Editorial by Jim Maas: Wisconsin could benefit from marijuana research
Cancer research is something that potentially affects us all, directly or indirectly. There are 200 cancer-related studies going on at the Marshfield Clinic but I doubt any focus on the applications of cannabinoids or medical marijuana.
Humans have cultivated and consumed the flowers of the female cannabis plant for thousands of years. The United States government now outlaws cannabis’ recreational, industrial and therapeutic uses. Many people are getting tired of it, and some are dying from it.
In 1974, researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in cannabis, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. You may not have heard about this breakthrough since the Drug Enforcement Administration quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results to “protect our health,” I suppose.
Wisconsin’s Therapeutic Cannabis Research Act was passed overwhelmingly in 1982 with bipartisan support. It was signed enthusiastically by Gov. Lee Dreyfus who saw the University of Wisconsin as an ideal location to research medical marijuana. It remains state law today.
Unfortunately, the act’s language assumed federal authorities would gladly provide medical cannabis supplies to promote scientific inquiry that would help sick people. As it turns out, our government will promote and fund research aimed at discovering unhealthy effects of marijuana but not if the goal is to identify the health benefits.
Science cannot be repressed forever. Emerging clinical applications for cannabinoids include multiple sclerosis, ALS, HIV, GI disorders, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s disease, and depression. Many readers may be aware that cannabis can be ingested to ease the symptoms of chemotherapy treatments for cancer.
However, there are now studies (mostly conducted in other countries) that indicate cannabinoids may do more than simply alleviate side effects of deadly chemicals. More than 600 peer-reviewed articles show that numerous cancer types are actually killed by cannabinoids in tissue culture and animal studies. That cannabis can cure cancer also is supported by epidemiological studies, which have found that long-term marijuana users have vastly lower rates of certain cancers than non-users.
Researchers report that 6,800 more patients can expect to live at least five years after diagnosis for lung cancer than was likely in 1985. How different might that outcome have been if the UW could have been allowed to conduct the research that Dreyfus had hoped for? We will never know.
So, after four decades and dozens of preclinical trials documenting cannabis’ potent anti-cancer abilities, why do you suppose that our government continues to insist that many more years of testing are required, while making it difficult, if not impossible, to do those studies? Meanwhile, the big pharmaceutical companies continue to sell drugs that may cause terrible side effects and even death, while trying desperately to create an artificial product as good as one which occurs in nature, but one which they could control and sell. Are readers aware that cannabis use has not killed anyone, ever?
Ah, but what if cannabis isn’t as good as some complex chemical compound, approved by government bureaucrats? Well, shouldn’t that be up to a physician and his/her patient instead of the government? Wonder why Wisconsinites don’t have a safer, natural option for their disease, like the citizens of 18 other states? Follow the money.
Jim Maas is secretary of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin.
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