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back to article Cannabis can CURE CANCER - cheaply and without getting you high

The non-hallucinogenic parts of cannabis seem to be potentially highly effective anti-cancer drugs, according to a new study. “This study is a critical step in unpicking the mysteries of cannabis as a source of medicine," explains Dr Wai Liu. "The cannabinoids examined have minimal, if any, hallucinogenic side effects, and …

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      1. Mephistro
        Reply Icon

        @ Don Jefe

        "Where the article and/or the scientists are wrong is stating it is a powerful hallucinogen"

        Yeah, that! :^)

        But if you eat half a kilogram of salt or drink five litres of water you'll also hallucinate (just before dying). I mean, half an ounce of the stuff is not a normal dose for THC, when a gram can keep you high for hours. What I'was trying to say in my comment is that other chemicals in cannabis buds are responsible for most of the hallucinogen properties of marijuana. I've never had hallucinations while using hashish, but I had them on several occasions after consuming Maryjane, in similar dosages. Don't know what would happen if I ate 1/2 Oz. (~13 grams)THC's worth of hashish, though. That would be ~50 grams of hashish with a 30% content of THC. If you can consume that amount in two days you must be a pro! Taking the full amount at the same time is stupid & wasteful, IMHO.

        On a side note, I'm not totally sure whether we agree or disagree :^), but it's an interesting discussion anyway.

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        1. James Micallef Silver badge
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          Boffin

          Re: @ Don Jefe

          1/2 oz is probably around 100X an "effective dose" ie what would normally get you high. The fact that you woke up fine the day after speaks volumes for weed's safety.

          I saw a comparison taken from The Lancet* couple of years ago comparing effective dose with fatal dose. With alcohol, 10X "effective dose" would kill you. With heroin it was about 4X, and many other drugs were in the region of 10-25X. With pot, they had plucked a number from somewhere but the number was effectively infinity - there is not one single recorded case in medical history of death due to pot overdose.

          *Super-respected medical journal

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        2. MonkeyCee
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          Re: @ Don Jefe

          "Don't know what would happen if I ate 1/2 Oz. (~13 grams)THC's worth of hashish, though"

          You fall asleep. Smiling. For about 15-25 hours. And you wake up very hungry.

          Sometimes you trip your balls off for an hour or two first.

          A very important fridge rule is don't eat Mark's chocolatey treats. Certainly don't eat half of them....

          Works for dogs too. Once they scoff some hash, they often suddenly stop eating everything, and will then on stick to just dog food. All that seeing in colours freaks them out ;)

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Classification? By WHOM exactly???

      The one thing that can be said with certainty about cannibis is that MOST EXISTING literature, articles, rules, regulations and classifications are in fact wrong or worse outright lies.

      Yes, everything you learned about pot in your DARE class is complete bullshit. No one has ever died directly from an overdose. It has no lasting side effects and it cures the symptoms of many discomforts, ailments and complaints. All that and the primary side effects include sleepiness and the munchies.

      All in all a truly harmul drug eh?

      Classification as a "Schedule 1 drug" under the "Controlled Substances Act" is why weed is still illegal here in most of the USA. (Schedule 1 includes all comon hallucinogenic drugs as well as heroin)

      How weed is classified in the rest of the world is typically proportional to how that country works with the US DEA. If they want the "War on drugs" funding, then weed is classified as a dangerous hallucinogenic drug.

      When the sole function of the war on drugs seems to be keeping the liquor and pharmaceutical companies in business, perhaps we should stop listening to their lies.

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      1. Wzrd1 Silver badge
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        Re: Classification? By WHOM exactly???

        "Yes, everything you learned about pot in your DARE class is complete bullshit."

        Perhaps, there was no such class back when I was in school.

        However, cannabis *is* a hallucinogen when a large quantity is consumed.

        Large as in substantial, a hell of a lot.

        And with such large consumption, there are also lasting effects.

        Like everything else, moderation is the key.

        Well, for everyone but me. I'm allergic to it.

        "How weed is classified in the rest of the world is typically proportional to how that country works with the US DEA."

        Not always. Not a single GCC state takes US drug war money. Their laws are for religious reasons.

        Funny how it's trivially available though and hash is even more commonly available.

        As for pharmaceutical companies, they could trivially grow high quality medical grade weed and sell it, package the various alkaloids, etc. So, they have little to no incentive to have some grand conspiracy to ban weed.

        The same is true for the booze companies, indeed, weed was prohibited around the same time prohibition hit.

        All courtesy of Randy Hearst and his Reefer Madness crap.

        What is stupid is that research in the US on medical uses of weed is heavily restricted.

        Especially since President Didn't Inhale.

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        1. James Micallef Silver badge
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          Re: Classification? By WHOM exactly???

          "As for pharmaceutical companies, they could trivially grow high quality medical grade weed and sell it, package the various alkaloids, etc. So, they have little to no incentive to have some grand conspiracy to ban weed."

          Growing weed is really easy. If it's legal to grow, it would be REALLY cheap, and pharma companies can't make mega-profits from simple repackaging. Would you buy a $10 pack of pharma-weed when you could get the same effect from your local coffee shop at $5? Or grow your own for a lot less?

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        2. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Wzrd1 Classification? By WHOM exactly???

          I said it was classified as a hallucinogen by the DEA, not myself. Two generations of kids have been lied to in D.A.R.E. classes about weed and most of them now know the truth. How effective is the message when you lie to achieve your aims?

          My experience is the same as yours, unless you use a massive qty it is not "hallucinogenic". Sometimes when faced with getting busted, you'll eat alot of strange stuff.

          Remember this phrase: "It's not about how much you can do and still survive, It's how little you can do and still get off".

          However, my experience with full blown hallucinogenics was quite extensive and they are nothing like weed.

          BTW, I am allergic to Beer so a man has to have something to relax with for god's sake.

          Yes, you will still be buzzed for a day after eating a substantial amount but you won't be running naked through the streets unless you took something else as well.

          The pharmaceutical companies use very similar molecular stuctures to CBD's and THC in various prescription drugs (anti-psychotics, sleeping pills, pain medications), and THAT is why they don't want it legalized. They cannot patent a plant or a plant extract and if it does the same as expensive schedule 2 or 3 drugs then it won't be legal. It is not a "grand Conspiracy", the legal system are just dickheads.

          BTW, HASH is NOT widely available here in the USA like it is in Europe.

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      2. James Micallef Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Classification? By WHOM exactly???

        "The one thing that can be said with certainty about cannabis is that MOST EXISTING literature, articles, rules, regulations and classifications are in fact wrong or worse outright lies."

        In fact it's not only schedule 1 in US, it's also classed as "no known medicinal properties" even though that's complete BS. What that means is that it can't even be studied for research purposes, so there is very little serious literature compared to, say, heroin which was originally developed as a painkiller, and whose close cousin morphine is in wide medical use.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Classification? By WHOM exactly???

          James, Try looking for the US Pharmacopia (USP) books from before 1920 and see what they had listed for marijuana and hash. They used to use "Red Oil" for surgery as an anesthetic during the civil war for amputations. There was plenty of medical literature on good practices, dosages, lack of lethality (only very high dosages could depress the autonomic system and cause possible suffocation).

          The US DID already study it and it was part of the USP for over 80 years before the Tax Stamp Act banned it.

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      3. bailey86
        Reply Icon

        Re: Classification? By WHOM exactly???

        'When the sole function of the war on drugs seems to be keeping the liquor and pharmaceutical companies in business, perhaps we should stop listening to their lies.'

        And don't forget the arms companies.

        After the end of the cold war they needed a new market - and the 'War on drugs' provides one. Apache helicopters and SWAT teams to pull up cannabis plants by hand - it would be laughable if it wasn't for the thousands tortured and murdered due to drugs cartels being illegal and having to sort out their trade disputes with psychopaths.

        Never though I'd support lawyers but I'd much prefer such disputes to be sorted out in the courts.

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  2. Yves Kurisaki
    FAIL

    Since when...?

    Since when it THC an hallucinogen?

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    1. Tom 38
      Reply Icon

      Re: Since when...?

      Since when it THC an hallucinogen?

      Start taking it in appropriate quantities for the hallucinogen effect to take, well, effect. If you apologise the quoting from wikipedia, there is a famous autobiographical book called 'The Hashish Eater', by Fitz Hugh Ludlow, which documents his exploration of cannabis via an extract called "Tilden's Extract", which is a solid that you eat. One researcher said:

      Ludlow consistently talked of “hasheesh” but in fact he took the solid extract of Cannabis Indica which was roughly twice as potent as the crude resin and ten times as potent as marijuana. A rough calculation shows that his intake was equivalent to about 6 or 7 marijuana cigarettes per dose, i.e. at the hallucinatory rather than at the euphoriant level prevalent in contemporary North American use.

      Ludlow wrote of taking as much as a drachm of the extract (3.9 grams, .14 ounces) in his largest doses — if Kalant’s figures are correct, this is equivalent to a quarter-ounce of resin or well over an ounce of herbal cannabis.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Since when...?

      THC is most definitely a hallucinogen but is only one of around 70 identified cannabinoids- most of which are believed to be pharmacologically active.

      Not that I have smoked in a very long time but skunk is cultivated to promote THC production at the expense of other cannabinoids giving a far more 'tripy' effect which has rightly or wrongly been linked to increased risks to mental health.

      TLDR there is more to cannabis then THC.

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  3. Eradicate all BB entrants

    Cost effective .....

    ...... until one of the big drug companies obtains it from the University.

    With most of the plant being beneficial and easily farmed on a large scale, is it the drug companies that lobby governments to keep it banned?

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    1. Roo
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      Re: Cost effective .....

      "With most of the plant being beneficial and easily farmed on a large scale, is it the drug companies that lobby governments to keep it banned?"

      I suspect it's more of a case of the small but extremely vocal population of 'Right Whingers' keeping it banned combined with the drug corps not seeing enough profit margin in a plant is already widely cultivated. Nice to see folks finding cheap & easily manufactured treatments - but unfortunately those are two things that the drug co shareholders really won't like..

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      1. Eradicate all BB entrants
        Reply Icon

        Re: Cost effective .....

        Right Whingers? If I had to define my political stance I would have to say I am right of centre yet I fully believe in personal responsibility, unlike those left of centre who prefer someone else to make the decisions. So my stance would be legalise it and let grown adults make their own decisions, like with alcohol, they are free to pickle their livers with Kestrel Super if they so wish. Odd that.

        Junkies stealing the crop? How many stories do you see of health nuts raiding organics vegetable producers? If it was legalised I am sure it would be grown in a very secure location.

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        1. Uffish
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          @ Eradicate all BB entrants

          "If I had to define my political stance I would have to say I am right of centre yet I fully believe in personal responsibility, unlike those left of centre who prefer someone else to make the decisions."

          Have you been bogarting the joint ?

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          1. Roo
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            Coffee/keyboard

            Re: @ Eradicate all BB entrants

            "Have you been bogarting the joint ?"

            Thank goodness I was not drinking tea. Classic.

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        2. Roo
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          Coat

          Re: Cost effective ..... @ Eradicate all BB entrants

          On the strength of that post I don't think you qualify as a 'Right Whinger', they are a subset of the 'Right' whatever that means. :)

          I think in my heart I am an Anarchist, with my head ensuring that you don't hurt other people (and take responsibility for your actions). The main aim is to try and leave the place a little bit better than when I found it.

          Mine is the coat with a couple of CDs in it, Circle's 'Raunio' and Roy Harper's Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion.

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        3. Ted Treen
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          Big Brother

          @Eradicate all BB entrants 15/10/13-15:16

          Shame I can't up vote more than once - but I can state here that I wholeheartedly agree with every word.

          Unfortunately personal responsibility is one characteristic which too many of our soi-disant élite seem determined to nanny out of the populace:-

          Surely it couldn't be that unthinking sheep are easier to control & use, could it?

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    2. jonathanb Silver badge
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      Re: Cost effective .....

      They will make a synthetic version of the active ingredient if it is useful as a medicine. That way there would be no risk of junkies stealing things to get their next fix.

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      1. Citizen Kaned
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        Re: Cost effective .....

        jonathanb

        thats right, we need to be so scared of these pot junkies. i mean they cause havoc.... my local co-op is always running out of chocolate and crisps.

        you seem to be mixing up heroin and weed. thats like comparing a bugatti veron and a 3 wheeler.

        its such basic misunderstandings that stop this relatively harmless drug from being decriminalised and leaving us only alcohol to unwind, which is a horrible drug for society.

        also, as said before. pot isnt hallucinogenic unless you eat shitloads. ive been smoking since i was 16 and im 38 now and an IT manager and have suffered zero issues over the years. the closest to acid i even had from pot was some that won the cannabis cup around 1995 which was bloody strong.

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      2. Triggerfish
        Reply Icon

        Re: Cost effective .....

        "They will make a synthetic version of the active ingredient if it is useful as a medicine. That way there would be no risk of junkies stealing things to get their next fix."

        Actually they've tried synthetic versions before with AIDS patients to stimulate appetite, they tended to wipe the patients out, make them feel ill etc and be no way near as effective as the herbal variety.

        Also Junkies stealing..your talking shite

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      3. Don Jefe
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        Re: Cost effective .....

        'Weed junkies'? Really? Really?

        Christ on a tractor. Our education system has failed in so very, very many ways.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cost effective .....

      Not even that.

      I foresee the sad story of Racecadotril. It is the most effective medicine known to man against extreme dehydration from diorhea. It saves tens of thousands of children in the tropics annually and saves quite a few adults from misery in developed countries.

      However, it has the fault of being a non-addictive artificial morphinoid. It also has the double fault of being French.

      So rather unsurprisingly, if you happen to be American or British you are left to use loperamid (which has a ton of side effects and is unsuitable for children) or sh*** yourself. After all - french artificial morphinoid? For something as "harmless" as diarhoea (which still kills tens of thousands of people worldwide by the way)? Cleared by NHS or FDA? Yeah, some other time.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cost effective .....

        >if you happen to be American or British you are left to use loperamid ...cleared by NHS or FDA? Yeah, some other time.

        Hidrasec is the best selling brand of racecadotril in the UK - it's used all the time - it's a prescription only drug if that's what you mean......supresses the immune system if used habitually, so needs clinical supervision.

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      2. Gray
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: Cost effective .....

        The "leftist" French may be concerned with alleviating human suffering and the lives of their children, but here in the USA we have more pragmatic goals: stamp out illegal substances.

        My daughter at age 32 years was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer several years ago. A radical mastectomy, radiation treatments, and a $100,000-per-year prescription drug ( ! ) stopped the cancer -- temporarily. Now she's diagnosed with incurable bone cancer, a result of the spread of the breast cancer cells. Doctors say she's good for about five more years.

        One might hope that the US government could see its way clear to cooperate with and/or assist the London research effort, but if our government's past track record is any indication, there will NEVER be approval for research involving cannabis in the USA, regardless of any other factors.

        Celebrate the freedom and concern for human rights in Amerika. (The NSA will hear this parent's plea, and file it under "subversive.")

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      3. triceratops triceps
        Reply Icon

        Re: Cost effective .....

        hidrasec contains racecadotril and is available in the UK.

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      4. BigAlly
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        Re: Cost effective .....

        now available in the UK..

        http://www.nice.org.uk/mpc/evidencesummariesnewmedicines/ESNM11.jsp

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  4. Elmer Phud

    About bloody time

    " However there hasn't been much investigation into the properties of other compounds found in cannabis, in large part due to the fact that it has been illegal or closely controlled in many jurisdictions."

    Yes, quite.

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  5. Red Bren
    Stop

    Thank Goodness

    I'm so pleased to hear they've found an alternative to THC, because the last thing anyone wants is for cancer sufferers to have a good time!

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It doesn't matter. These test, along with many, many others, have been going on for years, longer than I've been alive. NOTHING has ever come from them. NOTHING. Cancer patients are still being treated the same. Kill it by killing the body. If it works, great, you owe us big money. if not, you die and someone owes big money. no way in hell pharmaceutical companies are gonna try something as cheap a bag of weed. no F'ing way. If they do, it will be a joint that cost so much you'll have to sell your car for. and the line that separates them from a drug dealer on the street is is simple. If you pay US 100 times more for the same thing you get on the street, it's legal. If not, go to jail.

    Sad, sad world.....

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    1. Filippo Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Actually, what I'm more concerned about is that when it comes to cancer, I'd really rather get treated with the most effective drug - not the most cost-effective one.

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      1. MonkeyCee
        Reply Icon

        "Actually, what I'm more concerned about is that when it comes to cancer, I'd really rather get treated with the most effective drug - not the most cost-effective one."

        If you're paying, then by all means. Customer is always right etc.

        But when it comes to public health, the most cost effective is often the most effective. Because it can actually be used, rather than having to restrict it.

        In much the same way as I'd prefer to always eat at the nicest restaurants, I accept that my budget only stretches to a kebab.

        For quite a few forms of cancer, I'd just live with it. Same choice that a rather large number of physicians make. Perhaps volunteer to test this weed cancer treatment. You're going to die of something, I'm a bloke, so it'll probably be heart failure. Cancer in the guts or on the skin I'd have chopped, in the organs I probably just accept my fate.

        My guess would be that it might offer a "kinder" chemo. So you chop it out, then follow up with large infusions of cannaboloids to try and cause any other bits to reset their cell death timer.

        It's certainly good for pallative care. A vape and half a gram a day can make a hell of a difference to someone who has lost the will to eat from the side effects of the other stuff they are being given. With chemo, it's hardly shocking (you're poisoning yourself to kill the cancer) and the lack of nutrition can end you faster than any disease.

        But I jest. Commen sense dictating drugs policy? When Dr Nutt is a drugs tzar I'll believe it.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      @Taylor 1

      "cost so much you'll have to sell your car". Not if you live in an educated country with a good and affordable health care system.

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      1. MrXavia
        Reply Icon
        Trollface

        Re: @Taylor 1

        So not if you live in the USA then!

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Taylor 1

        At least we know what hygiene is!

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    3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Pah!

      As someone who has blood Cancer I welcome any steps forward towards being able to treat it more effectively.

      Mine will return. you can't be cured of Cancer. So if there is a better and more effective treatment that increases the period before it returns again then all I can say is FUCK YOU. I'll take it any day.

      Until you have this disease you really have no idea what it does to your whole body.

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  7. Suricou Raven

    Next step:

    Give it a name that stops any non-specialist realising where the chemicals were first identified. That's the only hope of regulatory approval. If you start marketing it as 'Canibol' some politicians are going to start meddling.

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    1. M Gale
      Reply Icon

      Re: Next step:

      Like "Sativex"?

      That's another mowie-wowie-based medicine that is rather effective for MS, Chrons (so I'm told by people with it) and neuropathic disorders. GW pharma say you can't get high on it. Someone I know who has drunk a whole 100-spray bottle would like to disagree with GW pharma.

      I'll also reflect the sentiments by various commentards: Why legalise a plant that people can grow in their own homes for free, when you can charge the NHS £240/month for every prescription?

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    2. Mephistro
      Reply Icon
      Angel

      Re: Next step: (@ Suricou Raven)

      ...a name that stops any non-specialist realising where the chemicals were first identified.

      I propose 'Ghettomazine'. Oh, wait...

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      1. Martin Budden Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Coat

        Re: Next step: (@ Suricou Raven)

        How high? Ontheceilin :-)

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  8. Crisp

    Cannabis cures cancer?

    I know some people that are going to live for ever!

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  9. MikeyD85

    Powerful hallucinogen?

    Really?

    That's like saying a pint of Tesco Smart Price Lager will get you really drunk.

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    1. emmanuel goldstein
      Reply Icon

      Re: Powerful hallucinogen?

      THC is a very potent molecule. I think that is what was meant. Have a few vaporizer hits of white rhino and you'll get the picture.

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    2. Tom 7
      Reply Icon

      Re: Powerful hallucinogen?

      What's a mild hallucinogen? Just gives harmless visions of dark beer? Apart from the aforementioned author and the poster who swallowed 1/2 oz (presumably already suffering from some mental condition) I know of no-one who has hallucinated on the stuff alone - and I didnt exhale!

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      1. M Gale
        Reply Icon

        Re: Powerful hallucinogen?

        Hallucination doesn't necessary mean seeing pink flying elephants dancing across the walls. It's a mistake I've made when people mentioned that weed is hallucinogenic: After trying interesting bits of blotting paper in my sillier youth, calling cannabis a hallucinogen is like describing a pedal-car as a Bugatti Veyron. That said, I've had some pretty neat geometric closed-eye visuals after some of the rather potent stuff.

        You know how everything just tastes so awesome when you have the munchies? That would be a hallucinogenic effect, that would.

        (The Plod already know about my caution for PoCS (class b), so it's not like I'm going to get in shit for posting this.)

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  10. andreas koch
    Unhappy

    If the church

    hadn't conducted all the witch hunting in the past, the outcome of this research would probably have been common knowledge for 500 years already.

    I wonder what could be found in toadstools, Peyote or Salvia divinorum . . .

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    1. Mephistro
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      Re: If the church (@ andreas koch)

      I beg to disagree. Fortunately, the Church didn't have anything to say on the matter until well after the 'Reefer Madness' campaign. Evidence: In my country, the -back then- ultra Catholic Spain, hashish was sold in drug stores as an OTC medicine till the beginning of the fifties. It shared many uses with Aspirin (PMS, headaches, chronic pain...) with far less secondary effects. I've also been told that it was commonly used for preventing epilepsy seizures. For this later use, it was replaced by Diazepam. Which incidentally has lots of nasty secondary effects, including -but no limited to- physical dependence, addiction, depression, ...

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      1. andreas koch
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        @ Mephistro - Re: If the church (@ andreas koch)

        It seems that you took my 500 years as a typo. It wasn't.

        I was referring to the period around 1500 -1700, where people who knew anything about any effects of whatever were hunted down by the church for doing witchcraft.

        Holy water or licking a finger-bone from a saint (some of them must have had up to 26 hands . . .) was the only acceptable way of treating any illness.

        This precedes drug stores, Aspirin and Valium by some years.

        Spain has lost even more knowledge in those 'religious cleansing' times: Due to the Moorish influences Al-Andalus, and Cordoba especially, held large collections of medical knowledge which was, of course, evil in the catholic churches eye.

        You might know this better than I do, I'm not in Spain . . .

        So, no, I didn't mean recent history as in 20th century. I think we lost a lot more knowledge 500 (or, in Spain, more like 1000, when the Caliphate declined) years ago already.

        I'm not saying that Islam is superior to Christianity, I don't think too much of any religion. But the attitude to learning in the late middle ages was definitely better in Muslim influenced areas.

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