The potential of marijuana

We are living in a very complicated world. And in today’s technology and growth in population, one can expect to have an increase in social-economic issues. One such issue; is the potential of marijuana. Which has left people debating while; others are suffering in this society of 21 century. Yet having less than antiquity reasoning power.

Imagine every time we are reminded of the dwindling of our resources yet evidence exists that if all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as tree for paper use and construction material beginning from bamboo to iron ore were banned in order to save our blue planet, and reverse the effects of greenhouse and climate change and conserve homes for natural habitats.

Then there is only one known renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the entire world with textile and industrial needs as well as feed the needs of most complicated societies like transportation as well as reducing the very pollution.

Then again what if you could grow a plant that is able to meet and exceed the current medical standards? And help alleviate a variety of existing medicinal problems? Well that plant is called cannabis. It was the case for four thousand years till the dawn of industrialization, greed and age of confusion during the discovery of the new world before the 1500s. Chinese documents show that it was used as an anesthetic in surgery more than 2000 years ago.

In Hindu medicine it was used as a hypnotic, analgesic and spasmolytic, for dealing with mental conditions and to increase the body resistance to severe physical stress. In Africa it was used by laborers after work to relax and increase appetite as well as caloric intake due to manual labor. As a fact; it made them big and hard working, thus becoming best candidates for slavery.

Other studies aim to debunk the proposed uses of marijuana as medicine. These studies show that marijuana can increase the potential for lung cancer, increase aggressiveness, and lacks any beneficial effects as a medicine. Whatever the conclusions eventually emerge, there is much room for debate because little research exists on the topic. Because of its status as an illegal substance, research on marijuana and its effect in humans is limited. Those who oppose the use of cannabis have ardently done all that they could to prevent it from entering the public as a means of medication.

One such opponent is Harry Jacob Anslinger, (May 20, 1892 – November 14, 1975) held office as the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition, before being appointed as the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) on August 12, 1930. He held office an unprecedented 32 years in his role holding office until 1962. He then held office two years as US Representative to the United Nations Narcotics Commission. The responsibilities once held by Harry J. Anslinger are now largely under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy and library of congress.

“Closer North American marihuana (Marijuana) control discussed. Washington, D.C., March 24. Closer cooperation in the control of the use of marihuana weed is expected to be the outcome of a meeting today between the Canadian Narcotic Control Chief and U.S. Treasury officials. In the photograph, left to right: Col. C.H.L. Sharman, Chief of Canadian Narcotic Control; Assistant Secretary of Treasury Stephen B. Gibbons; and Harry Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, 3/24/37”.

Some of his critics allege that Anslinger’s campaign against marijuana had a hidden agenda, DuPont petrochemical interests and William Randolph Hearst together created the highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor. Indeed, Anslinger did not himself consider marijuana a serious threat to American society until in the fourth year of his tenure (1934), at which point an anti-marijuana campaign, aimed at alarming the public, by now cannabis had been baptized as marijuana and a drug became his primary focus as part of the government's broader push to outlaw all drugs.

He donated all of his files to his alma mater, Penn State, which allowed useful analysis of primary sources and also a good source of information about the whole Anslinger answer question session with a reporter.

This paper serves to analyze Anslinger’s policies and comparing them to existing research on the topic I hope to create a contrast between the two sides of the issue. I will focus on Anslinger’s policies while he was in office from 1930 to 1962 and on research from the same period up until today. I will also look at testimonies of people that have used marijuana for medical purpose and the effects that it had upon them.

But let us find out why cannabis has so many labels! Also known as: Hemp, cannabis hemp, Indian (India) hemp, true hemp, Muggles, weed, pot, spinach, marijuana, reefer, grass, ganja, Bhangi, the kind, dagga, herb, etc., all names for exactly the same plant. Generations have named their home towns like Hempstead, Long Island; Hempstead County, Arkansas; Hempstead, Texas; Hemphill, North Carolina, HEMP field, Pennsylvania, among others, were named after cannabis growing regions, or after family names derived from hemp growing business.

In 1619, America’s first hemp law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia, “ordering” all farmers to “make trial of “(grow) Indian hempseed. More mandatory (must-grow) hemp cultivation laws were enacted in Massachusetts in 1631, in Connecticut in 1632 and in the Chesapeake Colonies into the mid-1700s. Why? To encourage American farmers to grow more; you could pay your taxes with cannabis hemp throughout America for over 200 years.

You could even be jailed in America for not growing cannabis during several periods of shortage, e.g., in Virginia between 1763 and 1767. (Herndon, G.M; Hemp in Colonial Virginia, 1963: The Chesapeake Colonies, in 1954; and the L.A. Times, August 12, 1981.

Marijuana refers to the flowering tops, leaves, and stems of the cannabis plant. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is the main chemical in marijuana that gives it both its mood-altering effects as well as its medicinal benefits bear in mind Marijuana has a long history of being used a therapeutic agentTherapeutic uses of cannabis British Medical Association ( c1997 ) (Book, Periodical, Manuscript ) Source: Library of Congress Online Catalog.

The following information comes directly from the United States Department of Agriculture's 1942. 14-minute film encouraging and instructing 'patriotic American farmers' to grow 350,000 acres of hemp each year for the war effort.

‘... (When) Grecian temples were new; hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850, all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable....Now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese...American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries...the Navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When that is gone, American hemp will go on duty again; hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for victory!

Certified proof from the Library of Congress; found by the research of Jack Herer, refuting claims of other government agencies that the 1942 USDA film 'Hemp for Victory' did not exist. Jack Herer is also a world class marijuana advocate who has strain of cannabis named after himself you can fact find some questions with One hundred Thousand reward in his book The empire wares no clothes.

The chemicals that give marijuana its medical and recreational properties are called cannabinoids. There are sixty-six known cannabinoids in marijuana each with slightly different biochemical effects. In the 1990's researchers discovered that the brain and body actually has receptors for cannabinoids.

The two receptors are called cannabinoid receptor type 1 and cannabinoid receptor type 2. Shortly after the discovery of their receptors two endogenous cannabinoids also known as endocannabinoids were discovered. Their names are anandamide and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol.

Both of these compounds are derivatives of arachidonic acid and both endocannabinoids appear to bind to cannabinoid receptor type 1 and cannabinoid receptor type 2. Biochemical research into these receptors and their agonists reveal the exact biochemical cascade of events that happens when these receptors are agonized.

The overall view of the endocannabinoid system is that it mediates the effects of over stimulation, reduces inflammation, and promotes growth of new neurons in response to overstimulation.

Reports now show that when patients are either not responsive to or hurt by other drugs in treatments such as chemotherapy, marijuana can be used as an option to relieve pain and nausea. Early studies were done in the area of pain relief for cancer patients and one such file was found among Anslinger’s papers.

One case cited was that of a woman who was suffering from cancer which was spreading from her vagina into her back. Her treatment consisted mostly of irradiation therapy along with morphine to reduce pain.

The report states that she dropped from 168 pounds to 82 pounds in 6 months. This weight loss was due to the massive nausea and emesis that results as a bodily reaction to irradiation therapy. Massive system failure results because of a general decrease in strength of the patient and an overall will to continue fighting the disease.

The fact that people such as the Assistant Surgeon General of the United States supported giving a patient morphine, an addictive drug, for the rest of his or her life rather than seeking other options is frightening to say the least.

Over the past several years researchers have been finding more and more evidence that the most prominent cannabinoid in marijuana ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol can actually destroy cancer cells (Jia, 2006). When cells become cancerous their cellular clocks are damaged. Most cells go through a cycle where they grow, divide, and then die. In cancer cells the cycle is broken and the cells do not die.

When Tetrahydrocannabinol is injected into cancer cells, the cancer cells cycle is reactivated and cancer cells commit apoptosis, which is just a fancy word for cellular suicide (Athanasiou, 2007). Far more research has been done on the destruction of cancer cells via marijuana than has been presented here.

A Duke University cancer specialist named Dr. John Laszlo in 1979 recommended that capsules of Tetrahydrocannabinol be approved immediately by the federal government for use in cancer patients as antiemetic.

Although Dr. Laszlo did understand that much was still not known about the drug, he felt the potential benefits outweighed the potential risks, since chemotherapy affected patients so negatively, resulting in severe gastrointestinal distress. But the government remained ardent in its stance to label marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which meant that it could only be available for approved research and was put in the same classification given to heroin, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and many hallucinogens.

Schedule I drugs are classified as having high potential for abuse and as not having been proven safe for use under medical supervision. But if the government is so restrictive in allowing research in marijuana, how can its safety for use under medical supervision ever be proved or disproved?

We are reminded of “Sentence first-verdict afterwards,” from Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Laszlo eventually realized that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry would not allow for the development of research in Tetrahydrocannabinol for two main reasons. First, it is very unlikely that a drug company could patent marijuana for exclusive marketing rights, thus taking away much profit that drug companies receive from the discoveries of new drugs that are exclusive to them. Second, the fact that this drug is so controversial makes investment in it very risky.

Patients going through chemotherapy sometimes have such intense nausea they can tear their esophagus and break their rib cages due to both constant heaving and emesis. It is a very tough therapy that poisons the body in order to try to destroy a tumor or a spreading cancer.

Many drugs do not help during the therapy in relieving the nausea and emesis. One of the negative aspects that Anslinger focused on, the unpredictable nature of marijuana is one of the positive aspects that make it work in cancer therapy.

In about 30 to 40% of cancer patients, the commonly used antiemetics are not very effective. In a study done by Sallan et al in 20 patients receiving treatment by delta-9- Tetrahydrocannabinol, 14 of them felt “complete or partial relief.” It was also reported that the “high” that was felt with treatment was necessary in the antiemetic effects.

In another study, of fifty-six patients who got no relief from standard antiemetic agents, 78 percent of them became symptom-free when they smoked marijuana” But it is by hearing testimonies of people who are directly affected by a loved one having cancer and going through the process that the miraculous aspects of the drug can be clearly seen.

A statement from a medical marijuana patient who goes by the name Buzz at the medical marijuana community at says it best. “I had epilepsy for a while; four years ago my seizures were out of control.

All my meds made me suicidal and I have tried to take my own life. Now I use weed (marijuana) instead of the pills and I have taken my life back.”I had both grand and petite seizures. Sometimes petite as high as 20 per day. Now I can go for day’s seizure free”.

Research done in 2008 and published in a journal of neuroimmunology found that a high dose of cannabinoids actually reduces the disease, and at lower doses cabinoids slowed the accumulation of nerve loss and disability. (Croxford, 2008).in a similar study done in (2005) the journal of trends in neuroscience stated “cannabis not only did it relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis but protected neurons and helped with synaptic plasticity”. (Pryce, 2005)

Dependence on cannabis is rare but possible. It is psychological dependence that occurs more frequently. “International reports have shown that chronic users of cannabis may refuse to stop using it even when it is manifestly obvious to all concerned that their involvement with the drug is adversely affecting their lives, and economic and social status, and is constantly throwing them in conflict with the law.”

Evidence was also found in a case study of individuals that the drug induced mental problems that did not exist previously. In a study done by Kolansky and Law, the cannabis smoking habits of 38 patients ranging from the ages of 13 to 24 were examined. Each of these people smoked cannabis at least twice a week. (See appendix for graphs for addiction compared to the rest of drugs)

They were examined over a period of five years and all showed adverse effects. Prior to the use of cannabis none of the patients in the study showed any psychotic symptoms nor had any history of psychosis in the family.

There was also no delinquency found in the family upbringing. The cases were divided into five groups: Four patients between 14 and 17 years old had developed a psychotic illness with suicidal attempts. Four patients between the ages of 18 and 24 had developed psychotic illness without suicidal attempts.

Twelve patients between 15 and 18 years old had developed marked personality changes and were assessed while on trial for possessing cannabis. Six patients from 14 to 20 years old had developed severe personality changes which at first were not thought to be associated with cannabis use, but which on close questioning were found to be closely related to the onset of heavy use of the drug.

Thirteen young girls aged upwards from 13 years old had marked personality changes with sexual promiscuity; seven of these girls became pregnant, one several times. Sexual promiscuity had not been seen in any of these patients before cannabis smoking. With evidence such as this it is understandable why a fear of the drug existed and why it was not used medicinally at the time.

However, the harmfulness of the drug was overplayed by Anslinger and his supporters. Propaganda, as found in films like Reefer Madness, served to instill fear in the public that would keep it from questioning policies. Anslinger made people believe his policies were consistently effective against narcotics in general, even if he had to alter the facts sometimes.

Even though it is true that adverse effects did exist and psychosis was induced in certain patients, these are usually small subsets of the overall effects of the drug. The fact that marijuana was considered just as, if not more dangerous, than narcotics such as cocaine and morphine is very alarming and halted any advances on research and humans. Thus rendering the potential of marijuana dismal.