Cannabis For Life Extension

I knew the narrator Peter Coyote back in the day.

Patients Out Of Time - medicalcannabis.com

Patients Out of Time is pleased to be a contributer to Len Richmond's important new film, "What If Cannabis Cured Cancer", which features video of Raphael Mechoulam, PhD and Robert Melamede, PhD from our 2004 National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics. Patients Out Of Time - cancer

Here are some text resources:

NIH - Cannabinoids and Cancer

NIH - Cannabinoids and Heart Disease

Also see Marijuana IS Medicine for more links.

That should give you some resources for further research.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Hemp Oil Cures Cancer

But according to our Congress marijuana has NO valid medical uses. We do have the smartest Congress money can buy.

kurogroves.com

Run From The Cure - video. For those of you with a heart condition look about 5 minutes into the video.

Also see my post The War On Cancer Patients.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

FDA To Study Cannabis For PTSD

The video is not directly applicable to the subject at hand. It does feature one of the premier researchers in the field, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, who's work I discussed in a 2006 article PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System.

So what about the FDA?

PTSD is an extremely difficult medical condition to treat, and it currently effects around 7.8 percent of Americans. It is caused by exposure to dangerous and highly stressful situations, which can result in lasting symptoms that include disturbing flashbacks, distressful emotions, panic attacks, and nightmares.

On April 28th the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted MAPS' protocol design for their study of cannabis as a treatment for symptoms of PTSD in war veterans. This approval from the FDA represents another important step forward in PTSD research, although there is still a major hurdle to overcome before the research can actually begin. The FDA stated that MAPS’ current protocol successfully addresses all of their concerns, as long as the researchers can obtain cannabis for the study.

There is one slight problem. They have to get the marijuana from the government. And the government doesn't like to give pot to researchers who might undermine the drug war. There is a lot of money and a lot of jobs riding on the continuation of the drug war.

There is an interesting statistic in the above article excerpt. The statistic? About 7.8% of all Americans have PTSD. What is 7.8% of 310 million? About 24 million. That is right in line with government estimates that there are 30 million regular pot users in America. As I have been saying for years. The drug war is how we in America punish the traumatized. Like war veterans.

But the pot-versus-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder study is not happening yet.

According to California-based MAPS, the notoriously finicky National Institute on Drug Abuse -- apparently the only place to get legal weed for a federally approved study -- has to agree to sell some pot to researchers.

Sounds to us like MAPS isn't optimistic. It calls NIDA "a very different agency with explicitly political motivations and a monopoly on marijuana for research."

The study would ponder whether cannabis "can help reduce PTSD symptoms in fifty veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)."

There is anecdotal evidence from Omaha in the efficacy of pot for PTSD.

The focus, they say, is marijuana's medical abilities and why anyone who's sick should be free to use it.

"I don't need to medicate with pharmaceutical drugs that make me feel nauseous or sick. It alleviates all of my symptoms of PTSD," says Diana Wulf.

I guess I should explain how we got tens of millions of pot users when we only have a few million veterans of combat. Child abuse.

That is not the only drug used to treat PTSD according to Oprah Magazine MDMA more commonly known by its street name Ecstasy can also be useful.

On a February day in 2005, Sarah is reclining on a futon beneath a skylight, with Michael and Ann Mithoefer seated on either side of her. A half-hour earlier, Sarah swallowed a yellow capsule containing 125 milligrams of MDMA, and relaxing instrumental music plays softly as she waits, eyes closed, for the drug to take hold. The first signs are ripples of nausea—she thinks she might throw up, yet she also senses her body relaxing. The usual ringing in her ears vanishes. "That constant hyperawareness of my environment—it was receding," she says now.

At this point, she heard "the grinding of a pen." The sound of the nib bearing down on the page was magnified, "like it was hurting the paper, beating and pounding on it," Sarah recalls. In the alternate reality of MDMA, she says, "I thought Michael was drawing circles around me, making fun of me, laughing at me. I felt the anger rising in my body. I opened my eyes and—he was just sitting there, taking notes."

It was an epiphany. "That's the moment when I discovered that my perception and reality were not always the same," Sarah recalls. She'd assumed that her caretaker was jeering at her, that she was an object of scorn and derision—a painful conditioned response imprinted by an abusive childhood. Sarah always had an intellectual grasp of how her early years had shaped her, "but this was physiological," she recalls. "That's when I knew I had to repair the connections, the chemicals that had gotten all screwed up when I was a kid."

So what about all the horror stories we hear about long term MDMA use? Bunk according to a study funded by one agency of our very own government.

New research suggests that the drug Ecstasy -- used on its own -- does not have residual effects on brain performance, according to a study published this week in the journal Addiction.

The Santa Cruz-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies [MAPS -ed] contributed $15,000 for an initial 2004 study on Ecstasy use. That work led to a $1.8 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse that was spearheaded by John Halpern of Harvard Medical School.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has been conducting research on potential use of Ecstasy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and researchers said the new study likely would prompt more research and understanding of the drug.

So will we ever treat drugs rationally? Not as long as there is so much money in it. There are tens of billions maybe hundreds of billions to be made from exploiting the traumatized. Best yet we have convinced most of them and the vast majority of Americans that it is their own fault. Drugs are bad don't you know? Well I don't know it. What i know is that some people chronically take pain relievers for chronic pain. A pain in the brain so there are rarely any wounds to validate the pain. So we don't have armies of traumatized people in America. We have dirty drug fiends who deserve what ever punishments that can be meted out to them.

Here is one doctors take on all that.

No recruit ever considered that basic training would be easy, and in a time of war, they quickly discover that combat is a far cry from Hollywood’s portrayal. Reality is what it is. Dr. Phil Leveque knows this to be true. He served in the US Army and lived through World War II- and bears the scars within to this day.

“We were psychologically and physically stretched beyond normal limits and many recruits died. A bunch more were permanently psychologically damaged and the end result was PTSD even during training.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder which can occur after witnessing or experiencing even one traumatic event, especially when it involves injury or death, or the threat thereof, so being in a war takes that trauma to new levels. It is important to note that PTSD can be, and usually is, a long term/lifetime problem.

A recent report estimated that up to 40% of the Middle East veterans would be victims of combination of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Maybe more.

As a regular general practice physician and later as a marijuana doctor, Dr. Leveque saw the devastating results of the effects on veterans for generations.

Frequently, during the post-trauma time, with no better idea at hand, Dr. Leveque says that many PTSD patients discover that alcohol “drowns ones sorrows”.

Also during this post-trauma time, some caregiver will say to himself,”let’s treat this patient’s PTSD” and here come a mélange of medications. The various and numerous treatments leave very much to be desired; in fact their treatments have far more failures than successes.

“Those same pseudo-doctors and paper-pushers decry the use of marijuana,” says Dr. Leveque. “The veterans use it preferentially, to the zombifying and/or addicting drugs prescribed wholesale by those ’caregivers’, who then blame the victim for using a medication which works: Marijuana.” Dr. Leveque was convinced that there was a better way. And in the state of Oregon, it was so.

“I was asked by a healthcare professional at the Portland VA Hospital if I would help PTSD Veteran Victims to get permits to use legalized medical marijuana. I already had some Veteran patients from WWII, Korea and Vietnam, so I obliged.

“Within two weeks I had more than 50 Nam Vets requesting my help. As part of their medical history I asked what previous medicines they had been given or prescribed.

“There were two main types: strong pain killers (like Oxycontin, Morphine and every related pain killer), and anti-depressants.

“I was flabbergasted to read the anti-depressant list of many patients; Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Lexapro, on through the whole list of about 12; but nothing shocked me like the dangers they admit to! The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) says they can cause very bad adverse side effects including anxiety, depression, addiction, severe withdrawal, homicidal rage and suicide.”

It makes one wonder why they should be given to a psychologically fragile PTSD patient.

I wrote an article on why the pharmaceutical companies might be anti-pot back in 2002 in my article Addiction or Self Medication? In it I said:

It turns out that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problem in the United States. They are worth $46 billion a year to the pharmaceutical industry. You don't suppose this fact has any thing to do with the pharmaceutical industries being in the forefront of the Drug Free America campaign do you? Of course not. They are just trying to keep you from being addicted to natural products at the cost of 1/10th of a cent per dose when they are more than willing to sell you an FDA and doctor approved, pharmacy sold product that will do the job for a dollar a dose. They have only your best interests at heart. Just ask their accountants.

I have been looking around and what do you know? The above video might be relevant after all according to this article on the forthcoming MAPS study.

The study also calls for veterans to smoke weed with differing levels of active cannabinoids THC and CBD to determine if one, the other, or a balance of both proves more effective. Veterans will also either smoke or vaporize the plant to better test effects from different administrations of the drug.

Doblin said he was surprised that the FDA approved the study. He did not think the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) had the appropriate CBD-rich pot for the study, and that would force the FDA to reject it. NIDA controls the one federally legal pot farm in the nation, which is based in Mississippi and provides government-grown pot to a handful of federal patients, as well as researchers approved by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

But if history is any guide, NIDA will ultimately block the FDA-approved study from ever happening, said Doblin. NIDA must approve all research on pot, and their political goal is to ensure it never becomes legal, he said. NIDA states on its web site that it believes smoked marijuana is not a medicine, despite more than three thousand years of recorded medicinal use.

We have a government that is actively working against the American people and for the cartels - legal and illegal. So what else is new?

What can be done about all this? Gary Johnson for President. And guess what? Willie Nelson endorses Johnson. I think that speaks for itself. But how about a few words from the article?

Ron Paul has classified marijuana as a states' rights issue; Johnson, on the other hand, calls for outright legalization.

I like Ron Paul on quite a few issues but he is so last century. A man once ahead of his time who is now falling behind the times. Good. Because I'm tired of a drug war that finances criminals at home and terrorists abroad. Not to mention punishing the traumatized.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

War On Cancer Patients

It seems our government has been holding out on us when it comes to drugs that may be helpful in fighting cancer.

“Cannabinoids possess … anticancer activity [and may] possibly represent a new class of anti-cancer drugs that retard cancer growth, inhibit angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) and the metastatic spreading of cancer cells." So concludes a comprehensive review published in the October 2005 issue of the scientific journal Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry.

Not familiar with the emerging body of research touting cannabis' ability to stave the spread of certain types of cancers? You're not alone.

For over 30 years, US politicians and bureaucrats have systematically turned a blind eye to scientific research indicating that marijuana may play a role in cancer prevention -- a finding that was first documented in 1974. That year, a research team at the Medical College of Virginia (acting at the behest of the federal government) discovered that cannabis inhibited malignant tumor cell growth in culture and in mice. According to the study's results, reported nationally in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, administration of marijuana's primary cannabinoid THC, "slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."

Despite these favorable preclinical findings, US government officials dismissed the study (which was eventually published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 1975), and refused to fund any follow-up research until conducting a similar –- though secret –- clinical trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the US National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2 million concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods experienced greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.

Rather than publicize their findings, government researchers once again shelved the results, which only came to light after a draft copy of its findings were leaked in 1997 to a medical journal, which in turn forwarded the story to the national media.

Nevertheless, in the decade since the completion of the National Toxicology trial, the U.S. government has yet to encourage or fund additional, follow up studies examining the cannabinoids' potential to protect against the spread cancerous tumors.

The Drug War is a war on cancer patients. Instead of working to extend people's lives with a medicinal plant, prohibition trumps medicine.

It wouldn't be the first time.

There were two pieces of medical evidence introduced with regard to the marijuana prohibition.

The first came from a pharmacologist at Temple University who claimed that he had injected the active ingredient in marihuana into the brains of 300 dogs, and two of those dogs had died. When asked by the Congressmen, and I quote, "Doctor, did you choose dogs for the similarity of their reactions to that of humans?" The answer of the pharmacologist was, "I wouldn't know, I am not a dog psychologist."

Well, the active ingredient in marijuana was first synthesized in a laboratory in Holland after World War II. So what it was this pharmacologist injected into these dogs we will never know, but it almost certainly was not the active ingredient in marijuana.

The other piece of medical testimony came from a man named Dr. William C. Woodward. Dr. Woodward was both a lawyer and a doctor and he was Chief Counsel to the American Medical Association. Dr. Woodward came to testify at the behest of the American Medical Association saying, and I quote, "The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug."

What's amazing is not whether that's true or not. What's amazing is what the Congressmen then said to him. Immediately upon his saying, and I quote again, "The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug.", one of the Congressmen said, "Doctor, if you can't say something good about what we are trying to do, why don't you go home?"

It has been about 72 years since that hearing and Congress has improved some. In the past they used to ignore testimony when voting on a bill, now they just ignore the bill. An advance? I'm not so sure.

Here is page of books on Cannabis Therapeutics.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Mothers Drugging Newborns

Yes. When I first learned of this practice I was shocked. What kind of mother would do such a thing?

Cannabinoids, whether plant-derived, synthetic or endogenous, have been shown to stimulate appetite in the adult organism. We have reported previously that cannabinoid receptors play a critical role during the early suckling period:

Then comes a description of the science followed by what we have all been waiting for. The executive conclusion:

Our data support previous evidence for a critical role of cannabinoid CB₁ receptors for the initiation of suckling. Further, the present observations support the existence of an unknown cannabinoid receptor, with partial control over milk ingestion in newboms. Our data also suggest that the CB^-/-₁ neonates possess a compensatory mechanism which helps them overcome the lack of cannabinoid CB₁ receptors.

So it is the good mothers who start their children out on drugs from the best source available. Breast milk. Ever notice how stoned babies are after drinking breast milk? Now you know why. They have been drinking their cannabinoids.

And which cannabinoids exactly?

Mother's milk has been shown to supply a type of endocannabinoid (the natural neurotransmitters which marijuana simulates), 2-Arachidonoyl glycerol.

Though now it is almost universally prescribed, in the 1950s the practice of breastfeeding went through a period where it was out of vogue and the use of infant formula was considered superior to breast milk.

However, today it is now recognized that there is no commercial formula that can equal breast milk.

It is probably just as well that there are no cannibinoids in infant formula. Wouldn't want kids to get addicted to that stuff. But breasts? They are almost universally admired by men and women alike. And what is this? We love our mothers because they supply us with drugs early on and at no charge? Nature is truly stranger than you could ever believe if we didn't have evidence of what is actually going on. Add in a touch of human sociology and you get things like The History of the Breast. The research must have been fascinating. Now if the author only knew the whole story a snappier title would have been in order: "The History of Breasts and The Drugs They Deliver". Or maybe something for the mass market: "Breasts and Drugs". Well I can dream.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Passing The Smell Test

Anxiety Insights reports that the inability to identify odors may be an indication of severe PTSD.

A world first study of Vietnam veterans' sense of smell has revealed that an inability to identify smells indicates extreme symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Austin Health conducting smell tests on 31 male war veterans with PTSD, recruited from Austin Health's Veterans Psychiatry Unit.

"The worse their ability to be able to name a smell, in a smell test of over 40 'scratch and sniff' odors, the harder it is to manage their emotions," said John Dileo of the University's School of Behavioral Science, who conducted the study.

Dileo says that the difficulty Vietnam veterans suffering PTSD have in putting the name to a smell may be indicative of weakness in brain pathways related to emotional processing. He says the same areas in the frontal region of the brain that are involved in identifying smells are also involved in regulating emotion.

Of course a sample size of 31 is not very definitive. It is about the smallest sample size where Gaussian statistics apply. The results are interesting and definitely warrant a larger study.

There is a connection between the amygdala, smell, and memory.

Here is something I wrote a while back on the connection between the amygdala, PTSD, and fear memories. PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System. Here is one about PTSD Pot Alcohol & Substance Abuse.

We are really closing in on PTSD. I think a time will come when we realize the utter stupidity of making war on the self medicating.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Cannabinoid Lowers Blood Pressure

An article originally published in the Jerusalem Post discusses this year's Kaye Innovation Awards which are given annually to encourage Hebrew University faculty, staff and students to develop methods and inventions that have good chances for commercialization to benefit the university and society. Yehoshua Maor got one of the awards for his work under the supervision of Prof. Raphael Mechoulam on cannbinoids and blood pressure. Some might ask with so many medicines on the market why is this research necessary?

Not all patients respond well to conventional hypertension drugs.

But the cannabis plant, through its chemical compounds, has been shown to have a beneficial, hypotensive effect.

But a drawback in the therapeutic use of cannabinoids has been the undesirable psychotropic properties such as hallucinatory effects.

Attempts to separate the hypotensive action from their psychotropic properties have been only partially successful until now.

Of course for some the psychotropic effects are a feature, not a defect. In any case what was developed was

...a synthetic version of a minor cannabis constituent named cannabigerol, which is devoid of psychotropic activity. In laboratory experiments with rats, in collaboration with Prof. Michal Horowitz, it was found that this novel compound reduced blood pressure when administered in relatively low doses.

Additional testing also showed that the compound also brought about another beneficial effect - relaxation of the blood vessels.

A further beneficial property observed in work carried out with Prof. Ruth Gallily was that the compounds produced an anti-inflammatory response.

Maor says these qualities could be combined to create a valuable new clinical drug with major market potential, especially for diabetic patients suffering from hypertension, since reductions in blood pressure can decrease the risk of diabetes complications and in others with metabolic irregularities.

Which fits in quite nicely with another recent report of mine Pot Treats Diabetes.

Update: 20 June '06 1439z

Grand Rounds hosted by Dr. Deborah Serani links.

Grand Rounds readers (and others) might find the following links of interest: PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System and Cannabis is the Best Medicine

Technorati:
Cannbinoid, Hypertension, High Blood Pressure, Marijuana, Diabetes, Pot, Anti-inflammatory, Cannabigerol

Father of PTSD diagnosis dies

PTSD Combat has an article about the inventor of the PTSD diagnosis.

The man whom I would call the 'Father of Modern Combat PTSD Diagnosis' is dead at the age of 80. Dr. Leonard Neff was a WWII veteran and psychiatrist who'd begun working with Vietnam veterans in the early 1970's. He rose to prominence in dramatic fashion when, in 1974, he persuaded a returning veteran who'd taken hostages to release them following 3 hours of negotiations. The event raised public awareness of the plight of many soldiers returning from Vietnam; it also led Neff to push to include a definition of what today is known as posttraumatic stress disorder to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Go and read it all with links to more. As you know combat PTSD has been one of my interests. I have written a few piecies about it:

Aftermath

The Soldiers Disease

Cannabis is the Best Medicine

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System


PTSD, Veterans, War, Disabled Veterans, Drug War, Cannabis, Endocannabinoid, Combat Stress, Soldiers Disease

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System

An interesting interview with Organic Chemist Dr. Raphael Mechoulam about cannibinoids and the brain. Dr. Mechoulam was the first to synthesize THC.

There's something called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is due to upsetting memories that stay around too long. Normally, when there is trauma people slowly forget it. This is true for humans and it's true for animals. But if the animals do not have an endocannabinoid system, they do not forget bad memories, and this was shown in a paper by a German-Italian group. In collaboration with the Canadian group, we have done some work on that, and in a different model we have seen the same thing. So I expect that the endocannabinoid system is not in good shape in those post-traumatic patients, and chances are that it will work in treating them. We are just about to develop a treatment. People that have PTSD claim that the only thing that helps them is smoking marijuana, so chances are that cannabinoid treatment may help them.

Which is something I've been saying for the last four years. In case you missed it here is my journey. Here is a study on mice lacking the CB1 system in at least part of the brain and how that affects the decay of fear memories.

There are lots more medical uses for marijuana and its extracts than PTSD. Read the whole interview to learn more.

Update 18 Feb 2011 0628z:

The "mice" link is now no longer functional try this one.

Also the Dr. Raphael Mechoulam link is dead try this one.

A personalreport with medical evidence by some one tortured in a Turkish prison.

Child Abuse and Military Trauma

Japan Times report

New Scientist report

Medical News Today report

Cannabis and PTSD - a discussion of the medical literature with extracts from the literature.

Drug War, Endocannabinoid, Cannabinoid, Marijuana, Raphael Mechoulam, Addiction, PTSD, CB1, Trauma

Is Addiction Real?

Bill Quick at The Daily Pundit has posted my latest article on the subject of addiction. Bill also has a link to this related article at LGF. I will post the full article that Bill has put up later today or early tomorrow.

And thanks Bill for the exposure.

==========

Is addiction real? A very interesting question.I think there is an answer to that question. Obviously I think the answer is not in the affirmative. Why? Well there in lies a tale.

For me it started with Dr. Lonnie Shavelson. In July of 2001 I read a review of his book "Hooked" and learned some things. One of the things I learned was that in his sample of female heroin users 70% were sexually molested before they started heroin use. He also found that male heroin users were 25 to 50 times more likely to have been sexually abused than the general population. I wrote an article on the subject. Heroin. What I suggested in that article was that a large number of heroin users were taking the drug for relief from severe PTSD.

The next piece of the puzzle came to me in November of 2002 when I read this report done on the CB1 receptor in mice. A cannabinoid receptor also found in human brains. The report showed that fear memories which seem to be mediated by the CB1 receptors decay at different rates depending on genetics. I wrote this review of that report: Addiction or Self Medication? What I figured out from the report is that the reason drugs are addictive (long term use) for some and not others was based on genetics. A very big key to the puzzle of addiction. In the past the fact that some get addicted and others do not was ascribed to the "addictive personality". Now no one could tell you what an addictive personality was. It couldn't be defined. So in fact it was mumbo jumbo. I now had another piece of the puzzle. However twin studies showed that genetics only accounted for 50% of the cause for addiction. What was the other 50%? Pretty obvious from Dr. Shavelson's report. Trauma.

Well that lead me to look deeper into the genetics aspect. I wrote an article Genetic Discrimination which goes into some of the genes involved in tobacco addiction and marijuana addiction. It turns out that the genes involved in tobacco addiction vary by race. It also turns out that some people do not produce enough cannabinoids to feel normal. Again the idea that genetics only accounts for 50% of addiction (in this case to pot) comes up.

Looking further into the opiate question I looked into endorphins, the body's natural heroin, and how the body produces them. Sex, food, and exercise. And of course we know about sex junkis, food junkies, and even exercise junkies.I wrote about that in an article called Big Mac Heroin Attack.

What about stimulants? Stimulants seem to work well for people with ADD/ADHD problems. Of course this has got the pharma folks in full hue and cry mode against street drugs.

The War On Unpatented Drugs

To sum up:
1. We now kow that severe PTSD may be the cause of 70% or more of heroin use.
2. We know that there is a genetic connection.
3. We know there is a trauma connection.
4. We know that stimulants treat a different class of problems than opiates

What I have done is come up with a hypothesis that fits the facts. Why some people and not others are susceptable to addiction (as opposed to habituation which we know how to treat: Detox). Surprisingly this is a Well Known Secret in some segments of the medical community.

What we do not know is the true extent of the problem. Exactly how much of what we call addiction is due trauma/genetics? We don't know the answer because the problem is not being studied in any systematic way. We have the most information on pot/PTSD and stimulants/ADD-ADHD. A very few studies on opiates. Most studies so far have been anecdotal rather than statistical. The reason in my opinion is that there is no research money out there to make a statistical study of the self medication hypothesis. Such studies would be very expensive if they included DNA work ups and extensive interviews.

Self medication appears to be a very lage part of our "addiction" problem. In fact we may not even have an addiction problem. What we may have is seriously undertreated population with various mental problems caused by imbalances in the brain.

What is needed is more research. The only way we will get that any time soon is to pressure the government.Obviously the drug companies have no interest in finding out what addiction is because it will impact their bottom line if people take drugs for Problem Solving. In fact there are a lot of actors in this farce who would stand to lose big if such a study showed what I expect it might. The only folks to be benefitted would be "addicts". And they don't have much of a lobby in Washington.

I have also written about soldiers/police and PTSD here:

The Soldiers Disease
Aftermath
A test for PTSD
Police and PTSD

And if you go to my sidebar I have lots of other links to articles on the subject.

Pot for asthma

Medical reseach done in 1975 shows that pot can be valuable for asthma.

Instapundit suggests that in case of clogged lungs caused by the H5N1 flu virus, inhaled steroids such as those used for asthma might be helpful.

Pot seems to do the job and is much safer. Especially in the case of children, why would we even consider dangerous drugs like steroids?

Cannabis is the Best Medicine

For PTSD that is.

Dr. Tod Mikuriya gives this advice to a returning Iraq War vet about PTSD:

Medically, cannabis is the treatment of choice for PTSD but definitely would spell the end of your military career. If you elect not to medicate with cannabis, the regular exercise regimen, avoidance of drugs and alcohol, and a specialized debriefing is the least worst response to this chronic psychiatric disorder.

Now I have been saying this about PTSD and pot for three years.
PTSD Pot Alcohol & Substance Abuse.
Police and PTSD
We now have some medical confirmation. There will be more coming as this information gets better known and more research is done. So far about 18% of returning vets have long term problems with PTSD. That would be about 20,000 of those currently serving in Iraq and another 20,000 among those who have already done tours.

We claim we want the best for our vets and yet in this case the best medicine is denied them because nothing can be allowed to derail in the smallest way the prohibition machine.

The first political party to take up this cause will reap huge benefits. I can't wait.

PTSD Pot Alcohol & Substance Abuse

The Israelis (as usual) are ahead of the game. They plan to soothe trauma with marijuana. This has been a hot topic with me for several years.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers traumatised by battle with the Palestinians have a new, unconventional weapon to exorcise their nightmares -- marijuana.

Under an experimental programme, Delta-9 tetrohydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient found in the cannabis plant, will be administered to 15 soldiers over the next several months in an effort to fight post-traumatic stress disorder.

Raphael Mechoulam of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, the chief researcher behind a project he described as a world-first, said the chemical could trick the brain into suppressing unwanted memories.

Mr. Mechoulam wants you to know that you are not to confuse pills given to you by a doctor with that evil weed smoked by undesirables. Right.

Meanwhile I have come across this interesting .pdf published in 1996 about the relationship of PTSD to chronic drug and alcohol use. They can even predict from the type of PTSD whether drugs or alcohol will be preferred by the patient. I'm going to have to look into that.