Edinburgh scientists develop cannabis cancer drug

[godskitchen]

New painkiller can help reduce pain by as much as 30% in patients who do not respond to other medications.

Scientists in Edinburgh say cancer patients could be helped by a new painkiller made from cannabis.

A study of 177 patients found an oral spray developed in the capital can reduce pain levels by 30%, even when morphine or other pain medication has proved ineffective.

Now, the team of researchers at Edinburgh University hopes the treatment could be offered alongside more traditional medicines.

Doctors say the spray activates molecules in the body which can stop nerve signals being transmitted from the site of the pain to the brain. And they believe that can cause a significant improvement in patients' quality of life.

The medicine has been developed in such a way that it does not affect the patient's mental state in the way cannabis ordinarily would. However, doctors say the study does not support the smoking of the drug.

Professor Marie Fallon, from the Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre at the University, said: “These early results are very promising and demonstrate that cannabis-based medicines may deliver effective treatment for people with severe pain.

“Prescription of these drugs can be very useful in combating debilitating pain, but it is important to understand the difference between their medical and recreational use.”

December 14, 2009
STV
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-cen...s-cancer-drug/

 

[Dragynfyr]

yeah.. we may as well waste time and money altering the effective medicine god already gave us, we wouldn't want anyone to get 'high' now would we?

 

[System]

^ don't you mean "unwanted side-effects"

 

[zekethemusicman]

Im as big of a proponent of marijuana as you can be, but i see nothing wrong with making new medicines from it. Would you say the same about opium and morphine? Besides...anything that is "smoked" is not a proper medicine, only an herb with medicinal properties. Why not extract the chemicals responsible for the medicinal properties to create a true medicine without those "unwanted sideeffects" lol . Besides...weed is not going anywhere but up.

 

[Dragynfyr]

hashoil om nom nom

 

[raver2008]

Im as big of a proponent of marijuana as you can be, but i see nothing wrong with making new medicines from it. Would you say the same about opium and morphine? Besides...anything that is "smoked" is not a proper medicine, only an herb with medicinal properties. Why not extract the chemicals responsible for the medicinal properties to create a true medicine without those "unwanted sideeffects" lol . Besides...weed is not going anywhere but up.

I agree, this isnt a bad thing at all. Anyone who wants to smoke weed and get high still can thats never going to change, but if you can use weed to make new advancments in medicine and make new pain drugs that greatly improve ppls lives without them needing to be high to feel the pain releif why not? Its just another option, if you wanna be high and take away pain smoke up, if you dont want to be high its great there can be new options to help people and that its made from weed.

 

[kandytime]

I guess I see no problem with this... but why not take a small hit from the vape instead? I was under the impression it is much more effective medically then any other route.

 

[kong]

If I was in severe pain and could take a compound that didn't get me high and killed the pain I would be very happy. Being high is nice some of the time, but being high all the time would really set me back in life.

More research needs to be done. There are so many chemicals in marijuana that have an effect that it is important to develop a profile for each one so mixtures can be designed for specific effects. If they can develop synthetic versions that are beneficial thats just a good.

 

[Dr.DOB]

I guess I see no problem with this... but why not take a small hit from the vape instead? I was under the impression it is much more effective medically then any other route.

vape can never be replaced
its the ultimate pain subjugation

 

[Dragynfyr]

My problem is the way the article comes off.. it's like the scientists are going WAY out of their way to separate the medicine from the plant ideologically, and you know it's due to legal fears. People who use MMJ regularly don't need to get 'high' to get benefits. If they work the dose up from a low amount lots of patients report never once feeling 'high' at all. And these are people eating a gram or more of oil a day. I high-ly doubt that this spray is any more effective than eating hash oil or vaping it. It seems like we are wasting time and money on research to extract cures from something that's already fine the way it is, and it's all because of red tape bullshit.

If MMJ was fully available to the public in Scotland where this research was going on it would be different. (I have no idea if it is in Scotland, I'm gonna guess not much if anything is happening with MMJ though given how fearful the scientist sounds discussing the meds..). If it were available in it's natural/extracted form and people who were suffering could benefit from that while this kind of further research were going on, that would seem more humane and practical. The way I'm seeing the situation now it looks like people are being made to needlessly suffer, and rather than just give them the evil street drugs that could help them, society is wasting valuable time and money in an effort to 'protect the children' and develop new drugs they can stick in a bottle and slap a brand name on.