Feds Drag Feet on Cannabis Studies While States Legalize It and Comics Joke About It

I just caught a 2006 Saturday Night Live episode in which Seth Myers reads a story about a study finding cell phones don't cause cancer.

"Yee haw!" shouts a giggling Amy Poehler, who proceeds to put her cell phone in her mouth, attempting to light it with a cigarette lighter.

In case there was any question about which non-cancer-causing substance Poehler was celebrating, the story that followed was about a 125-year-old Indian woman named Fulla Nayak, who claimed that smoking cannabis every day was her secret to long life.

A headline on the latest NORML press release might have been, "Yet Another Study Shows Marijuana Smoking Not Associated With Increased Risk Of Lung Cancer." NORML 's Paul Armentano reports that an international team of investigators from Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States recently analyzed data from six case-control studies involving over 5,000 subjects from around the world. Authors concluded, “Results from our pooled analyses provide little evidence for an increased risk of lung cancer among habitual or long-term cannabis smokers.”

Brooke Baldwin of CNN, who so fully exposed Nancy Grace's mania about marijuana, has posted another good interview, this time with Sanjay Gupta focusing on why research isn't being done on medical cannabis in the US. The issue came to the forefront on Friday when NIDA chief Nora Volkow admitted to a congressional committee that it was easier to study heroin in this country than it is to get an approved protocol for marijuana. However headlines that the FDA is considering rescheduling cannabis at the behest of the DEA are rather overblown, since they are only doing so as required by yet another rescheduling lawsuit.

Now that 23 states have legalized medical marijuana, and Washington state is about to follow Colorado with legal recreational pot stores on July 8, few seem to be waiting for more government studies before they indulge. Case in point: Actress Aubrey Plaza from Poehler's new show Parks and Recreation appeared on Getting Doug with High in March. The show, in which comic Doug Benson brings people on to get high with him, held a special live event at Largo in LA last night with Tokin Woman Sarah Silverman, Ngaio Bealum and others. Benson's 2007 film Super High Me rather proved the point that marijuana's purported harms are overblown.

Meanwhile, it's no laughing matter that Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres has died at the age of 54 from salivary gland cancer, brought on by chewing tobacco (a legal substance).

Did CBD Oil Help With Valerie Harper's Cancer?

UPDATE August 30, 2019 - The irrepressible Valerie Harper has passed away, at the age of 80, after being given as little as three months to live by doctors in 2013. Rest in Power, Sister.

    

After being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in March 2013, actress Valerie Harper has announced she's cancer free.

This interesting photo of Harper was tweeted out by RS Hemp Oil on October 26, 2013 with the caption:  "Valerie Harper receives a 6 pack of RSHO from Hempmeds PX outside sales manager, Keith Urtubees, at the LA Ultimate Women's Expo."

Hempmeds is a division of Medical Marijuana Inc. Their CBD-rich Real Scientific Hemp Oil (RSHO) is derived from the industrial hemp plant, and therefore, the company argues, is legal under federal law.

Did Harper use CBD oil to treat her cancer? Calls to Hempmeds have, so far, not been returned.

Like other famous cancer survivors Tommy Chong and Michelle Aldrich, Harper also underwent "conventional" therapy. In many cases, doctors were pleasantly surprised at their patients' progress after using cannabis oils. Many states, even unlikely ones like Utah and Alabama, are moving to legalize CBD following the Sanjay Gupta CNN specials about its near-miraculous effects against severe childhood epilepsy.

Cannabinoids (both CBD and THC) have specifically been found effective against brain tumors (gliomas) in cellular studies, starting with a Spanish study in 1998 and confirmed by a group in California in 2005, which noted that THC selectively targeted malignant cells while ignoring healthy ones "in a more profound manner than the synthetic alternative," WIN 55,212-2. Many experts now believe that cannabinoids "may represent a new class of anticancer drugs that retard cancer growth, inhibit angiogenesis and the metastic spreading of cancer cells." Source.

The US Government has known since 1974 that cannabis, like other natural substances, has anti-cancer effects. Nonetheless, it has censored information about cannabis and cancer from the National Cancer Institute website.

UPDATE 1:58 PM -  I'm now reading Harper announced her cancer was nearly in remission as early as August 2013. She was using several alternative therapies, as well as conventional ones.

4/17 - Mississippi has become the 5th state to legalize CBD in some form.