Pot Reduces Growth Rate of Lung Cancers

[Nbadan]

...Ramesh Ganju at the Harvard Cancer Center in Boston, Massachusetts, US, and colleagues deposited human lung cancer cells under the skin of a dozen mice and allowed the tumours to grow in the animals for about two weeks. They then began giving half of these mice daily injections of about 250 micrograms of synthetic THC right next to the tumours for three weeks. A cannabis cigarette may contain as much as 150 milligrams of THC.
Tumours in the control mice averaged about 0.6 grams in weight by the end of the five-week trial. By comparison, those in the mice that received THC weighed just 0.25 grams – 60% less.

New Scientist

Paul Armentano at NORML writes:

"I believe that a recent UCLA case-controlled population study from 2006 helps demonstrate that cannabis use is not related to lung cancer and may even help prevent the disease. Tashkin et al reported that smoking cannabis, even long-term, is not positively associated with increased incidence of lung-cancer. Investigators in that study noted that one subset of moderate lifetime users had an inverse association between cannabis use and lung cancer, leading them to speculate (to the media; I don't believe this was written up in the text) that cannabinoids may possess certain protective properties against the development of lung cancer in humans.

[boutons_]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0526083353.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0923092627.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0324132832.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0419105717.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0212184119.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0511134634.htm


When you're young and stupid, sucking ANY smoke deep into your lungs and holding for max diffusion may seem cool, but it's ing poison.

I had a good friend, a great engineer, who was a 40-year pot head, stoned all day, every day. Late in life, he figured out he had bad ADD and had been self-medicating with marijuana unknowingly. Stoned, he could concentrate and do prodigious amounts of work. Dead at 54 of metastatic brain cancer.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

I would never smoke something and NOT hold it in for max diffusion.

[ggoose25]

boutons, i agree completely. anytime you inhale smoke... thats a bad thing.

your friend's cancer might not have been from weed, and even though it helped him focus, it probably masked a lot of the cancer symptoms that he might have otherwise noticed had he not been high 24/7.

[smeagol]

When you're young and stupid, sucking ANY smoke deep into your lungs and holding for max diffusion may seem cool, but it's ing poison.

I had a good friend, a great engineer, who was a 40-year pot head, stoned all day, every day. Late in life, he figured out he had bad ADD and had been self-medicating with marijuana unknowingly. Stoned, he could concentrate and do prodigious amounts of work. Dead at 54 of metastatic brain cancer.

You're about to pick up a fight with Manny

[whottt]

Weed>Man Made Drugs especially alchohol.

I can't believe how stupid people are...

It's a ing plant, it's been around as long as man, and man has used it as long as he has been here on this planet.

The fact that alcohol is legal and MJ isn't...something ed up there.

The fact that young kids get put on like Paxil while weed is considered evil...is ing stupid.



You know how you combat the possible cancer side effects of weed?

You ingest it some other way than smoking it? that was hard to figure out.

You can make tea out of it, you can put it in food(although I don't reccomend this unless you really want to get ed up)....




boutons proves that, no matter how big of an idiot there is on this forum...he's the biggest.

What a ...

60 years ago some idiots decided weed was bad...and now like ing sheep people believe that.

It's got tremendous medical value with little or no side effects(the most negative side effects have to do with it's view of being an evil weed and the social ostrcization that comes with it).


It's helps people with glaucoma, rheumatism(heps without becoming physically addictive and incapacitating).

It'd help a lot more people if you didn't have to feel like a criminal for using a ing plant that was here long before man.



If it grows naturally it shouldn't be illegal...it was put here by a higher authority than any ing Government...

Ditto Coca, MaHuang, the San Gabriel Cactus, Shrooms...and all the other plants with psychotropic alkaloids.


Your ing ancestors used the living out of this stuff(yes yours)...figure it out.

[whottt]

If my kid ever gets ADD I'll buy him 25lbs of weed before I take him to the Doctor so the Doctor can get paid to prescibe him Methamphetamine...



Most prescription drugs are just a way to get people to pay for treatments they could otherwise get for free(by growing it). Not all the cases...but a lot of them.

I can't believe the they give kids these days...




I don't even have to check to know that the common link between the Columbine Shooters and the VTech shooter, was that at some point they were prescribed the anti-depressants and anti-psychotics they give to kids these days.


I gurantee it....

[whottt]

History of the criminalization of Marijuana Use...


http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/...vlr/vlrtoc.htm

[whottt]

Take your kid to the Doctor for ADD and this is what they will give him:

Adderall Side Effects
The most common side effects are restlessness or tremor; anxiety or nervousness; headache or dizziness; insomnia; dryness of the mouth or an unpleasant taste in the mouth; diarrhea or constipation; or mpotence or changes in sex drive.

Concerta Side Effects
In the clinical studies with patients using CONCERTA®, the most common side effects were headache, stomach pain, sleeplessness, and decreased appe e. Other side effects seen with methylphenidate, the active ingredient in CONCERTA®, include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, nervousness, tics, allergic reactions, increased blood pressure and psychosis (abnormal thinking or hallucinations).

Ritalin Side Effects
Nervousness and insomnia are the most common adverse reactions but are usually controlled by reducing dosage and omitting the drug in the afternoon or evening.

Other reactions include hypersensitivity (including skin rash, urticaria, fever, arthralgia, exfoliative derma is, erythema multiforme with histopathological findings of necrotizing vasculitis, and thrombocytopenic purpura); anorexia; nausea; dizziness; palpitations; headache; dyskinesia; drowsiness; blood pressure and pulse changes, both up and down; tachycardia; angina; cardiac arrhythmia; abdominal pain; weight loss during prolonged therapy.

Allergic reactions: skin rash, hives, drug fever joint pains possible. Headache, dizziness rapid and forceful heart palpitation-infrequent.

Strattera Side Effects
Upset stomach, decreased appe e, nausea or vomiting, dizziness, tiredness, decrease in appe e, some weight loss, and mood swings were the most common side effects.

In rare cases, Strattera can cause allergic reactions, such as swelling or hives, which can be serious. Your child should stop taking Strattera. Call your doctor or healthcare professional if your child develops any of these symptoms.

[ggoose25]

do you have a medical degree?

[whottt]

do you have a medical degree?

What has that got do with anything?



Doctors aren't the ones that made it illegal........


They prescibe what is available to them to prescribe.


And yes...if they can, many doctors do prescribe it.


Fact: It has medical value as a pain killer
Fact: It has medical value as an anti-depressant
Fact: It isn't physically addicting
Fact: It isn't as impariing as alcohol and many many many other prescription drugs.

Fact: It wasn't doctors that made it illegal. Politicians did.

Fact: If Doctors didn't think it had medicinal value, challenges to it's illlegality for use in medical practice wouldn't be on the ballot time and time again.

Fact: You can grow it yourself at little or no expense.

Fact: Ya can't grow Prozac and Ritalin at little or no expense.


Any other stupid, pointless and irrelevant questions you'd like me to answer?

[ggoose25]

i agree with you that pot has its usefullness, but then you pull out of your ass as usual by hating on drugs that you have no idea how they work.

[whottt]

i agree with you that pot has its usefullness, but then you pull out of your ass as usual by hating on drugs that you have no idea how they work.

I see...

Which drugs were those?

[whottt]

And again...what makes you think Doctors consider these drugs to be less dangerous than Weed?


In many cases, they can't prescribe weed, because it's illegal.

[ggoose25]

your whole antidepressant tirade. if your beef is with the side effects, well I'm sorry, you can't make an omelet w/o breaking some eggs.

but those drugs help way more people than suffer from them

[ggoose25]

they dont consider them to be less dangerous. they are serious meds that aren't meant for everyone that is feeling sad or mildly depressed.

in fact, your point that weed has less SE than these meds is true.

but you were suggesting that all these man made neurostimulants and antidepressants are ty treatments, when they aren't at all

[whottt]

And which anti-depressants are those?

I say we put them to the test....


I'd be willing to bet that most of them are easily provable as being more harmful and less helpful than weed.

And lot of man made drugs that are now illegal were originally prescribed as anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, and anesthetics...


In many cases, a lot of these drugs come from alkaloids of the very plants that are illegal for us to grow and are nothing more than an extremely concentrated form of that alkaloid, or a form more thoroughly absorbed into the bloodstream.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Yyeesss!!!!!!

[whottt]

but you were suggesting that all these man made neurostimulants and antidepressants are ty treatments, when they aren't at all

Sincerely, PCP, LSD, Methamphetamine, Cocaine, X...

All were prescribed by doctors, once upon a time,(and in some cases still are) for various purposes like anti-depressants, anesthesia, anti-psychotics, and ADD.





Do you consider Meth to be a friendly and happy drug?

If it is...why is it illegal?


If it's illegal, because it's bad for you...why do they give it to children?



So tell me...which anti-depressant are you on?

Adderal?(Amphetamines)

Desoxyn?(Methamphetamines)




Or is it one of the new age ones...like Paxil...you know, the ones where they wanr you that there may be a 48 hour period where you have strong homicidal and suicidal feelings...

[whottt]

Paxil Maker Held Liable in Murder/Suicide

Will $6.4 Million Verdict Open a New Mass Tort?

By Anne Thompson

Plaintiffs' lawyers have argued for years that the so-called miracle antidepressants - Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft - have a darker side that pharmaceutical makers have hidden from the general public, occasionally with lethal consequences.

But faced with the millions of lives those same medications have transformed for the better, plaintiffs' lawyers had been unable to hold the drug makers responsible in court for their alleged deception.

Until now, that is.

For the first time, a jury found a pharmaceutical firm liable for deaths caused by a patient taking an antidepressant. A federal jury in Cheyenne, Wyo., ordered SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) to pay $6.4 million to relatives of Donald Sc .

Sc , 60, had been taking Paxil for just 48 hours when he shot and killed his wife, his daughter, his granddaughter and himself.

The June 7 verdict may alter the landscape in a mass tort that had struggled to gain traction.

Although plaintiffs' lawyers had filed hundreds of cases against the manufacturers of the three leading antidepressants, all but three of those suits were dismissed or settled. The first two cases to reach trial - both against the makers of Prozac - ended in defense verdicts.

But now, with the dramatic victory in the Paxil case, plaintiffs' lawyers say the drug companies will be more willing to settle and will face a tougher road when they take cases to court.

According to Andy Vickery, who tried the case for the plaintiffs, the verdict lays firm groundwork for future cases involving Paxil because the Wyoming jury found the medication could cause someone to commit suicide or homicide. He also believes the verdict is bad news for makers of the other two antidepressants which will be implicated by association.

"On a fundamental gut level, this is going to make all these people very nervous," says Vickery, partner in a four-lawyer Houston firm.

All three drugs are SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) which control depression by preventing the brain from reabsorbing serotonin, a chemical which is produced naturally to control mood, sleep and appe e.

Lawyers for GlaxoSmithKline did not return phone calls. A spokeswoman said the company has filed a request for a new trial and cannot discuss the case while it is under appeal.

Central to Vickery's case were SmithKline internal do ents showing the company was aware that a small number of people could become agitated or violent from Paxil. Despite this knowledge, Paxil packaging does not include a warning about suicide, violence or aggression, which makes the company liable, according to the verdict. Neither Zoloft or Prozac comes with such a warning and plaintiffs' lawyers have obtained internal do ents from both companies showing their knowledge of the potential problems, according to Los Angeles attorney [George] Skip Murgatroyd.

Although Murgatroyd and Vickery are currently handling virtually all of these cases, they say the recent verdict could make it easier for other lawyers to take up the cause.

With the internal do ents now a matter of public record, Murgatroyd believes the Paxil verdict could be the beginning of mass tort litigation similar to that against the makers of cigarettes, asbestos and lead paint.

"It's very much like what happened with Big Tobacco," Murgatroyd says. "The key element is obtaining the internal causation do ents. As soon as the internal do ents come out, things start being looked at in a very different light."


A 'Three-Legged Stool'
There was no question that Donald Sc was depressed. Before taking Paxil, he had been on other antidepressants including Prozac.

Furthermore, there seemed to be no other motivation for the murder-suicide. He had no obvious marital problems and clearly adored his daughter and granddaughter. So the pivotal question of the trial was: Did taking Paxil for two days - one pill each day - cause Sc to go berserk? Or did he become violent because he was already depressed?

This chicken-and-egg-type question had been at the heart of other the other antidepressant trials, as Vickery knew well. He had tried and lost a similar case - Forsyth v. Eli Lilly & Co. - in Hawaii in 1999.

"In Hawaii, I stupidly [bought into their] either/or argument: Was it the drug or the depression? Here I just focused on the drug." By doing so, he reframed the debate for the jury from, "Was it the depression or the drug?" to "Is it possible for the drug to produce a violent reaction in some people?"

He learned another lesson from that case: How to more effectively challenge the company's interpretation of the science.

"Exhorting science" is one part of the standard, three-part defense strategy that pharmaceuticals "always, always, always" use in antidepressant cases, says Vickery. "It's like a three-legged stool." Using doctors as expert witnesses and years of experience in medical research, the drug companies state that the bulk of scientific evidence shows that SSRIs help millions of people.

The second "leg" of the defense strategy is emphasizing that depression is a dangerous mental disease that can cause people to behave abnormally. And the third, says Vickery, is to dig up as much background as possible about the decedent that would show violent tendencies prior to taking medication.

But throughout the 2?-week trial, Vickery says he focused on attacking the science "leg." Over and over, he tried to prove that scientific evidence also shows that some people who take SSRIs, specifically Paxil, become aggressive and suicidal.


Internal Do ents
Vickery won a critical pre-trial battle over SmithKline's motion to exclude or limit testimony from Vickery's two expert witnesses, British psychiatrist Dr. David Healy and Dr. John T. Maltsburger, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Healy has written and lectured widely on his view that all SSRIs - Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft - should carry warning labels. He says the drugs, viewed as relatively harmless when they came on the market in the 1980s, could trigger suicidal and violent behavior in some patients. On the stand in Wyoming, Healy testified that his own studies show that SSRIs could cause one in four healthy volunteers to become agitated, in some cases suicidal. And he said internal SmithKline do ents from studies conducted at the company's request by Beecham labs supported his findings.

The internal do ents, stamped "confidential," list the results of a Paxil test involving more than 2,000 healthy volunteers taking either the drug or a placebo. Vickery's team boiled the results down to a summary of the hundreds of volunteers who had adverse reactions - ranging from insomnia or anxiety to attempted suicide - that Beecham doctors said were either "possibly," "probably" or "definitely" caused by Paxil.

The fact that Donald Sc had taken only two doses of Paxil before his rampage was a major defense argument.

"Paxil is a very effective medication in helping depression," attorney Charles Preuss said after the trial. "Our only regret is that Mr. Sc did not have Paxil for a longer period of time."

To counter this, Vickery pointed out that volunteers in the Paxil test experienced anxiety, nightmares, hallucinations and other side effects - definitely caused by the drug - within two days of taking it. As early as four days, one volunteer experienced akathisia, a form of agitation that increases the risk of violence and suicide. Two volunteers attempted suicide after 11 and 18 days, respectively.

"The first words out of the defense lawyer's mouth were 'Two pills didn't cause this crime,'" Vickery says. "What we showed were a host of incidents from their own internal do ents, all occurring within a day or two or three, all of them related to the drug.

"We absolutely hammered them on it."

The defense largely ignored the internal do ents during the trial, Vickery says, except to identify an error in them: One volunteer who had an extreme adverse reaction in the test was taking the placebo, not Paxil.

To stress the bulk of scientific evidence in favor of Paxil, the defense called Dr. J. John Mann, a leading suicidologist and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. But Vickery says Mann also admitted during cross-examination that he had written in three articles that there was possibly a small, subpopulation of patients vulnerable to suicide or violence under the drug.

Vickery had asked for $25 million in damages. The jury of five women and three men deliberated 5? hours before reaching a verdict and awarding $8 million. SmithKline was found 80 percent liable, Donald Sc 20 percent. The result was $6.4 million divided among Sc 's son, his son-in-law and his wife's two sisters.


Tip of the Iceberg
So far, only a few lawyers have taken on antidepressant cases, which can be time-consuming and expensive. One of those lawyers died, another retired and a third cut back her cases. That leaves Vickery and Murgatroyd, who devote much of their time to SSRIs. In terms of expense, the Paxil trial cost Vickery's firm more than $50,000.

Both lawyers have cases in the works involving all three of the antidepressants. Vickery has two Paxil cases, one a suicide the other a murder/suicide, and two Zoloft cases, a suicide and an attempted homicide. He also has one case involving a woman who attempted suicide while on Prozac. And this fall, he expects to begin an oft-postponed trial involving a teenage boy who hanged himself one week after taking Zoloft. The boy's parents have sued Pfizer for failure to warn and wrongful death.

In addition to cases involving death from antidepressants, Murgatroyd is preparing to file a class-action suit in Los Angeles involving 25 people who claim extreme agitation from trying to go off Paxil.

And apparently, more cases are out there. Vickery and Murgatroyd both say they get numerous calls from potential clients and from other lawyers seeking help with SSRI cases. . . .

. . .

With the recent verdict, Murgatroyd says other plaintiffs' lawyers should consider antidepressant cases, despite a lot of legwork when getting started. There's a formula to these cases, for the plaintiffs' side and the defense, which makes them easier to handle over time, he says.

"What lawyers need to understand is once they do one case, they have all the information they need for future cases," Murgatroyd says. "You only have to do one. The information doesn't change."



© 2001 Lawyers Weekly Inc., All Rights Reserved.

[whottt]

This doesn't even go into the other medications that they prescribe just for the side effects...



I should note...they have their uses, as do the natural ones, that man used for thousands of years prior to the emergence of modern medicine.


I am not arguing against people using those drugs...I am agruing against people not being able to use less harmful alternatives legally...


Get ing real...the they prescibe is much more dangerous than weed. Every single anti-depressant that doctors prescribe is more dangerous than weed.

Just about every drug made is more dangerous than weed. As is alchol...


Weed is a ig non-poinsonous herb...


And someday soon, you know what they are going to do? Make a drug that's derived from THC and charge for it..when you could just be growing it for free if it was legal.

[leemajors]

smoking is about the least efficient way possible to get THC in your system. you gots to sautee that in butter or oil!

[DarkReign]

smoking is about the least efficient way possible to get THC in your system. you gots to sautee that in butter or oil!

Holy I never knew how true that was until last Christmas...

And to the people defending drug companies with vested interests in the mass production of man-made chemical "medications"...

GTFO already. Go to ANY other country in the WORLD. There is only one country that limits these naturally occuring plants, fungi to the extreme. The USA. The country with the highest rate of depression, anxiety, etc.

Coincidence? I think ing not. Bad day at work? Smoke one. Nice and relaxed. Wind down 10x faster, dont divert anger at loved ones because "everything is cool."

Instead you have housewives and neutered husbands decrying the use of these supposed "illegal drugs" whilst reaching for their depression medication in the cabinet.

Youre hypocrites of the WORST kind. Youre government toadies, parroting the line youve been indoctrinated with by the "authority" on the matter. The same authority thats ed up so many times in the past allowing this drug thru, but not this one, based soley on the fact that there isnt a Mr. Marijuana company contributing to the campaign fund. So ing blind. Stop letting the government decide whats good and bad for you. Have some ing courage and make your own damn decisons, you spineless twits.

[leemajors]

Holy I never knew how true that was until last Christmas...

perfect brownies, every time. you can even do it with kb stems if you have enough.

[whottt]

Too powerful in Brownies, plus you end up getting fat...I always liked Tea the best.