cure to Cancer and they're still trying to tell people its causing them cancer. Coming from somebody to loves cannabis and is terrified of cancer, this is huge news and somebody needs to get it out there!

Moon7
Posts: 11

http://www.legal-highs.co.za/
Reply #10 on : Fri November 04, 2011, 02:17:24

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Forget about all kind of lost and win stuff and just think for cannabis and marijuana highs and buy drugs for that from given below site name please go on <a href="http://www.legal-highs.co.za/" target="_blank">legal-highs !!!!

Brenda
Posts: 11

Cannabinoids and Cervical Cancer
Reply #9 on : Tue August 23, 2011, 16:07:01

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Since the age of 18, I've been faced with pre-cancerous cells in my cervix. This was caused by the STD, Venareal Warts. At one time my condition had worsened to the point of needing laser surgery to remove the warts. After changing doctors, I found out that my previous gynecologist hadn't told me that I had stage 4, pre-cancerous cells. This, as you may summise, scared me terribly. I tried healthy eating/living, excercise, blah, blah, blah...and still my paps came back positive. It wasn't until after I had started using marijuana, recreationally, that my paps had become - inconclusive, or even - normal. I have been in "remission" for the better part of 23 years, as long as I partake of the herb. This would be an interesting study I may head up after I receive my bachelor's degree.

Ival
Posts: 11

sVgydmlzb
Reply #8 on : Mon July 25, 2011, 10:03:03

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Thank you so much for this atcirle, it saved me time!

Cayden
Posts: 11

snrJiGwTQgVbfeAsG
Reply #7 on : Mon July 25, 2011, 06:29:41

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This article is a home run, pure and smilpe!

Shorty
Posts: 11

zsXbeOVetj
Reply #6 on : Sun July 24, 2011, 20:13:08

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Keep it coming, wrietrs, this is good stuff.

Jennis
Posts: 11

TcDBmkQRVYWPBMt
Reply #5 on : Sun July 24, 2011, 15:48:19

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I didn't know where to find this info then kaoobm it was here.

Anonymous
Posts: 11

Re: Marijuana: Cancer Prevention?
Reply #4 on : Sat May 14, 2011, 06:04:41

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An excellent article. Thank you for all the info. Keep blazing

felixspearmint@yahoo.com
Posts: 11

...
Reply #3 on : Wed March 23, 2011, 10:21:59

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Georgia Health Sciences University, which has produced students with such immensely stupid & false views as the Republican congressman, Phil Gingrey, did a study linking cannabis to bladder cancer.
-perhaps the participants of the study didn't mention they use blunt wraps, which are tobacco, or something like that.
How could it be that cannabinoids induce death of damaged cells, destroying cancers throughout bodies, but that is not seen in bladders? This GA study should be considered & looked into further; at the moment it seems the study was simply used as political propaganda with an anti-cannabis bias... more information would be excellent.

Gvin.12345@hotmail.com
Posts: 11

Re: Marijuana: Cancer Prevention?
Reply #2 on : Fri February 04, 2011, 10:54:46

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i cant believe there is actually a cure for cancer out there, and what has the society done? Made it illegal so that people can can have ongoing suffering and wasting millions each year on dangerous and scaring treatments.