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Worth Repeating: Scientific Studies Show Cannabis Is Medicine

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Editor’s note: Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

The quote below, from a news release, is a political statement that is based on incomplete and biased science. Remember, once science is politicized, it is no longer science.

“No sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.”

Not true! An overwhelming number of studies exist to firmly support cannabis as all-purpose medicine and very possibly a strong candidate as a cure for cancer, as was originally reported by the National Cancer Institute.

There has never been a single documented primary human fatality from overdosing on cannabis in its natural form in any amount. How’s that for safety!

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This Just In: Reefer Madness Is Still B.S.

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"Just get me some more reefers... NOW!" [4&20 blackbirds]

“Just get me some more reefers… NOW!”
[4&20 blackbirds]

​Every few months, you can count on it: Another “scientific” study that attempts to draw some connection, however tenuous, between getting high and going crazy. But those outlandish claims amount to just putting a white lab coat on the “Reefer Madness” warnings of the 1930s, and it’s easy to see why.

I mean, get real: Considering modern rates of usage, if cannabis really produced psychosis, the streets would be choked with a gibbering throng of burned-out potheads. It doesn’t. They aren’t.

“I’ve said it for years now,” film director John Holowach, responsible for the documentary High: The True Tale of American Marijuana, told Toke Signals. “If pot and mental illness were linked, the two should rise and fall with one another, but they don’t.”

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Worth Repeating: Body’s Own Cannabinoids Are The Bliss Within

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"Sally In Bliss" [Henry Diltz]

“Sally In Bliss”
[Henry Diltz]

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

There was an important science report you may have missed on medicinal cannabis in The New York Times in 2011.

In summary, the report says the great sense of euphoria and calm that many people report experiencing after prolonged exercise (“the runner’s high”) is not so much governed by the endorphins as “now an emerging field of neuroscience indicates that an altogether different neurochemical system within the body and brain, the endocannabinoid system, may be responsible for that feeling” of “pure happiness, elation, a feeling of unity with one’s self and/or nature, endless peacefulness,” and “inner harmony.”

I have always been fascinated by how exercise and positive mood states go together. Having a master’s degree in exercise physiology and cardiac rehabilitation, being a runner for 45 years, and as a rock climber with a background in Zen, I feel qualified to discuss how the endocannabinoid system can be activated by exercise and/or THC ingestion.

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Cannabis and Pain: Soothing a Soft Society

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[Sharon Letts]

[Sharon Letts]

Knee surgery last fall had me thinking about pain, true tolerance, and why so many Americans are bent on being anesthetized.

The Institute of Medicine states, 100 million Americans suffer from some kind of pain at a cost of $635 billion a year.

ABC News reported in January of 2012, 80 percent of the world’s pain meds are consumed in the good old U.S. of A.

Experts cite our increased life expectancy, cancers and a soft, sedentary lifestyle as the causes, but what of the rest of the world? Why are Americans suffering so? Or are we?

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My Journey: Self-Medicating With Cannabis

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Juicing cannabis is a now-popular method of raw ingestion that bypasses THC activation and produces no euphoria, just good medicine [Text and photos by Sharon Letts]

Juicing cannabis is a now-popular method of raw ingestion that bypasses THC activation and produces no euphoria, just good medicine
[Text and photos by Sharon Letts]

A good friend is convinced cannabis leads to heroin use. It happened to a friend of his, so he “knows.” At the time I wasn’t confident of my own medicinal use to set him straight, so, like many during the uneducated rants of others, I kept my use to myself, and nothing was gained. He was not enlightened; I was not vindicated. That’s what silence does – it maintains the status quo of misinformation.

If I would have had the nerve, I would have told him I’d been using the herb off and on since I was 16 years old, and felt nary a pang to upgrade to any other substance in all these years.

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Worth Repeating: Approved Drugs, 10,008 Deaths; Marijuana 0

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Over a 10-year period, more than 10,000 people died from taking FDA-approved drugs, while zero died from marijuana, which is considered by the federal government a highly dangerous Schedule I drug with no medical uses. [As It Stands]

Over a 10-year period, more than 10,000 people died from taking FDA-approved drugs, while zero died from marijuana, which is considered by the federal government a highly dangerous Schedule I drug with no medical uses.
[As It Stands]

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is retired Health Education teacher Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

There has never been a single documented primary human fatality from overdosing on cannabis in its natural form in any amount.

When a new drug is being developed, phase two of studying it determines how safe the drug is, what would be a possible therapeutic dose vs. a fatal dose. Remember, the difference between a medicine and a poison is only the dose.

The LD 50 of a drug stands for how much of the substance being tested will kill 50 percent of a population of test subjects by overdose compared to their body mass (rats are used), and the amount of the drug that killed 50 percent is averaged according to animal body weight, and then that information is extrapolated for an average human’s weight.

The amount is theoretical, because the test could never be ethically performed in real humans.

When THC is tested for its LD 50 in rats, researchers have a problem: They can’t seem to kill the rats with THC, no matter how hard they try! THC is just too damn safe.

WorthRepeatingLogoAccording to the Merck Index, 12th edition (the number one reference book for medical doctors), the LD 50 value for rats by inhalation of THC is 42 mg/kg of body weight. Comparing this to an average human being, one estimate of THC’s LD 50 for humans indicates that about 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of cannabis would have to be smoked within 14 minutes. Warning: Don’t try this at home! In the real world, the only way this could possibly happen would be something like you are trapped in a house made of cannabis, it’s engulfed in flames and all the windows and doors are locked — the mother of all bong rips!) Read Full Article →

The Day After Memorial Day: Our Veterans Deserve Medical Marijuana

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The Day After Tomorrow is a science fiction movie about a weather disaster that causes the characters to band together to save themselves, their cities, and their families.

Today, thousands of veterans are in the midst of devastating crises. They are facing eviction from their homes, mental and physical illnesses, and rampant joblessness. They lack access to health benefits and critical medical services.

The government currently does not have the funding to re-educate veterans to prepare them for new careers. Veterans can no longer afford to provide for their families due to budget cuts that affect their paychecks. Many veterans are partially or permanently disabled.

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Decade-Long Scientific Studies: Medical Marijuana Works

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​Next time someone tells you “There’s no reliable research” on medical marijuana, call BS. The results are in. Medical marijuana works.

In a landmark report to the Legislature, the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research announced in 2010 that its studies have shown marijuana to have therapeutic value.

CMCR researchers, in a decade-long project, found “reasonable evidence that cannabis is a promising treatment” for some specific, pain-related medical conditions.

The findings were the first results in 20 years from clinical trials of smoked cannabis in the United States.

“We focused on illnesses where current medical treatment does not provide adequate relief or coverage of symptoms,” said CMCR Director Igor Grant, M.D., executive vice-chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the UCSD School of Medicine.

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