Health & Fitness Tools

Medicinal Cannabis, “Cannabinoid Family,” and Cancer Research

18th July, 2013 - Posted by health news - No Comments

A Little Marijuana History …

Marijuana has been utilized for medical purposes going back a minimum of 3,000 years.

It was in the 1840s when cannabis was first presented to Western medication by W.B. O’Shaughnessy, a medical physician who worked in India for the British East Indies Company. Back then cannabis was a helpful treatment option for analgesic, sedative, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, and anticonvulsant perks.

The United States Treasury Department presented the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937. This Act enforced a levy of $1 an ounce of medical cannabis and $100 an ounce for recreational use. In the United States, the medical doctors were the principle challengers of this Act.

The American Medical Association (AMA) opposed the Act because physicians needed to pay an unique tax for recommending medical cannabis, use special order forms to obtain it, and extra record-keeping for recommending it.

Likewise, the AMA declined the “concept” that cannabis was damaging and they knew that by taking on the Act it would further hamper clinical study into cannabis’ medicinal value. In 1942, cannabis was removed from the United States’ Pharmacopoeia.

Then in 1951, Congress passed the Boggs Act, which categorized cannabis with illegal and harmful narcotic drugs. And in 1970, with the adoption of the Controlled Substances Act, cannabis was then categorized as a Schedule 1 drug by Federal Law.

Drugs that are categorized as a “Schedule 1” drug are illegal and stated to have “no accepted medical use,” and various other drugs in this category include heroin, mescaline, methaqualone, and gamma-hydroxybutyrate.

Marijuana was (and still is) categorized as having no medical use by the United States government, even though cannabis was dispersed to patients in a federal project developed in 1978 called the Compassionate Use Investigational New Drug program.

The program was terminated in 1992.

Exactly what Are Cannabinoids and How Do They Work?

“Cannabinoids” is a blanket term covering a “household” of complex-chemicals that lock onto cannabinoid receptors (which are protein molecules on the surface of cells). The cannabis plant produces a resin, which includes this large, psychoactive “cannabinoid household” of chemical substances.

For 1000s of years humans have utilized cannabis for medicinal and recreational purposes, however cannabinoids themselves were first extracted from cannabis plants in the 1940s. The structure of the cornerstone of cannabis– delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)– was found in the 1960s.

It had not been till the late 1980s that scientist found the first cannabinoid receptor, rapidly followed by another discovery: humans establish cannabinoid-like chemicals within our bodies, called endocannabinoids.

The toughest potency of cannabinoids is discovered in the female flowers of the cannabis plant.

“Cannabinoid Household,” Marijuana and Cancer Disease Research

Medicinal marijuana and cancer disease research have been limited because the plant is a Schedule 1 drug along with the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) has not granteded the use of cannabis as a therapy option for any condition.

cannabis cancer cells study The 2 Big Cs Recently, acknowledgment has been made by the National Cancer cells Institute (NCI) acknowledging the perks of making use of cannabis for individuals coping with cancer cells include antiemetic results, hunger stimulation, pain relief, and enhanced sleep.

The NCI is a leader introducing client to medical study to help ensure that brand-new treatment discoveries are translated into possible cannabis and cancer cells therapies. This acknowledgment has assisted support a “brand-new world” of organic medications starting with medicinal marijuana and cancer to be commonly accepted as a treatment option.

“When cannabis regains its location in the United States Pharmacopeia, a condition it lost after the passage of the Cannabis Tax Act of 1937, it will be seen as among the safest drugs because compendium,” according to Lester Grinspoon, Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Let’s Recap Marijuana and Cancer Disease

This summary will offer a quick summary of medical cannabis and it being readily available for patients as a herbal treatment option for cancer cells.

Some crucial information to recap:

1. Cannabinoid-based pharmaceutical drugs are commercially available, such as dronabinol and nabilone, are AUTHORIZED by the FDA (!?!?) to be prescribed by physicians as a medical therapy.
2. Chemical components of cannabis, called cannabinoids, trigger certain receptors located throughout the body to create pharmacologic response, especially in the main nervous system and the immune system.
3. The possession and use of cannabis is illegal by federal law in the United States (and lots of places all over the world too).
4. Medical cannabis has NOT been granteded by the FDA as a therapy option for cancer cells nor other medical conditions.

There are important legal differences between medical cannabis at the federal and state levels in the United States of America. Still at the federal level cannabis has been made illegal by the Controlled Substances Act, however as of 2009, brand-new federal guidelines have been enacted.

According to United States Lawyer General Eric Owner, “it will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with significant diseases or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medicinal cannabis.”