Marijuana Lets Patients Continue Life-Saving Treatment
Nausea and vomiting are common side effects of treatments for many deadly illnesses, including cancer, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS. In severe cases this can lead to life-threatening wasting, and can force patients to discontinue the treatment that could keep them alive. In its 1999 White House-commissioned review of the medical evidence, the prestigious Institute of Medicine reported, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting and all can be mitigated by marijuana."
Relief of these treatment side effects can literally save lives. A study from the University of California, San Francisco, published in the September 2006 European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, found that marijuana users being treated for the hepatitis C virus (HCV) were three times more likely than those who didn’t use marijuana to have a “sustained virological response” — i.e. HCV could not be detected six months after they completed treatment, the outcome considered the standard for successful HCV treatment. The marijuana-using patients were much more likely to successfully complete their anti-HCV drug regimens, leading the researchers to credit marijuana with relief of the drugs’ notoriously noxious side effects, concluding, “Our results suggest that moderate cannabis use during HCV treatment may offer significant benefit to certain patients.”
Prior studies have documented similar safe and effective relief of nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy and anti-HIV drugs, enabling patients to continue life-saving treatment.
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when I hear people talk about how unhealthy marijuana is and how bad it is for the body and the immune system. The two consistent conditions that the medical community supports the use of medical marijuana for are HIV and cancer patients. Doctors advise patients with these conditions to avoid a wide range of health risks including staying out of public places where germs are widely spread and to avoid cats, kittens and litter boxes. Why on earth would a doctor recommend a substance to such high risk group patients if there was anything remotely dangerous about it? It's true that in food forms and vaporization, marijuana is *healthier* than smoking it but even in smoked form it is at the very least gentle on the body and a short search of pubmed.com articles demonstrates that marijuana is actually beneficial to the immune system.
My father-in- law was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and his doctor recommended marijuana to help him cope with the negative side-effects of chemotherapy (a treatment which literally destroys your immune system). Not only did it reduce his nausea but it reduced the blood flow to his tumor and reduced the size of the tumor so that he was able to gain enough weight to have a successful throat surgery. He is now on his way to recovery and I have no doubt whatsoever that his life was saved by his ability to access medical marijuana. I believe the biggest crime is not allowing this plant to be studied closely and that it is difficult for many sick people to access an inexpensive and quality controlled medicine that has been 'trial tested' by thousands of humans for thousands of years.
It is hypocritical for the US lawmakers to ban this plant while they accept lobby money from pharmaceutical companies and aren't drug tested themselves as a condition of their jobs . The amount of money saved on prosecuting marijuana-related crimes and generated by the taxation of the controlled sale of this medicine would more than pay for the theoretical public health issues it *might* raise. I hope we find out soon.
If it wasn't for my smoke I wouldn't be able to tolerate the residuals of the Polio Virus that I contracted in 1955. It is so much better than the pharmaceuticals that the FDA tries to shove down my throat. This country isn't as free as it wants us to believe. This nation needs to wake up and let those of us who are responsible and need to smoke for medical purposes alone, and let us smoke legally. I bet that every one in our Government is an alcohol drinker and Marijuana is "second" to "alcohol" as to what the Gov. calls a social problem. QUIT! arresting medical marijuana patients. The FDA could go ahead and legallize it and I wouldn't care how much they taxed it. They could take the tax money and put it towards arresting Child Molesters & Meth Lab Junkies..