Add in the minor detail that consuming it in juice form nicely sidesteps unwanted side effects to make it very safe and we have an important therapy that needs detailed investigation. from this long list of known effects we need to think of it as a therapeutic tonic that restores health mostly and should be at the top of every healers tool kit.
I would also suspect that like true tonics, the effects are slight for those who are particularly healthy. I know this to be quite true for ginseng. Yet looking at this list, i think that we need to rethink medical practice it self and actually focus first on restorative tonics rather than specific ailments were the cure can imbalance the system in an unwelcome manner.
I continue to be optimistic that USA drug policy folly is now coming to an end, mostly because the cat is now cleanly out of the bag and political foot draggers are now playing catch up.
As this makes quite clear, this drug will become the dominant tool in our medical kitbag rather quickly.
Why Cannnabis Is the Future of Medicine
Sayer Ji,
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/09/02/cannnabis-future-medicine/
The future of medicine rests on the the fundamental right
we all have to use things that spring from the Earth naturally as
healing agents. Why should cannabis, used for at least 10000 years by
humankind to alleviate suffering, be excluded from this inexorable
mandate?
The politics of cannabis are exceedingly complex, and yet the truth
is simple: this freely growing plant heals the human body – not to
mention provides food, fuel, clothing and shelter, if only we will let
it perform its birthright. In a previous article,
we investigated the strange fact that the human body is in many ways
pre-designed, or as it were, pre-loaded with a receptiveness to
cannabis’ active compounds — cannabinoids — thanks to its well
documented endocannabinoid system.
But the medical-industrial complex in the U.S. does not want you to
use these freely growing compounds. They threaten its very business
model and existence. Which is why it synergizes so naturally with the
burgeoning privatized prison sector, which now has the dubious title of
having the highest incarceration rate in the world. The statistics don’t lie:
“far surpassing any other nation. For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars. Presently, the prison population in America consists of more than six million people, a number exceeding the amount of prisoners held in the gulags of the former Soviet Union at any point in its history.”
According to a recent Al-Jeezera editorial,
“One explanation for the boom in the prison population is the mandatory
sentencing imposed for drug offences and the “tough on crime” attitude
that has prevailed since the 1980s.”
Cannabis/marijuana is presently on the DEA’s Schedule 1 list. Since 1972, cannabis has been listed on the Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act,
the most tightly restricted category reserved for drugs which have “no
currently accepted medical use”. Opioids, stimulants, psychedelics and a
few antidepressants now populate this list of substances that can put
you in jail for possessing without a prescription.
The notion that marijuana has no ‘medicinal benefits’ is
preposterous, actually. Since time immemorial it has been used as a
panacea (‘cure-all’). In fact, as far back as 2727 B.C., cannabis was
recorded in the Chinese pharmacopoeia as an effective medicine, and
evidence for its use as a food, textile and presumably as a healing
agent stretch back even further, to 12 BC.[1]
When it comes to cannabis’ medical applications, cannabis’ ‘healing
properties’ is a loaded term. In fact, it is extremely dangerous, as far
as the medical industrial complex goes, who has the FDA/FTC to enforce
it’s mandate: anything that prevents, diagnoses, treats or cures a
disease must be an FDA approved drug by law, i.e. pharmaceutical agents
which often have 75 or more adverse effects for each marketed and
approved “therapeutic” effect.
Indeed, the dominant, drug-based medical system does
not even acknowledge the body’s healing abilities, opting for a view
that looks at most bodily suffering as fatalistic, primarily genetically
based, and resulting from dysfunction in the mechanical design of a
highly entropic ‘bag of enzymes and proteins’ destined to suffer along
the trajectory of time.
And
so, an at least two trillion dollar a year industry stands between you
and access to the disease alleviating properties of this humble plant.
As Emerson said, “a weed is an herb whose virtues have yet to be
discovered,” and yet, by this definition, cannabis is not a weed, but
given that is has been extensively researched and used for thousands of
years for a wide range of health conditions, it should be considered and
respected as a medicinal herb and food. Sadly, the fact that the whole
herb is non-patentable is the main reason why it is still struggling to
gain approval from the powers that be.
Let’s look at the actual, vetted, published and peer-reviewed
research – bullet proof, if we are to subscribe to the ‘evidence-based’
model of medicine – which includes over 100 proven therapeutic actions of this amazing plant, featuring the following:
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Tourette Syndrome
- Pain
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Brachial Plexus Neuropathies
- Insomnia
- Multiple Splasticity
- Memory Disorders
- Social Anxiety Disorders
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Cancer
- Opiate Addiction
- Anorexia
- Bladder Dysfunction
- Bronchial Asthma
- Chemotherapy-induced Harm
- Constipation
- Crack Addiction
- Dementia
- Fibromyalgia
- Glaucoma
- Heroin Addiction
- Lymphoma
- Nausea
- Neuropathy
- Obesity
- Phantom Limb
- Spinal Cord Injuries
- Endotoxemia
- Myocardia Infarction (Heart Attack)
- Oxidative Stress
- Diabetes: Cataract
- Tremor
- Cardiac Arrhythmias
- Fatigue
- Fulminant Liver Failure
- Low Immune Function
- Aging
- Alcohol Toxicity
- Allodynia
- Arthritis: Rheumatoid
- Ascites
- Atherosclerosis
- Diabetes Type 1
- High Cholesterol
- Liver Damage
- Menopausal Syndrome
- Morphine Dependence
- Appetite Disorders
- Auditory Disease
- Dystonia
- Epstein-Barr infections
- Gynecomasia
- Hepatitis
- Intestinal permeability
- Leukemia
- Liver Fibrosis
- Migraine Disorders
- Oncoviruses
- Psoriasis
- Thymoma
Moreover, this plant’s therapeutic properties have been subdivided into the following 40+ pharmacological actions:
- Analgesic (Pain Killing)
- Neuroprotective
- Antispasmodic
- Anxiolytic
- Tumor necrosis factor inhibitor
- Anti-inflammatory
- Antiproliferative
- Apoptotic
- Chempreventive
- Antidepressive
- Antiemetic
- Bronchodilator
- Anti-metastatic
- Anti-neoplastic
- Antioxidant
- Cardioprotective
- Hepatoprotective
- Anti-tumor
- Enzyme inhibitor
- Immunomodulatory
- Anti-angiogenic
- Autophagy up-regulation
- Acetylocholinesterase inhibitor
- Anti-platelet
- Calcium channel blocker
- Cell cycle arrest
- Cylooxygenase inhibitor
- Glycine agents
- Immunomodulatory: T-Cell down-regulation
- Intracellular adhesion molecule-1 inducer
- Matrix mettaproteinase-1 inhibitor
- Neuritohgenic
- Platelet Aggregration Inhibito
- Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A inhibitor
- Anti-apoptotic
- Anti-proliferative
- Anti-psychotic
- Antiviral
- Caspase-3 activation
- Chemosensitizer
- Immunosupressive agent
- Interleukin-6 upregulation
- Tumor suppressor protein p53 upregulation
Thanks to modern scientific investigation, it is no longer considered
strictly ‘theoretical’ that cannabis has a role to play in medicine.
There is a growing movement to wrench back control from the powers that
be, whose primary objectives appear to be the subjection of the human
body in order to control the population (political motives) — what 20th
century French philosopher Michel Foucault termed biopower,
and not to awaken true healing powers intrinsic within the body of all
self-possessed members of society. Even the instinct towards
recreational use – think of the etymology: to re-create – should be
allowed, as long as those who choose to use cannabis instead of tobacco
and alcohol (and prescription drugs) do not cause harm to themselves or
others. How many deaths are attributed to cannnabis each year versus
these other societally approved recreational agents, not to mention
prescription drugs, which are the 3rd leading cause of death in the
developed world?
Ultimately, the politics surrounding cannabis access and the truth
about its medicinal properties are so heavily a politicized issue that
it is doubtful the science itself will prevail against the distorted
lens of media characterizations of it as a ‘dangerous drug,’ and
certainly not the iron-clad impasse represented by federal laws against
its possession and use. All we can do is to advocate for the fundamental
rights we all possess as free men and women, and our inborn right
towards self-possession, i.e as long as what we do does not interfere
with the choices and rights of others, we should be free to use an
herb/food/textile that sprouts freely and grows freely from this earth,
as God/Nature as freely made available.
I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?
~ Willie Nelson
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” – Bill Hicks
Sources:
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