PART 3 :THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHS

The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

Chapter 6 

The Body of Medical 

Literature on Cannabis Medicine 

Our authority here is the 'Body of Literature,' starting with ancient materia medicae; Chinese and Hindu pharmacopoeia and Near Eastern cuneiform tablets, and continuing all the way into this century, including the 1966-76 U.S. renaissance of cannabis studies - some 10,000 separate studies on medicines and effects from the hemp plant. Comprehensive compendia of these works are designated as the prime sources for this medical chapter, as well as ongoing interviews with many researchers. 

Affordable, Available 

Herbal Health Care 

For more than 3,500 years, cannabis/hemp/marijuana has been, depending on the culture or nation, either the most used or one of the most widely used plants for medicines. This includes: China, India, the Middle and Near East, Africa, and pre-Roman Catholic Europe (prior to 476 A.D.). 

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, NORML, High Times and Omni Magazine (September 1982) all indicate that, if marijuana were legal it would immediately replace 10-20% of all pharmaceutical prescription medicines (based on research through 1976). And probably, Mechoulam estimates, 40- 50% of all medicines, including patent medicines, could contain some extract from the cannabis plant when fully researched. 

(Read the U.S. government-sponsored research as outlined by Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Roffman, Roger, Marijuana as Medicine, 1980; Mikuriya, Tod, M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers, 1972; Also, the work of Dr. Norman Zinberg; Dr. Andrew Weil; Dr. Lester Grinspoon; and the U.S. Government's Presidential Commission reports [Shafer Commission] from 1972; Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, Tel Aviv/Jerusalem Univ. 1964-97; W.B. O'Shaunessy monograph, 1839; and the long term Jamaican studies I & II, 1968-74; Costa Rican studies through 1982; U.S. Coptic studies, 1981; Ungerlieder; U.S. military studies since the 1950's and '60's.) 

Superstar of the 19th Century 

Marijuana was America's number one analgesic for 60 years before the rediscovery of aspirin around 1900. From 1842 to 1900 cannabis made up half of all medicine sold, with virtually no fear of its high. 

The 1839 report on the uses of cannabis by Dr. W.B. O'Shaugnessy, one of the most respected members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, was just as important to mid-19th Century Western medicine as the discoveries of antibiotics (like penicillin and Terramycin) were to mid-20th Century medicine. 

In fact, the Committee on Cannabis Indica for the Ohio State Medical Society concluded that "High Biblical commentators [scholars]" believe "that the gall and vinegar, or myrrhed wine, offered to our Saviour immediately before his crucifixion was in all probability, a preparation of Indian hemp."

(Transcripts, Ohio State Medical Society 15th annual meeting June 12-14, 1860, pg. 75-100.) 

From 1850 to 1937, the U.S. Pharmacopoeia listed cannabis as the primary medicine for more than 100 separate illnesses or diseases. 

During all this time (pre-1000 B.C. to 1940's A.D., researchers, doctors and drug manufacturers (Eli Lilly, Parke-David, Squibb, etc.) had no idea what the active ingredients of cannabis were until Dr. Mechoulam discovered THC in 1964. 

20th Century Research 

As outlined in the previous chapters, the American Medical Association (AMA) and drug companies testified against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act because cannabis was known to have so much medical potential and had never caused any observable addictions or death by overdose. 

The possibility existed, they argued, that once the active ingredients in cannabis (such as THC Delta-9) were isolated and correct dosages established, cannabis could become a miracle drug. 

Twenty-nine years would pass, however, before American scientists could begin to even look into cannabis medicine again. 

THC Delta-9 was isolated by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam at the University of Tel Aviv in 1964. His work confirmed that of Professor Taylor of Princeton, who had lead the research and identification of natural THC Delta-9 precursors in the 1930's. Kahn, Adams and Loewe also worked with the structure of cannabis' active ingredients in 1944. 

Since 1964, more than 400 separate compounds have been isolated in cannabis from over a thousand suspected compounds. At least 60 of the isolated compounds are therapeutic. The United States, however, forbade this type of research through the bureaucratic authority of Harry Anslinger util 1962, when he was forced to retire.

(Omni Magazine, Sept. 1982) 

Growing Acceptance 

By 1966, millions of young Americans had begun using marijuana. Concerned parents and government, wanting to know the dangers their children were risking, started funding dozens and later hundreds of marijuana health studies. 

Entrenched in the older generation's minds were 30 years of Anslinger/Hearst scare stories of murder, atrocity, rape, and even zombie pacifism. 

Federally sponsored research results began to ease Americans' fears of cannabis causing violence or zombie pacifism, and hundreds of new studies suggested that hidden inside the hemp plant's chemistry lay a medicinal array of incredible therapeutic potential. The government funded more and more studies. 

Soon, legions of American researchers had positive indications using cannabis, anorexia, tumors and epilepsy, as well as for a general use antibiotic. Cumulative findings showed evidence of favorable results occurring in cases of Parkinson's disease, anorexia, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy; plus thousands of anecdotal stories all merited further clinical study. 

Prior to 1976, reports of positive effects and new therapeutic indications for cannabis were almost a weekly occurrence in medical journals and the national press. 

National Conference Praised 

Cannabis Therapy Potential 

In November 1975, virtually all of America's leading researchers on marijuana met at Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California. Seminars were sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (N.I.D.A) to address a compendium of studies from their earliest to most recent findings. 

When the seminars were over, practically all the scientists concluded that the federal government, with the hard evidence collected so far on the therapeutic potential of marijuana, should be rushing to invest tax money into more research. 

They felt the taxpayers should be informed that there was every legitimate reason for the field of public health to continue large scale research on cannabis medicine and therapies. All the participants, it seems, believed this. Many of them (such as Mechoulam) believed that cannabis would be one of the world's major medicines by the mid-1980's. In March 1997, Mechoulam, in a speech at the Bio-Fach in Frankfort, Germany, still believed that cannabis is the world's best overall medicine. 

Marijuana Research Banned 

However, in 1976, just as multi-disciplined marijuana research should have been going into its second, third, and fourth generation studies (see Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana and NORML federal files), a "surprise" United States government policy again forbade all promising federal research into marijuana's therapeutic effects. 

This time, the research ban was accomplished when American pharmaceutical companies successfully petitioned the federal government to be allowed to finance and judge 100% of the research.[Well that was the mistake the government made,right there they gave the research to private interests to do with it as they wish,TOTAL screw-up right there DC] 

The previous ten years of research had indicated a tremendous promise for the therapeutic uses of natural cannabis, and this potential was quietly turned over to corporate hands - not for the benefit of the public, but to suppress the medical information. 

This plan, the drug manufacturers petitioned, would allow our private drug companies time to come up with patentable synthetics of the cannabis molecules at no cost to the federal government, and a promise of "no highs." 

In 1976, the Ford Administration, N.I.D.A and the DEA said in effect, no American independent (read: university) research or federal health program would be allowed to again investigate natural cannabis derivatives for medicine. This agreement was made without any safeguards guaranteeing integrity on the part of the pharmaceutical companies; they were allowed to regulate themselves.[And they say there are free markets,yeah free markets like our freedom DC]

Private pharmaceutical corporations were allowed to do some "no high" research, but it would be only Delta-9 THC research, not any of the 400 other potentially therapeutic isomers in cannabis. 

Why did the drug companies conspire to take over marijuana research? Because U.S. government research (1966-76) had indicated or confirmed through hundreds of studies that even "natural" crude cannabis was the "best and safest medicine of choice" for many serious health problems. 

1988: DEA Judge Rules that 

Cannabis has Medical Value 

The DEA's own conservative administrative law judge, Francis Young, after taking medical testimony for 15 days and reviewing hundreds of DEA/NIDA documents positioned against the evidence introduced by marijuana reform activists, concluded in September 1988 that "marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." 

But despite this preponderance of evidence, then DEA Director John Lawn ordered on December 30, 1989 that cannabis remain listed as a Schedule I narcotic - having no known medical use. His successor, Robert Bonner, who was appointed by Bush and kept in office by Clinton, was even more draconian in his approach to hemp/marijuana as medicine. Clinton's current DEA administrator; Thomas Constantine (appointed 1993), upholds policies for worse even than Bonner's. 

So. . . if all this has been known since 1975, what is our government waiting for? 

Protecting Pharmaceutical 

Companies' Profits 

NORML, High Times, and Omni (September 1982) indicate that Eli Lilly, Abbott Labs, Pfizer, Smith, Kline & French, and others would lose hundreds of millions, to billions of dollars annually, and lose even more billions in Third World countries, if marijuana were legal in the U.S.* 

* Remember, in 1976, the last year of the Ford Administration, these drug companies, through their own persistence (specifically intense lobbying) got the federal government to cease all positive research into medical marijuana. 

Putting the Fox into the 

Health Care Chicken Coop 

The drug companies took over all research and financing into analogs of synthetic THC, CBD, CBN, etc., promising "no high" before allowing the products on the market. Eli Lilly came out with Nabilone and later Marinol, synthetic second cousins of THC Delta-9, and promised the government great results. 

Omni Magazine, in 1982, stated that after nine years, Nabilone was still considered virtually useless when compared with real, home-grown THC-rich cannabis buds; and Marinol works as well as marijuana in only 13% of patients. 

Marijuana users mostly agree, they do not like the effects of Lilly's Nabilone or Marinol. Why? You have to get three or four times as high on Marinol to sometimes get the same benefits as smoking good cannabis bud. 

Omni also stated in 1982 (and it's still true in 1999), that after tens of millions of dollars and nine years of research on medical marijuana synthetics, "these drug companies are totally successful," even though raw, organic cannabis is a "superior medicine" which works so well naturally, on so many different illnesses. Omni also suggested the drug companies petition the government to allow "crude drug extracts" on the market in the real interest of public health. The government and the drug companies, to date, have not responded. Or rather, they have responded by ignoring it. However, the Reagan/Bush/Clinton administrations absolutely refused to allow resumption of real (university) cannabis research, except under synthetic pharmaceutical studies. 

Omni suggests, and NORML and High Times concur, the reason the drug companies and Reagan/Bush/Clinton wanted only synthetic THC legal is that simple extractions of the hundreds of ingredients from the cannabis crude drug would be enjoyed without pharmaceutical company patents which generate windfall monopolized profits. 

Undermining the Natural 

Medicines' Competition 

Eli Lilly, Pfizer and others stand to lose at least a third of their entire, highly profitable, patent monopoly on such drugs as Darvon, Tuinal, Seconal, and Prozac (as well as other patented medications ranging from muscle ointments to burn ointments, to thousands of other products) because of a plant anyone can grow: cannabis hemp. Isn't it curious that American drug companies and pharmacist groups* supply almost half the funding for the 4,000 "Families Against Marijuana" type organizations in America? The other half is supplied by Action (a federal VISA agency) and by tobacco companies like Philip Morris, and by liquor and beer makers like Anheuser Busch, Coors, etc., or as a "public service" by the ad agencies who represent them. 

* Pharmacists Against Drug Abuse, etc. See appendices. 

Poisoning the Third World 

Columbia's largest newspaper, Periodical el Tiempo (Bogota), reported in 1983 that these same anti-marijuana crusading American pharmaceutical companies are guilty of a practice known as "product dumping," wherein they "sell on the over-the-counter markets of Columbia, Mexico, Panama, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, over 150 different illegal, dangerous drugs." This report has not been disputed by the U.S. government or American pharmaceutical companies and the practice continues in 1998. 

Some of these drugs have been forbidden by the FDA for sale or use in the U.S. or its counterparts in Europe because they are known to cause malnutrition, deformities and cancer. Yet they are sold over-the-counter to unsuspecting illiterates! [FYI,These companies are making these bad drugs in....Puerto Rico our wannabe 51st state DC]

The World Health Organization backs up this story with a conservative estimate: they say that some 500,000 people are poisoned each year in Third World countries by items (drugs, pesticides, etc.) sold by American companies but which are banned from sale in the U.S.*[and that tells you just who these people are DC] 

* Mother Jones magazine, 1979, "Unbroken Circle" June, 1989; The Progressive, April 1991, et al. 

Destroying the Public Record 

Some 10,000 studies have been done on cannabis, 4,000 in the U.S., and only about a dozen have shown any negative results and these have never been replicated. The Reagan/Bush Administration put a soft "feeler" out in September of 1983 for all American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries. 

Scientists and doctors so ridiculed this unparalleled censorship move that the plans were dropped. . . for the moment. 

However, we know that large amounts of information have since disappeared, including the original copy of the USDA's own pro-marijuana film Hemp for Victory. Worse yet, even the merest mention of the film was removed from the official record back to 1958, and has had to be painstakingly reestablished as part of our national archives. Many archival and resource copies of USDA Bulletin 404 have disappeared. How many other such priceless historical documents have already been lost? 

In late 1995 and early 1996, Dennis Peron, founder of the Cannabis Buyers' Club in San Francisco, gave California voters Proposition 215, a statewide initiative to make cannabis legal as medicine. The medical marijuana initiative collected 750,000 signatures, made the California ballot and it passed by 56% of the vote in November 1996. Now, in 1998, hundreds of thousands of Californians are growing medical marijuana legally. Nonetheless, the federal government, in clear opposition to the people's mandate, has found ways to harass and close down most of the cannabis buyers'/cultivators' clubs including Peron's. 

Interestingly, in 1996, more voters in California voted for medical marijuana than voted for Bill Clinton. 

In August of 1997, almost one full year after the passage of Proposition 215 by the majority vote, an L.A. Times poll found that more than 67% of Californians would now vote for it - an increase of 11% in the first year. 

Ninety-six percent (nearly 25,000) of the people responding to an ongoing CNN Internet poll, in March of 1998, said they "support the use of marijuana for medical purposes." By contrast, only 4% of respondents (less than 1,000 voters overall) said they opposed the use of cannabis by seriously ill patients. 

Californians taking advantage of the new medical marijuana law include police officers, district attorneys and mayors. Some of the same people who formerly arrested and prosecuted citizens for marijuana, medical or otherwise, are now using it themselves or for their families in ever increasing numbers. Upon reentering the United States from Canada, in March of 1998, California resident Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the highest scoring professional basketball player in history, was busted for possession of a small amount of marijuana. He paid a $500 fine to U.S. Customs and explained to the press that, as a California citizen, he had a doctor's recommendation to use medical marijuana. 

Professional and collegiate athletes who live in California and have a doctor's recommendation for medical marijuana theoretically do not have to undergo urine testing for cannabis. 

Among the thousands of California actors, musicians and writers who legally use medical marijuana was famed author Peter McWilliams, who suffered from AIDS and cancer. He said, "If it weren't for the illegal pot dealers (before Proposition 215), there would have been no marijuana and I wouldn't be alive today. Marijuana eases nausea and makes it possible for me to keep down food and the pills I must take to combat my diseases. Fuck the federal government. Use it if you need it." 

An Unfair Rap for Hemp 

After 20 years of study, the California Research Advisory Panel (RAP) in 1989 broke with the state Attorney General's office (AG), under which it works, and called for the relegalization of cannabis.[It should be the decriminalization of cannabis. DC]  

"There is no point to continuing unmodified, much less intensified, the policies and laws that have so obviously failed to control the individual and societal damages associated with drug use," summarized Vice Chairman Frederick Meyers, M.D., in a letter released with the group's recommendations after the attorney general had suppressed the report and panel members elected to publish it at their own expense. 

This was a complete turnaround from the RAP's long history of suppressing medical usage. The long-term impact of this shift remains to be seen. 

Chairman Edward P. O'Brien, Jr.[Chief asshole DC] appointed by the AG, who dissented from the panel's conclusions, had for years dominated this group, rigidly controlling what research could be performed - and limiting those applications to control of nausea and vomiting that is secondary to cancer chemotherapy. 

Under O'Brien, the panel systematically welshed on its mandate to provide compassionate medicinal access to cannabis. Any applications for using cannabis including the control of pain, spastic neurological disorders, etc., have been rejected. Cannabis used to be the treatment of choice for vascular or migraine headache. 

(Osler, 1916; O'Shaugnessey, 1839) 

Cannabis has the unique characteristic of affecting the vascular circulation of the covering of the brain - the meninges. The reddened eyes of the marijuana user are a reflection of this action. 

Unlike other drugs, however, cannabis has no apparent affect on the vascular system in general, except for a slight speeding up of the heart during the onset of the effects of the drug. 

RAP has discouraged the use of smoking cannabis in favor of synthetic Delta THC capsules, despite crude cannabis' favorable comparative results reported to the Food and Drug Administration. 

This has been frankly misrepresented in their reports to the legislature and testimony in the N.O.R.M.L vs. DEA case. Additionally, these memorandum favorably comparing smoked marijuana to oral THC have been buried in appendices to their reports - available in only four locations in the entire state of California! 

On September 30, 1989, the medical marijuana program quietly expired, based on the staff's assessment that no enough people had been treated to justify its extension. 

- Tod Mikuriya, M.D. Berkeley, CA 1990 

Chapter 7 

Therapeutic Use of Cannabis 

There are more than 60 therapeutic compounds in cannabis that are healing agents in medical and herbal treatments. The primary one is THC, and the effectiveness of therapy is directly proportionate to the herb's potency or concentration of THC. Recent DEA reports of increasingly potent marijuana therefore represent a major medical advance; but, incredibly, the government uses these very numbers to solicit bigger budgets and harsher penalties. 

On November 5, 1996, 56% of California citizens voted for the California Compassionate Use Act (medical marijuana initiative) ending all legal state efforts to keep marijuana from being used as medicine by California citizens. 

Arizona citizens, in November 1996, also passed, by an even greater margin - 65% - a drug declassification initiative that included medical marijuana, backed by, among others, the late U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. 

Arizona's governor and legislature, exercising their veto override ability on their state initiative laws for the first time in 90 years, struck down this popular initiative passed by the people Arizona citizens angrily responded by re-collecting more than 150,000 signatures in a 90-day referendum period and promptly returned the medical marijuana initiative to the ballot for November 1998. 

The following explains how people will benefit when the freedom of choice of doctors and patients is once again respected. 

Warning: 

This writer, responsible 

scientists and doctors advise: 

There is no pharmacological free lunch in cannabis or any drug. Negative reactions can result. A small percentage of people have negative or allergic reactions to marijuana. Heart patients could have problems, even though cannabis generally relieves stress, dilates the arteries, and in general lowers the diastolic pressure. A small percentage of people get especially high heart rates and anxieties with cannabis. These persons should not use it. Some bronchial asthma sufferers benefit from cannabis; however, for others it may serve as an additional irritant. 

For the overwhelming majority of people, cannabis has demonstrated literally hundreds of therapeutic uses. Among them: 

ASTHMA 

More than 15 million Americans are affected by asthma. Smoking cannabis (the "raw drug" as the AMA called it) would be beneficial for 80% of them and add 30-60 million person-years in the aggregate of extended life to current asthmatics over presently legal toxic medicines such as the Theophylline prescribed to children. "Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown asthma attack." (Personal communication with Dr. Donald Tashkin, December 12, 1989 and December 1, 1997.) The use of cannabis for asthmatics goes back thousands of years in literature. American doctors of the last century wrote glowing reports in medical papers that asthma sufferers of the world would "bless" Indian hemp (cannabis) all their lives. Today, of the 16 million American asthma sufferers, only Californians, with a doctor's recommendation, can legally grow and use cannabis medicines, even though it is generally the most effective treatment for asthma. (Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA Pulmonary Studies (for smoked marijuana), 1969-97; Ibid., asthma studies, 1969-76; Cohen, Sidney & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Life Insurance Actuarial rates; Life shortening effects of childhood asthma, 1983.) 

GLAUCOMA 

Fourteen percent of all blindness in America is from glaucoma, a progressive loss of vision. Cannabis smoking would benefit 90% of our 2.5 million glaucoma victims, and is two to three times as effective as any current medicines for reducing ocular pressure! Cannabis use has no toxic side effects to the liver and kidneys; nor is there any danger of the occasional sudden death syndromes associated with the legal pharmaceutical glaucoma drugs/drops. Many California eye doctors, through the 1970's, '80's, and '90's, discreetly advised their patients to use "street" marijuana in addition to (or to mitigate) their toxic legal glaucoma medicines. Since November 1996, California doctors can legally recommend, advise or tacitly approve cannabis use by their glaucoma patients who may then grow and smoke their own marijuana, or go to the few remaining Cannabis Buyers' Clubs to acquire medical marijuana. (Harvard; Hepler & Frank, 1971, UCLA; Medical College of Georgia; U. of North Carolina School of Medicine, 1975; Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, UCLA, 1976; National Eye Institute; Records of Bob Randolph/Elvy Musika, 1975, 1998.) 

TUMORS 

A tumor is a mass of swollen tissue. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia discovered that cannabis is an incredibly successful herb for reducing many types of tumors, both benign and malignant (cancerous). The DEA and other federal agencies had ordered these tumor studies done after hearing erroneous reports of possible immunicological problems associated with cannabis smoke. But, in 1975, instead of health problems, an apparent medical breakthrough occurred and successful tumor reductions were recorded! Following this remarkably positive discovery by the Medical College of Virginia, orders were immediately handed down by the DE and the National Institute of Health to defund all further cannabis/tumor research and reporting! Millions of Americans who might be alive today are dead because of these and other DEA orders regarding marijuana. Since 1996, the Medical College of Virginia has again applied to receive grants for cannabis research and has been turned down by the DEA. 

NAUSEA RELIEF (e.g., AIDS, CANCER 

THERAPY, SEA SICKNESS) 

Though it is known to be extremely damaging to the immune system, chemotherapy is claimed by practitioners to benefit cancer and AIDS patients. But chemo has some other serious side effects too, including nausea. "Marijuana is the best agent for control of nausea in cancer chemotherapy," according to Dr. Thomas Ungerleider, who headed California's Marijuana for Cancer research program from 1979 to 1984. This is also true in AIDS and even in the unsettled stomach common in motion sickness. Pharmaceutical nausea control drugs come in pills that are often swallowed by the patient, only to be thrown back up. Because cannabis can be ingested as smoke, it stays in the system and keeps working even if vomiting continues. Throughout the state's 10-year Compassionate Marijuana Medical law, George Deukmejian, both as attorney general and as governor, with no regard for the suffering or dying cancer patients, made it virtually impossible for them to get cannabis. Californa Governor Pete Wilson was following the same course until the medical marijuana initiative passed in November 1996. 

EPILEPSY, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, 

BACK PAIN, MUSCLE SPASMS 

Cannabis is beneficial for 60% of all epileptics. It is definitely the best treatment for many, but not all types of epilepsy, and for victims' post-seizure mental traumas. Cannabis extract is more effective than Dilantin (a commonly prescribed anti-epileptic with severe side effects). Medical World News reported in 1971: "Marijuana . . . is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine today." (Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972, page xxii.) Cannabis users' epileptic seizures are of less intensity than the more dangerous seizures experienced by users of pharmaceuticals. Similarly, smoking cannabis has proven to be a major source of relief for multiple sclerosis, which affects the nervous system and is characterized by muscular weakness, tremors, etc. Aside from addictive morphine, cannabis, whether smoked or applied as an herbal pack or poultice, is also the best muscle relaxant, back spasm medicine and general antispasmodic medication on our planet. In September 1993, in Santa Cruz County, California, Sheriffs rearrested eqileptic Valerie Corral and confiscated the five marijuana plants she was growing for medicine even though 77% of the citizens of Santa Cruz voted in November 1992 to instruct local law enforcement not to prosecute medical marijuana users. Charges against Corral had been dropped earlier in March 1993 because she was the first person in California to meet all six points of a medical necessity defense. In 1997, Valerie, who runs a compassionate use club, was named Citizen of the Year in Santa Cruz. (Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Consult U.S. Pharmacopoeia prior to 1937; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972.) 

 ANTIBIOTIC CBD DISINFECTANTS 

Young un-budded hemp plants provide extractions of C.B.D's (cannabidiolic acids). There are many antibiotic uses of the cannabidiols, including treatment for gonorrhea. A 1990 Florida study indicated its use in treating herpes. The acid side of tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiols occur inversely to the amount of the plant's THC and is therefore more acceptable to prohibitionists because "it won't get you high." For virtually any disease or infection that can be treated with terramycin, cannabis derivatives did better in Czechoslovakian studies, 1952-1955. The Czechs in 1997 still published farm crop reports on strategies to grow cannabidiol rich hemp. 
(Also see Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers; Roffman, Marijuana as Medicine, 1982; International Farm Crop abstracts.) 

ARTHRITIS, HERPES, CYSTIC 

FIBROSIS AND RHEUMATISM 

Cannabis is a topical analgesic.2 Until 1937, virtually all corn plasters, mustard plasters, muscle ointments, and fibrosis poultices were made from or with cannabis extracts. Rheumatism was treated throughout South America until the 1960's with hemp leaves and/or flower tops heated in water or alcohol and placed on painful joints. In fact, this form of herbal medicine is still widely used in rural areas of Mexico, Central and South America, and by California Latinos for relief of rheumatism and arthritis pain. Direct contact with THC killed herpes virus in a University of South Florida (Tampa) 1990 research study by Dr. Gerald Lancz, who warns that "smoking marijuana will not cure herpes." However, anecdotal reports indicate a faster drying and healing of the outbreak after topical application of "strong bud," soaked in rubbing alcohol and crushed into a paste. 

LUNG CLEANER AND EXPECTORANT 

Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use. Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes - making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions). (See section on asthma - a disease that closes these passages in spasms - UCLA Tashkin studies, 1969-97; U.S. Costa Rican, 1980-82; Jamaican studies 1969-74, 76.) Statistical evidence - showing up consistently as anomalies in matched populations - indicates that people who smoke tobacco cigarettes are usually better off and will live longer if they smoke cannabis moderately, too. (Jamaicna, Costa Rican studies.) Millions of Americans have given up or avoided smoking tobacco products in favor of cannabis, which is not good news to the powerful tobacco lobby - Senator Jesse Helms and his cohorts. A turn-of-the-century grandfather clause in U.S. tobacco law allows 400 to 6,000 additional chemicals to be added. Additions since then to the average tobacco cigarette are unknown, and the public in the U.S. has no right to know what they are. Many joggers and marathon runners feel cannabis use cleans their lungs, allowing better endurance. The evidence indicates that cannabis use will probably increase these outlaw American marijuana-users' lives by about one to two years - yet they may lose their rights, property, children, state licenses, etc., just for using that safest of substances: cannabis. 

SLEEP AND RELAXATION 

Cannabis lowers blood pressure, dilates the arteries and reduces body temperature an average of one-half degree, thereby relieving stress. Evening cannabis smokers in general report more restful sleep. Using cannabis allows most people a more complete rest with a higher amount of "alpha time" during sleep as compared with prescription or sleep-inducing patent sedatives. Prescription sleeping pills (the so called "legal, safe and effective" drugs) are often just synthesized analogs of truly dangerous plants like mandrake, henbane and belladonna. As late as 1991, doctors, pharmacists and drug companies were fighting off new legislation to restrict these often abused compounds. (L.A. Times, April 2, 1991). Unlike Valium, cannabis does not potentiate the effects of alcohol. It is estimated that cannabis could replace more than 50% of Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Stelazine, other "-zine" drugs and most sleeping pills. It is unconscionable that, over the past two decades, tens of thousands of parents have committed their own children, aged 11 to 17, to be treated by massive doses of so-called "-zine" drugs in order to get them off pot, at the urging of parent groups, the PDFA, the feds and administrators and doctors from federally approved, private and high-profit drug rehabilitation centers. Often, "-zine" drugs do work to stop these youths from using pot. They also stop a kid from loving his or her dog, too - and children stand a one-in-four chance of suffering from uncontrollable shaking for the rest of their lives.* But at least they're not high. 
* The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said that 20-40% of "-zine" drug users have or will develop permanent lifetime pasies (shakes), November 1983. These prescription neurotoxins are chemically related to the pesticide and warfare nerve gas Sarin. Hundreds of private drug-rehabilitation centers and their leaders keep this policy alive and in front of the media, often quoting discredited reports from NIDA or DEA (see Chapter 16, debunking) - because they earn fat profits selling their useless or destructive "marijuana treatment" for children. After all, a relapse just means using marijuana against after a number of bouts with an "authority." This is mind control and an attempt to destroy individual free will. 

THERAPEUTIC EMPHYSEMA POTENTIAL 

Medical research indicates that light cannabis smoking might be useful for a majority of mild emphysema victims. It would improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and extend their life spans. The U.S. government and DEA (since 1976) say the side effect of being "high" is not acceptable, no matter how many years or lives it saves; even though some 90 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million still smoke marijuana relaxationally, or use it responsibly as a form of daily self-medication, without one single death from overdoes - ever! All research into the oxygen blood transfer effects cause by cannabis indicates that the chest (lung) pains, extremity pains, shallowness of breath, and headaches we may experience on heavy smog days are usually alleviated by cannabis smoking throughout the day. Dr. Donald Tashkin, the U.S. government's leading scientist on marijuana pulmonary research, told us in December 1989*, and again in December 1997, that you cannot get or potentiate emphysema with cannabis smoking. 
* See Tashkin's Marijuana Pulmonary Research, UCLA, 1969-1997. Since 1981, this author has personally taken part in these studies and has continuously interviewed Tashkin on cannabis' medical indications; last personal interview was in December 1997. 

STRESS AND MIGRAINE 

HEADACHE RELIEF 

Most of all: it is best for the world's number one killer - stress. It can safely curtail or replace Valium, Librium, alcohol, or even Prozac, for millions of Americans. While cannabis intoxication varies with psychological set and social setting, "the most common response is a calm, mildly euphoric state in which time slows and a sensitivity to sights, sounds and touch is enhanced." In contrast to marijuana's safe, therapeutic action, benzodiazepine (Valium) abuse is the number one drug abuse problem in the country, and is responsible for more emergency room admissions in the United States than either cocaine related problems or morphine and heroin-related admissions combined. While tobacco constricts arteries, cannabis dilates (opens) them. Because migraine headaches are the result of artery spasms combined with over relaxation of veins, the vascular changes cannabis causes in the covering of the brain (the meninges) usually make migraines disappear. Evidence of vascular change caused by cannabis can be seen in the user's red eyes, which are extensions of the brain. However, unlike most other drugs, cannabis has no apparent effect on the vascular system in general, except for a slightly increased heart rate during the onset of the high. 

TO INCREASE APPETITE 

Users of marijuana often (but not always) experience "the munchies," a stimulated appetite for food, which, at this time, makes cannabis the very best medicine on the planet for anorexia. Hundreds of thousands of Americans in old age, convalescent wards or hospital situations have anorxia. Most could be helped by cannabis - yet these Americans are being denied a healthy life by governmental policy dictated by government police! This effect can also extend the lives of AIDS and pancreatic cancer (eat or die). However, the DEA and U.S. government prevented any research or use of cannabis in pancreatic cancer therapy since 1976. They have effectively allowed tens of thousands of people to die each year, denying them the right to live otherwise normal, healthy and productive lives. 

TO REDUCE SALIVA 

Marijuana smoking can help dry your mouth for the dentist. This is the best way to dry the mouth's saliva non-toxically in what is known among smokers as its "cotton mouth" effect. According to the Canadian Board of Dentistry in studies conducted in the 1970's, cannabis could replace the highly toxic Probathine compounds produced by Searle & Co. This may also indicate that cannabis could be good for treating peptic ulcers. 

IN ADDITION. . . 

AIDS, DEPRESSION & HUNDREDS 

OF OTHER PRIMARY MEDICAL USES 

One well known effect of THC is to life the spirit, or make you "high." Cannabis users in Jamaica praise ganja's benefits for meditation, concentration, consciousness-raising and promoting a state of well being and self assertiveness.5 This kind of attitude adjustment, along with a healthier appetite and better rest, often represents the difference between feeling like you are "dying of" AIDS or cancer and feeling like you are "living with" AIDS or cancer. Cannabis also eases small pains and some big ones and helps senior citizens live with aches and pains like arthritis, insomnia and debilitating infirmities, and enjoy life in greater dignity and comfort. Legend has it, and medical evidence indicates, that cannabis is the best overall treatment for dementia, senility, and maybe Alzheimer's disease, for long-term memory "gain" and hundreds of other benefits. U.S. statistics of the 1970's indicated "gain" and hundreds of other benefits. U.S. statistics of the 1970's indicated that you will live eight to 24 years longer if you substitute daily cannabis use for daily tobacco and alcohol use. New research is outlawed, of course. 

ACCEPTABLE RISKS 

Every U.S. commission or federal judge who has studied the evidence has agreed that cannabis is one of the safest drugs known. With all its therapeutic uses, it has only one side effect that has been exaggerated as a concern: the "high." The DEA says this is not acceptable, so cannabis continues to be totally illegal in utter disregard for both doctor and patient. Every day we trust physicians to determine whether the risks associated with therapeutic, yet potentially dangerous drugs are acceptable for their patients. Yet, doctors are not allowed to prescribe the herb that Federal Judge Francis Young in 1988 called "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." We don't put out doctors in charge of stopping violent crimes. The police, prosecutors and prison guards should not be in charge of which herbal therapies people may use to treat their personal health problems.

Hempseed Nutrition 

Cannabis hempseeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. No other single plant source provides complete protein in such an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential to life in as perfect a ratio for human health and vitality. 

Hempseed is the highest of any plant in essential fatty acids. Hempseed oil is among the lowest in saturated fats at 8% of total oil volume. The oil pressed from hempseed contains 55% linoleic acid (LA) and 25% llinolenic acid (LNA). Only flax oil has more linolenic acid at 58%, but hempseed oil is the highest in total essential fatty acids at 80% of total oil volume. 

"These essential fatty acids are responsible for our immune response. In the old country the peasants ate hemp butter. They were more resistant to disease than the nobility." The higher classes wouldn't eat hemp because the poor ate it. 
- R. Hamilton, ED.D., Ph.D. Medical Researcher-Bichemist U.C.L.A. Emeritus. 

LA and LNA are involved in producing life energy from food and the movement of that energy throughout the body. 

Essential fatty acids govern growth, vitality and state of mind. LA and LNA are involved in transferring oxygen from the air in the lungs to every cell in the body. They play a part in holding oxygen in the cell membrane where it acts as a barrier to invading viruses and bacteria, neither of which thrive in the presence of oxygen. 

The bent shape of the essential fatty acids keep them from dissolving into each other. They are slippery and will not clog arteries like the sticky straightshaped saturated fats and the trans-fatty acids in cooking oils and shortenings that are made by subjecting polyunsaturated oils like LA and LNA to high temperatures during the refining process. 

LA and LNA possess a slightly negative charge and have a tendency to form very thin surface layers. This property is called surface activity, and it provides the power to carry substances like toxins to the surface of the skin, intestinal tract, kidneys and lungs where they can be removed. Their very sensitivity causes them to break down rapidly into toxic compounds when refined with high heat or improper storage exposes them to light or air. 

Nature provides seeds with an outer shell that safely protects the vital oils and vitamins within from spoilage. 

It's a perfect as well as perfectly edible container. Hempseed can be ground into a paste similar to peanut butter only more delicate in flavor. Udo Erasmus, Ph.D. nutritionist says: "Hemp butter puts our peanut butter to shame for nutritional value." The ground seeds can be baked into breads, cakes and casseroles. Hempseed makes a hearty addition to granola bars. 

Pioneers in the fields of biochemistry and human nutrition now believe cardiovascular disease (C.V.D) and most cancers are really diseases of fatty degeneration caused by the continued over-consumption of saturated fats and refined vegetable oils that turn essential fatty acids into carcinogenic killers. One out of two Americans will die from the effects of CVD. One out of four Americans will die from cancer. Researchers believe cancers erupt when immune system response is weakened. And more Americans are succumbing to immune deficiency diseases than ever before. Promising studies are now under way using the essential oils to support the immune systems of HIV virus patients. 

The complete protein in hempseed gives the body all the essential amino acids required to maintain health, and provides the necessary kinds and amounts of amino acids the body needs to make human serum albumin and serum globulins like the immune enhancing gamma globulin antibodies. 

The body's ability to resist and recover from illness depends upon how rapidly it can produce massive amounts of antibodies to fend off the initial attack. If the globulin protein starting material is in short supply, the army of antibodies may be too small to prevent the symptoms of sickness from setting in. 

The best way to insure the body has enough amino acid material to make the globulins is to eat foods high in globulin proteins. Hempseed protein is 65% globulin edestin plus quantities of albumin (present in all seeds) so its easily digestible proteen is readily available in a form quite similar to that found in blood plasma. 

Hempseed was used to treat nutritional deficiencies brought on by tuberculosis, a severe nutrition blocking disease that causes the body to waste away. (Czechoslovakia Tubercular Nutritional Study, 1955.) 

The energy of life is in the whole seed. Hempseed foods taste great! 

They will insure we get enough essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, to build strong bodies and immune systems, and to maintain health and vitality. Please copy. Excerpted from Hempseed Nutrition by Lynn Osburn. Produced by Access Unlimited, P.O. Box 1900, Frazier Park, CA 93225.  
Footnotes: 
1. Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, UCLA, 1976; personal interviewd in Washington, D.C. (1982) with researchers from the Medical College of Virginia. 
2. Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, UCLA, 1976; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers 1839-1972, Medi-Comp Press, Oakland, CA, 1973. 
3. The Antibiotic Effect of Cannabis Indica, 1952- 53-55. The Antibacterial Effect of Cannabis Indica, 1955, from Marijuana Medical Papers; Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, UCLA, 1976. 
4. Harvard Medical School Mental Health Letter, Vol. 4, No. 5, November 1987. 
5. Ruben, Vera & Comitas, Lambros, Ganja in Jamaica, A Medical Anthropological Study of Chronic Marijuana Use, Mouton & Co., The Hague an Paris, Anchor Books, U.S.A., 1976. 6. Stopping Valium Public Citizen Health Research Group, 2000 P St. NW, Washington, DC.