Pubdate: Sun, 23 May 2010 Source: Summit Daily News (CO) Copyright: 2010 Summit Daily News Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n363/a06.html Author: Stan White CANNABIS: THE CANCER CURE? Re. "Marijuana not totally safe," by Michael Orlin, letters May 13: Immunosuppression, increased risk of heart attack, high blood pressure and cancer do not seem to be, "side effects" of using cannabis (marijuana). Those conditions have been found to be helped by cannabis. Redford Givens exposed how immunosuppression is not linked to cannabis with a list of sources (Letter: "Marijuana Myths," May 17). Cannabis can increase heart rate when someone starts smoking the plant, however, it also can cause lowering of blood pressure after a few minutes. Preliminary studies in animals show that cannabinoids can lower blood pressure by dilating the blood vessels. Some doctors suggest patients with high blood pressure use cannabis and find it helps and allows patients to reduce their high blood pressure medications. Medication which have side effects including death. See: http://mcsocal.com/blog/marijuana-cannabis-and-hypertension-high-blood-pressure/. Although Michael Orlin wants people to believe cannabis is a "drug" which causes cancer, there simply is not one single dead body to prove it. The U.S. spent about $1 trillion to prohibit cannabis, and if they could produce even one single dead body to show cannabis causes cancer, the whole world would know about it. That's why Orlin's claims are "hard to quantify." So while cannabis may contain 50 percent to 70 percent more carcinogens than cigarette smoke, cigarettes kill over 1,000 Americans daily and cannabis hasn't killed anyone in over 5,000 years. Scientists believe that may be due to the anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects of some of the components of cannabis. Donald Tashkin at UCLA has spent nearly 40 years investigating the harmful effects of inhaled marijuana on the lungs and indicates that people who don't smoke tobacco but smoke marijuana have a lower risk of developing lung cancer than "tobacco smokers"; he has also found that regular marijuana smoking may in fact actually be associated with a decreased risk of lung cancer. See: http://today.ucsf.edu/stories/on-the-spot-dr-abrams-responds/ At Brown University, another study with people who had head or neck cancers indicates those who had used cannabis for a decade or two were significantly less likely to develop these cancers than those who did not use cannabis. In fact, their rates of cancer were less than half the rate among non-users. http://cancerpreventionresearch.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2009/07/28/1940-6207.CAPR-09-0048.abstract Cannabinoids inhibit tumor growth, so cannabis can't cause cancer. Cannabinoids show promise for battling cancer, not creating it. http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/pdf/1477-7517-2-21.pdf Reading study after study how cannabis does not cause cancer and in fact helps people with health-related problems - including avoiding cancer, shrinking cancerous tumors, chemo treatment and living with cancer - and then reading what cannabis prohibitionists have to say, I am convinced cannabis prohibitionists are harmful to the human race. What if that trillion dollars was put toward curing cancer instead of prohibiting what God says is good; cannabis? And since statistics indicate 1 out of every 3 or 4 Americans will confront cancer, which averages out to every American family, that is an important question to consider for the way We spend the next trillion dollars, regarding cannabis. Orlin is right about one thing though. Comparing alcohol with cannabis is like comparing apples and oranges; that is rotten apples and fresh oranges. Stan White Dillon - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake