“The researchers ducked the obvious question of whether it might be simpler, faster and cheaper to simply light up a joint. “Could people smoke marijuana to prevent Alzheimer’s disease if the disease is in their family?” Wenk said in a statement. “We’re not saying that, but it might actually work.””
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=pot-joins-the-fight-against-alzheim-2008-11-19
“When 7-year-old Mykayla Comstock was diagnosed with leukemia in July, it was less than three days before her mother filed Oregon medical marijuana paperwork so the child could take lime-flavored capsules filled with cannabis oil.
The decision to give Mykayla the capsules came naturally to Erin Purchase, MyKayla’s mother, who believes marijuana has healing power, but doctors aren’t so sure it’s a good idea.
“The first doctor was not for it at all,” Purchase told ABCNews.com. “She was rude and she told us it was inappropriate. “Basically she blew up at us and told us to transfer to another facility.”
They found a new doctor, who knows that Mykayla takes about a gram of cannabis oil a day — half in the morning and half at night — but he doesn’t talk about it with them.
“This is our daughter,” Purchase, 25, said. “If they don’t agree with our personal choices, we’d rather they not say anything at all.””
.””At first, Mykayla wasn’t responding well to her treatment, and doctors said she might need a bone marrow transplant. Then she started taking the cannabis oil pills. her mother said. By early August, Mykayla was in remission and the transplant was no longer necessary.”
“I don’t think it’s just a coincidence,” Purchase said. “I credit it with helping — at least helping — her ridding the cancer from her body.””
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/medical-marijuana-year-sparks-controversy/story?id=17814636
https://www.facebook.com/BraveMyKayla
“Like some cancer patients in states where it’s allowed, Mykayla Comstock uses cannabis as part of her treatment. Comstock is 7-years old. Her mother, a long time advocate for medical use of the illegal drug, has been giving her a gram of oral cannabis oil every day. Despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, where Comstock lives, the idea of giving it to a child still gives pause to many adults who associate the drug with recreational use that breaks the law.
As reported by ABC News, Mykayla was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in July. Against her doctor’s wishes, her mother, Erin Purchase, began giving her lime-flavored capsules filled with cannabis oil after she had a poor response to her initial chemotherapy treatment.
Her doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant, but while she was taking the medical marijuana, she went into remission in August. She continues to rely on cannabis to ease pain and nausea and her mother plans to continue giving her the drug during the additional two to three years of chemotherapy she still faces.
Purchase believes that certain components in marijuana, which show anti-cancer activity in many early studies, helped spark the remission. Mykayla’s current doctor knows she takes the capsules, but doesn’t discuss the marijuana as part of her medical therapy.” http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/30/health/medical-marijuana-children-time/
“While medical marijuana is used to treat dozens of ailments, one mother swears by it to help her severely autistic son.
In fact, she’s convinced pot has saved his life.
Meiko Hester-Perez gives her severely autistic 12-year old son Joey the marijuana in chocolate.
“When your son is knocking on deaths door there’s nothing you won’t do,” according to Meiko Hester-Perez. “It happened to be cannabis for our family.”
Hester-Perez didn’t make the decision lightly, two and a half years ago Joey only weighed 42 pounds. A stark contrast to his current weight of 112 pounds.
“My son was absolutely withering away. You could see the bones in his chest,” according to Hester-Perez.
Out of desperation, she Googled cannabis and autism, and realized she wasn’t the only one who made the connection.
Other parents and autism experts found success with medical marijuana as a treatment for autistic children.
The first time Hester-Perez gave Joey a pot brownie she saw almost immediate results.
“Everything has improved. Right now, he’s given one brownie every two to three days, whereas the other medications he was taking every single day, twice a day,” according to Hester-Perez.
But there are those who aren’t sold on the idea.
Doctor Seth Ammeran says using medical marijuana to treat autism is cause for concern because there has been no research on the topic.
“Parents have the best interest of their kids at heart, and they want to do what’s best for their kids, but as a medical professional who really needs to look at the science behind recommendations, I can’t in good conscious recommend it,” says Dr. Seth Ammeran, of the American Academy of Pediatrics Substance Abuse Committee.
But Hester-Perez says the research is there, it’s just not being done in the traditional sense.
“Whether we like it or not, the studies are being done,” says Hester-Perez, “and they’re being done within our homes.””
“SACRAMENTO, CA (KGO) — A program commissioned more than a decade ago by the state Legislature to look into the therapeutic value of medicinal marijuana is expected to release a report on its findings today, a spokeswoman for state Sen. Mark Leno said.
A UC medical marijuana research panel today released the results of a ten year clinical study and according to its report, pot can effectively treat chronic pain.
Volunteers with multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries were randomly treated with marijuana or a placebo. Patients given cannabis reported fewer multiple sclerosis muscle spasms, and less spinal injury pain.
In another study, the panel found that pot effectively also treats migraines.
But researchers used marijuana grown by the federal government, not the kinds available to California medical marijuana users.
Medical marijuana has been legal under California law since voters approved Proposition 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act, in 1996.
The state Legislature clarified in 2004 that the Compassionate Use Act allows qualified patients and their primary caregivers to cultivate marijuana for medicinal use.
Medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law, though, leaving patients and providers open to prosecution in federal court.”
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/state&id=7283032
“People with chronic pain who aren’t getting enough relief from medications may be able to ease their pain by smoking small amounts of marijuana, a new study suggests.
Marijuana also helps pain patients fall asleep more easily and sleep more soundly, according to the report, one of the first real-world studies to look at the medicinal use of smoked marijuana. Most previous research has used extracts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in the cannabis plant.
“This is the first time anyone has done a trial of smoked cannabis on an outpatient basis,” says the lead researcher, Mark Ware, MBBS, the director of clinical research at McGill University’s Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, in Montreal.
The study included 21 adults with nervous-system (neuropathic) pain stemming from surgery, accidents, or other trauma. Fourteen of the participants were on short-term disability or permanently disabled. All of them had tried marijuana before, but none were current or habitual smokers.
“They were not experienced marijuana users,” Ware says. “They came because they had severe pain that was not responding to any conventional treatment.”
Each patient in the study smoked four different strengths of marijuana over a period of 56 days. The THC potency ranged from 9.4%—the strongest dose the researchers could obtain legally—to 0%, a “placebo” pot that looked and tasted like the real thing but was stripped of THC. (By comparison, the
strongest marijuana available on the street has a THC potency of about 15%, Ware estimates.)
The participants—who weren’t told which strength they were getting—were instructed to smoke a thimbleful (25 milligrams) from a small pipe three times a day for five days. After a nine-day break, they switched to a different potency.
The highest dose of THC yielded the best results. It lessened pain and improved sleep more effectively than the placebo and the two medium-strength doses (which produced no measurable relief), and it also reduced anxiety and depression. The effects lasted for about 90 minutes to two hours, according to the study.”
Read more: http://news.health.com/2010/08/30/marijuana-chronic-pain/
“People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer, new research suggests.
While a clear increase in cancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users.
Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers.
The findings surprised the study’s researchers, who expected to see an increase in cancer among people who smoked marijuana regularly in their youth.”
Read more: http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer
“Tokers rejoice – a new study shows occasional marijuana smoking does not harm your lungs. It also shows that smoking pot is not as bad for you as smoking cigarettes.
The UC San Francisco research shows smoking marijuana once a week does not harm lungs. The results bolsters evidence that weed doesn’t damage your health like tobacco.
The study’s conclusion was printed like this: “Occasional and low cumulative marijuana use was not associated with adverse effects on pulmonary function.””
Read more: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Casual-Pot-Smoking-Not-Harmful-Study-137045308.html
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of California at San Francisco analyzed marijuana and tobacco use among 5,000 black and white men from the national database, CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study), which was intended to determine heart disease risk factors over a 20-year period.
Measuring participants’ lung function for air flow and lung volume five times throughout the study period, the researchers found that cigarette smokers saw lung function worsen throughout the 20-year period, but marijuana smokers did not. Only the heaviest pot smokers (more than 20 joints per month) showed decreased lung function throughout the study.
“The more typical amounts of marijuana use among Americans are occasional or low levels,” said Dr. Stefan Kertesz, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and principle investigator of the study. “From the standpoint of being a scientist, these data suggest that low and moderate range use of marijuana do not do long-term harm.””
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/smoking-pot-harm-lung-function-time/story?id=15331989
“Add one more data point to the decades-old debate over marijuana legalization: A new study concludes that casual pot smoking – up to one joint per day – does not affect the functioning of your lungs.”
“The study, published in the Jan. 11 edition of Journal of the American Medical Association, also offered up a nugget that likely will surprise many: Evidence points to slight increases in lung airflow rates and increases in lung volume from occasional marijuana use.”
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57356548/study-no-lung-danger-from-casual-pot-smoking/
“Unlike the cigarette habit, occasional pot smoking does not seem to trigger declines in lung function that could lead to breathing problems, a new 20-year study suggests.
“Tobacco takes you down that road toward breathlessness, but low to moderate levels of marijuana don’t,” said study co-author Dr. Stefan Kertesz.”
Read more: http://healthyliving.msn.com/diseases/cancer/occasional-pot-smoking-wont-harm-lungs-study-3