Cannabis and Cancer

[Laurens]

You often hear from New Age type people that you can do anything from revolutionize the textiles industry to cure cancer using cannabis, and it's quite easy to dismiss these claims as wacko nonsense from people who want to legitimize their drug habits.

I thought I'd check into the claims and see if there was anything legitimate to back this up...

Here's what I've found:

Our results show that both Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the most abundant and potent cannabinoid in marijuana, and JWH-133, a non-psychotropic CB2 receptor-selective agonist, reduce tumor growth, tumor number, and the amount/severity of lung metastases in MMTV-neu mice. Histological analyses of the tumors revealed that cannabinoids inhibit cancer cell proliferation, induce cancer cell apoptosis, and impair tumor angiogenesis. Cannabinoid antitumoral action relies, at least partially, on the inhibition of the pro-tumorigenic Akt pathway. We also found that 91% of ErbB2-positive tumors express the non-psychotropic cannabinoid receptor CB2.

Source

The Endocannabinoids are structurally similar to arachidonic acid and have been suggested to interfere with the inflammatory process. They have also been shown to inhibit cancer cell proliferation. Anti-inflammatory effects of cannabinoids and endocannabinoids have been observed, however the mode of action is not yet clarified.

Source

The antitumoral properties of endocannabinoids received a particular attention these last few years. Indeed, these endogenous molecules have been reported to exert cytostatic, apoptotic and antiangiogenic effects in different tumor cell lines and tumor xenografts. Therefore, we investigated the cytotoxicity of three N-acylethanolamines, N-arachidonoylethanolamine (anandamide, AEA), N-palmitoylethanolamine (PEA) and N-oleoylethanolamine (OEA) - which were all able to time- and dose-dependently reduce the viability of murine N1E-115 neuroblastoma cells. Moreover, several inhibitors of FAAH and NAAA, whose presence was confirmed by RT-PCR in the cell line, induced cell cytotoxicity and favored the decrease in cell viability caused by N-acylethanolamines. The most cytotoxic treatment was achieved by the co-incubation of AEA with the selective FAAH inhibitor URB597, which drastically reduced cell viability partly by inhibiting AEA hydrolysis and consequently increasing AEA levels. This combination of molecules synergistically decreased cell proliferation without inducing cell apoptosis or necrosis. We found that these effects are independent of cannabinoid, TRPV1, PPARα, PPARγ or GPR55 receptors activation but seem to occur through a lipid raft-dependent mechanism. These findings further highlight the interest of targeting the endocannabinoid system to treat cancer. More particularly, this emphasizes the great potential benefit of designing novel anti-cancerous therapies based on the association of endocannabinoids and inhibitors of their hydrolysis.

Source

European Respiratory Journal: Doubts about the role of cannabis in causing lung cancer

Of course there are papers that highlight potential health risks associated with marijuana, however I thought that these papers seemed interesting, and show that perhaps there is some truth to the claims that Cannabis or at least some of the compounds found in the plant could potentially have benefits in the treatment of cancer.

What do you guys think?

 

[Laurens]

Just so it's clear;

I am not using these studies to in any way condone the use of marijuana, nor would I encourage anyone to think that these papers mean that it's okay to smoke it. As I stated there are other studies that indicate the risks of marijuana use, and the studies I cited do not claim that smoking lots of bongs will stop you getting cancer, merely that there are cannabinoids which have potential uses in the treatment of cancer!

 

[nice]

I think I would like to see doctors making the medical decisions,
not the government.

If the government would stay out of it, and not ban so many substances, then maybe we would have a cure for cancer by now.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

crap.. if my dealer hears about that he will at least double the price for my weed

 

[Laurens]

I think I would like to see doctors making the medical decisions,
not the government.

If the government would stay out of it, and not ban so many substances, then maybe we would have a cure for cancer by now.

I agree, but I don't think any of the papers state that cannabinoids cure cancer, just that they can aid treatment, legal or not I think we'd still be a long way off a cure.

 

[MRaverz]

If certain cannabinoids and related molecules are medically useful, let's get on down to synthesising the safest possible forms of them. Simple medical science.

On the papers. I've not had an very in-depth look as they gets pretty intense, but they seem to mainly focus on putting the drugs used on cell cultures. One focuses on a mouse and warns that potential side effects may prevent a proper treatment being developed from them.

All in all, these are early steps along a long road towards effective treatments. It would be silly to extrapolate from these papers that using cannabis would cure cancer, especially considering the amount of carcinogens involved.

One interesting point to make would be regarding THC, which can both promote and prevent cancer growth. And it seems that that is the general belief about cannabis in regards to cancer at the moment, some bits are obviously carcinogenic, some bits seem to prevent cancer if you put them purely and directly on cancer cells. I wouldn't be surprised if twenty years from now cannabis derived drugs were being used to treat cancer, but I very much doubt the use of cannabis itself would be.