Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realists, we returned to you with another classic
Speaker 1: episode this evening, guys, I was recently reading some initial
Speaker 1: findings that argue the idea of pain relief through consumption
Speaker 1: of cannabis may indeed be an example of the placebo effect. Well,
Speaker 1: I was read about this. I know, I thought the
Speaker 1: research was solid on pain relief, right.
Speaker 2: That's why there's medical marijuana because of things like that.
Speaker 1: And obviously we have no moral objection to cannabis. God knows,
Speaker 1: it's a lot less dangerous than things like tobacco or alcohol. However,
Speaker 1: we also know that over the years, due in part
Speaker 1: to legal vilification of cannabis, we know that people have
Speaker 1: started to say, or for a long time, people have
Speaker 1: ascribed any number of superhuman medical powers to this substance
Speaker 1: and chemicals within it. And there's a large contention of
Speaker 1: people who are convinced that cannabis can cure cancer.
Speaker 2: Well, let's find out why they think that.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 4: production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1: They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you. You are here and that makes this stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Now, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about something that for a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of straight shooting kids in middle school and even high school,
Speaker 1: was a terrifying subject. Today we were talking about marijuana,
Speaker 1: that's right, conspiracy realist, left hand cigarettes, the Devil's tobacco,
Speaker 1: Uncle Jimmy's Brain, medicine, nap nuggets, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Pot, I'm a big fan of the Devil's lettuce.
Speaker 1: That's one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Grass, stuff that I was terrified of when I was
Speaker 2: in middle school in high school. You've nailed it already.
Speaker 3: Did your parents make you watch me for madness? Matt?
Speaker 2: No, No, They just said, don't be messing around with
Speaker 2: that stuff. Matt, and I said, okay.
Speaker 1: They said, hemp belongs in a necklace.
Speaker 2: And some people came to my school and they showed
Speaker 2: me a bunch of stuff about how bad it was,
Speaker 2: and the police had guns and they were like, we
Speaker 2: will use these on you if you smoke this wacky
Speaker 2: tobacci And I was like, okay, See they.
Speaker 3: Came to my school and brought a giant like Hunter S.
Speaker 3: Thompson's style suitcase full of drugs, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to try that one, and that one and
Speaker 3: that one. It just it wasn't a very good They
Speaker 3: didn't do a good scared straight in my experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as an award winning essays for dare, I can
Speaker 1: tell you that stuff doesn't stick with you forever. I
Speaker 1: had a similar experience to you know, I had a
Speaker 1: our local law enforcement brought in like a trifle wooden contraption,
Speaker 1: and then they passed around little vials of things like
Speaker 1: this is what cocaine looks like, this is what crack
Speaker 1: looks like. And someone said are they the same? And
Speaker 1: they're like, excellent question. You take them differently, so you
Speaker 1: snort cocaine and then you smoke crack. But you have
Speaker 1: they basically taught us how to use drugs while under
Speaker 1: the guise of telling us how to recognize them.
Speaker 2: You know, I have to imagine that the purpose of
Speaker 2: all that is to create a network of informants at
Speaker 2: the school where some of the kids would be able
Speaker 2: to notice out of let's say party, if something like
Speaker 2: this was going down, and they could, I don't know,
Speaker 2: mention it to somebody, some authority figure.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about physical symptoms. Yeah, yeah, you know it
Speaker 1: was well intentioned. And uh, what was it? Gruff McGruff, trench,
Speaker 1: scruff McGruff.
Speaker 3: Thank you crime dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he took a bite. Took a bite out of it.
Speaker 2: Sugo Illinois six six five two ways.
Speaker 3: That really made an impression on you.
Speaker 2: Wow, that was deep in there.
Speaker 1: So it's weird because for many people growing up in
Speaker 1: the West, especially in the US, Uh, marijuana was vilified
Speaker 1: for a long time and it retained this this strange
Speaker 1: and prominent position in culture and folklore and the zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: And as a kid, you may have learned about marijuana
Speaker 1: in the sort of boogeyman way, like say, stay away
Speaker 1: from it. You know, Uh, Sandy Jenkins injected one marijuana
Speaker 1: and then committed dolphin genocide. You know, like these very strange,
Speaker 1: exaggerated propagandistic stories that came again from a good place.
Speaker 1: The assumption there was that marijuana was a gateway drug
Speaker 1: and try marijuana would lead people inevitably to do things
Speaker 1: like heroin or various opioids, and on and on and on.
Speaker 1: But we didn't really get a lot of answers about
Speaker 1: this stuff. And now that more and more states are
Speaker 1: decriminalizing or even legalizing marijuana, and more and more countries
Speaker 1: are as well, like Portugal, we have to reevaluate this
Speaker 1: stuff and we ask ourselves increasing questions like what if
Speaker 1: marijuana is in some way short hindrance, but what if
Speaker 1: it's also helpful? And to answer that, we have to
Speaker 1: first figure out what weed actually is and how it works.
Speaker 1: So here are the facts.
Speaker 2: I'll start here when we think about the origins of
Speaker 2: where did this plant actually come from? What part of
Speaker 2: our planet did it begin to grow or evolve into
Speaker 2: this thing? Well, what we know as weed is Cannabis sativa.
Speaker 2: We believe, at least humanity believes it originated somewhere in India,
Speaker 2: specifically in a region just north of the Himalayan Mountains.
Speaker 2: You know, we think, right, we know, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to list some things off here. We know that it
Speaker 2: is one of those plants called an annual that means
Speaker 2: it grows in once a year. Essentially, it has a
Speaker 2: cycle where it comes in and it will flower essentially
Speaker 2: once a year. It can grow to a height of
Speaker 2: around eight to twelve feet that's four to five point
Speaker 2: four meters. It's pretty tall. That's actually really dang tall.
Speaker 2: And there are even reports that these things can grow
Speaker 2: as highs twenty twenty five feet. That's huge. There's another
Speaker 2: variety the indica, I suppose, so I'm not. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know if it's cannabis indica, if that's
Speaker 2: what it's called, or it's just an indica. I don't
Speaker 2: know the difference.
Speaker 3: Well, indica, you can remember the effects of an indica
Speaker 3: versus a sativa, because indica means in the couch.
Speaker 2: We're not talking about the effects yet, Noel, Sorry.
Speaker 3: I was just I think.
Speaker 2: It's really great.
Speaker 3: I don't know, there's not there's not really an opposing
Speaker 3: one for sativa. But sativa is the one that makes
Speaker 3: it gives you a little more energy, and they they
Speaker 3: refer to it as more of a mental high, whereas
Speaker 3: indica is a lot more like it makes you lethargic
Speaker 3: and chill.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for putting in all the research.
Speaker 3: No worries, I like to help.
Speaker 1: Did you make that one up?
Speaker 3: No? It's in the parlance of our time.
Speaker 2: The whole boy there is the Indica variety, whatever that
Speaker 2: exactly entails, is going to be shorter than the other varieties,
Speaker 2: these more Satifa variety.
Speaker 1: Sure, and as you said, being that's annual. It has
Speaker 1: a season. When it's out doors, it grow, it blooms.
Speaker 1: Those flowers you mentioned that bloom from late summer to
Speaker 1: mid fall. And then, of course, surprise, a lot of
Speaker 1: people grow this stuff inside too, greenhouses, the closet of
Speaker 1: their step dads, the summer cottage or.
Speaker 2: Something somehouse near where I live, because I swear if
Speaker 2: I open my door, it just smells like marijuana.
Speaker 3: It's true, It's true. It's also you know, you may
Speaker 3: have heard in rap lyrics referred to as indo. Oh
Speaker 3: it's good to consume along with some gin and juice.
Speaker 1: What about sour diesel? That's just another versa. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's weird because also side to not condoning illegally growing
Speaker 1: pot in your house, legally growing weed in your house,
Speaker 1: but if you are running a big grow operation, just
Speaker 1: be aware an area is where marijuana is still illegal.
Speaker 1: Police when investigating grow houses are able to or energy usage.
Speaker 1: And that's how a lot of people get popped.
Speaker 3: Big spikes and energy at specific times.
Speaker 1: That's a real red flag for the authorities, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Crotchety neighbors opening their door and going.
Speaker 1: Well again, or crotchety neighbors becoming inexplicably cool and picking
Speaker 1: up their bass guitar after years and years of not playing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's pretty funny. I was just in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: as we all were, and I brought my daughter along
Speaker 3: and I had to have the marijuana talk with her
Speaker 3: because of the way the elevators all smelled in the hotel.
Speaker 2: Whoa.
Speaker 3: She's just like, what is that? And I was like, well, honey,
Speaker 3: there's this thing called marijuana. You might have heard about
Speaker 3: it from the rap music in California. It's it's perfectly legal,
Speaker 3: so you're gonna smell that smell. And she did, And
Speaker 3: so I think it's better for her to know be
Speaker 3: armed with the facts.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, and it emphasized that that's not the case
Speaker 1: everywhere exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: But also, you know, it is more of a conversation
Speaker 3: now that people are maybe having with kids because the
Speaker 3: stigma is sort of been lifted somewhat or it's in
Speaker 3: the process of being lifted. So it's a little more
Speaker 3: of a conversation like you would have about don't drink
Speaker 3: beer till you're twenty one, or use things responsibly, etc.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about why all these people out in
Speaker 2: California and across this nation in the world, in Colorado
Speaker 2: are are smoking these flowering plants.
Speaker 1: And or again yeah, well, yeah, yeah, that's the intero
Speaker 1: Chicago now in Chicago. That's the interesting thing. While we
Speaker 1: are in the midst of a paradigm shift, a sea
Speaker 1: change with the US attitude about marijuana on a state
Speaker 1: by state not a federal level. Yet, the thing is,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of claims about this stuff because
Speaker 1: we don't still one hundred percent understand absolutely how it works.
Speaker 1: We get most of it, We get the gist of
Speaker 1: how marijuana works, but we still have a lot of
Speaker 1: questions as a species. And that's because marijuana doesn't doesn't
Speaker 1: get you, doesn't give you these effects, you know, the
Speaker 1: stuff we collectively refer to as getting high because of
Speaker 1: a single substance. There is this There are a couple
Speaker 1: of substances. They're sort of like the frontmen of the band,
Speaker 1: the lead singers or the you know, the first chair
Speaker 1: violin of this chemical orchestra or symphony. But marijuana actually
Speaker 1: contains hundreds of different things, and of those hundreds of chemicals,
Speaker 1: one hundred and nine of them fit into a category
Speaker 1: called cannabinoids. That's the stuff for which Cannabis sativa is named.
Speaker 3: I think that's what thenoid was named after. Remember the
Speaker 3: Domino's Pizza mascot, the Nooid. He seemed like he'd had
Speaker 3: a little bit too much of the old Devil's lettuce
Speaker 3: if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe it was. I thought maybe it was
Speaker 1: a mispronunciation of nerd, but also possible nooid could happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: got that guy was a freak.
Speaker 3: Well and what do stoners enjoy Yo Yo's pizza?
Speaker 1: Pizza? Oh? Yeah, Like I just I was way way
Speaker 1: past the age when I should have figured this out.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until like two or three years ago
Speaker 1: maybe that it hit me that Bill and Ted were stoner's.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I just thought there were goofy fun guys, right,
Speaker 1: But then you watch it again and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: they just edited out all the parts where they were
Speaker 1: actually smoking. But these are clearly these guys are.
Speaker 3: High there's no subtle references to getting high or like
Speaker 3: they rolled down a window and smoke billows out, none
Speaker 3: of that. I tried to keep it PG.
Speaker 1: I didn't watch the whole thing back again, but I would.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's also coming back Bill and Ted's
Speaker 1: coming back.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe now that the conversation has changed, they
Speaker 1: can be a little more open about the the muse
Speaker 1: of wild stallions.
Speaker 3: Quick aside, I saw a funny meme that had a
Speaker 3: picture of Adam Driver next to a picture of Keanu
Speaker 3: Reeves and this said, Adam Driver looks like somebody tried
Speaker 3: to draw Keanu Reeves from memory.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's also one where with a cat that looks
Speaker 1: like Adam Driver. That cat's intense.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so.
Speaker 1: We know some of the chemistry here. We know that
Speaker 1: every time someone ingests marijuana in some form, smoking, vaping,
Speaker 1: drinking tea of your fancy, that there is one chemical
Speaker 1: that comes into play.
Speaker 2: Yes, Delta nine, tetra hydrocannabinol well done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or THHC and other chemicals that enter the body
Speaker 3: and they make their way through the bloodstream right to
Speaker 3: the old brain and then eventually to the rest of
Speaker 3: the body. And that THHC is the most powerful chemical
Speaker 3: in marijuana that's credited for giving you that high associated
Speaker 3: with the drug.
Speaker 1: I have to ask before we continue, how many people
Speaker 1: do you think are high in listening to this show
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 3: I'm going to say fifty.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, no judgment if you are, just be
Speaker 1: in a safe place.
Speaker 2: We can't tell if you're wondering. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 2: we honestly can't tell right now if you're high.
Speaker 3: So you guys don't even know if I'm high or not.
Speaker 1: So, but that that person just walked past you, they know,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's such an evil thing to do to someone.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding.
Speaker 3: No, No, they don't know.
Speaker 1: Head So you're right though, there is this protagonist chemical,
Speaker 1: this prime player THC. Here's what happens. Long story short.
Speaker 1: Everybody's brain has these cells. They're called neurons. They process
Speaker 1: all this information for you. They're the reason you are
Speaker 1: as smart as you are. They're chemicals called neurotransmitters, right,
Speaker 1: And there's a space or a synapse between every neuron
Speaker 1: that you have, right, and these neurotransmitters sort of build
Speaker 1: a bridge. They bridge the gap between your neurons and
Speaker 1: they bind to these things called routine receptors. All of
Speaker 1: this allows different functions of your body and your brain
Speaker 1: to be turned on and off like in the Book
Speaker 1: of Mormon, turn it off like a light switch, right.
Speaker 1: Some neurons have thousands and thousands of receptors that are
Speaker 1: specific to particular kinds of bridge builders, neurotransmitters, and chemicals
Speaker 1: that can enter into your brain like THHC can sort
Speaker 1: of pull a doppelganger effect on your bridge builders, on
Speaker 1: your neurotransmitters, so they can mimic some of the things
Speaker 1: that your ordinary neurotransmitter would do, or they can block
Speaker 1: some of the bridge building effects that would normally happen.
Speaker 1: And this is interesting because these neurons, they're not all
Speaker 1: created equally in terms of the kind of stuff they're
Speaker 1: receptive to. So in three areas of the human brain,
Speaker 1: the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the basal ganglia, there are
Speaker 1: high concentrations of cannabinoid receptors. And that's why that's why
Speaker 1: marijuana has these predictable effects for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, particularly in this one part of your brain called
Speaker 2: the hippocampus. It's in your temporal lobe, like the front
Speaker 2: of your brain here, and you know what it deals
Speaker 2: with short term memory?
Speaker 1: Oh I forgot, yeah, Oh that you may have noticed
Speaker 1: if you have ever attempted.
Speaker 2: To tango with this particular substance, that that is one
Speaker 2: thing that occurs. And also, I mean there are a
Speaker 2: couple other places in your brain also, the cerebellum and
Speaker 2: the basil ganglia, which is just a fun thing to say.
Speaker 2: When THC binds with the receptors that are inside that
Speaker 2: hippo campus, it really does mess with your short term
Speaker 2: memory because it's again like Ben was explaining there, it
Speaker 2: it is pretending or you're rain those receptions in your
Speaker 2: brain think that your stuff is being turned on, or
Speaker 2: it's blocking things from being turned on. There. It's just
Speaker 2: very odd. It's very very odd that a chemical can
Speaker 2: do that. It also messes with your coordination, and that's
Speaker 2: where you're talking about the cerebellum, and then if you
Speaker 2: go to that other fun thing, the basil ganglia. This
Speaker 2: this is something that directs unconscious muscle movements, which is
Speaker 2: one of the reasons motor coordination becomes a little bit
Speaker 2: I don't know if y'all, if anyone listening has ever
Speaker 2: noticed this but motor coordination will become a little more slow,
Speaker 2: or at least a perceived slowness even.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the reasons why you know, obviously
Speaker 1: you shouldn't operate a motor vehicle, yes, when you're high.
Speaker 1: But it also makes me think, has anybody gotten a
Speaker 1: speeding ticket when they're high weed? I feel like when
Speaker 1: I've when I've known people were obviously high and they
Speaker 1: were driving and driving a little slower are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, No, that's the thing that you know, and
Speaker 3: that's why it's always so funny when we gets a
Speaker 3: bad rap as being some kind of crazy dangerous drug
Speaker 3: like that, can you know, make you do terrible things?
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of the propaganda stuff that was
Speaker 3: Enry for Madness, for example, that accused it of causing
Speaker 3: people to commit murder and you know, rape women potentially.
Speaker 3: Now this is all from this propaganda film. But you know,
Speaker 3: if anything, it just causes you to be a little sluggish,
Speaker 3: giggle it stupid stuff and like you said, maybe drive
Speaker 3: a little on the slow side. So yeah, that's it's
Speaker 3: definitely innocuous in that respect. But obviously it is a
Speaker 3: psychoactive drug that changes the way your brain perceives the world,
Speaker 3: and therefore you absolutely shouldn't ever put yourself in a
Speaker 3: situation where you could potentially those slow downs could cause
Speaker 3: harm to yourself or others.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, okay, so how do we use this?
Speaker 1: I just assuming ground level. If there's anyone listening and
Speaker 1: you never knew, you were too embarrassed to ask, you
Speaker 1: are afraid that your local FBI or NSA intern would
Speaker 1: get mad at you for googling it, We will tell you,
Speaker 1: by far, the most common way people use marijuana now
Speaker 1: is through smoking it. And smoking is the most common
Speaker 1: way because it's also the fastest way, or was for
Speaker 1: a long time, the fastest way to get THHC and
Speaker 1: those other chemicals into the bloodstream. When you smoke marijuana,
Speaker 1: it goes to your lungs. Your lungs are lousy with alveoli.
Speaker 1: These are the tiny air sacks where that gas exchange occurs.
Speaker 1: They have a ton of surface area and they help.
Speaker 1: They make it possible for the TC and other stuff
Speaker 1: to enter your body, and they absorb this smoke mere
Speaker 1: seconds after inhalation. Vaporizers do a similar thing. They heat
Speaker 1: the substance such that they vaporize the active ingredients, but
Speaker 1: they don't actually burn anything, so you're inhaling it instead
Speaker 1: of smoking it. And of course you can also eat marijuana.
Speaker 1: This is this is something that people have often underestimated
Speaker 1: the effects of what would be called an edible because
Speaker 1: it's a slow burd right.
Speaker 3: It is because it requires your body to actually metabolize
Speaker 3: the active chemicals in the same way that you would
Speaker 3: get nutrients from food, so that's a slower process. It's
Speaker 3: the same way as taking medication. It doesn't hit you
Speaker 3: right away unless you say, chew it up or put
Speaker 3: it under your tongue like some fast acting pills that
Speaker 3: are required to you know, really like kick in. If
Speaker 3: you're having an anxiety attack, for example, they tell you
Speaker 3: to take your anxiety medicine and either put it under
Speaker 3: your tongue sublingually and that would kick in much faster.
Speaker 3: But if you eat, say a baked good that has
Speaker 3: THHC cooked in with it, it's going to take depending
Speaker 3: on how much food is already in your stomach, for example,
Speaker 3: various amounts of time. And you know, the old joke
Speaker 3: is you can always eat more, you can never eat less,
Speaker 3: so always smart to pace yourself in that respect and
Speaker 3: not think that you should just eat an entire brownie,
Speaker 3: because you also know that you don't know what the
Speaker 3: concentration is, for example, like how much was cooked in
Speaker 3: how concentrated one little bite of a bake good could
Speaker 3: because it could be incredibly potent, especially if you don't
Speaker 3: have the benefit of getting it somewhere where it's legal,
Speaker 3: where you have you know, information on the packet of
Speaker 3: how much is in it and how many milligrams, for example,
Speaker 3: are in a particular dose.
Speaker 1: So handle with care, caveat inventor yeah.
Speaker 2: Handle with care. But also I think we're all aware
Speaker 2: at this point that the major reason that cannabis is
Speaker 2: legal in several states in this country and several places
Speaker 2: around the world is because of the purported medical effects
Speaker 2: of this substance and taking it either through smoking it
Speaker 2: or inhaling it or eating it or you know, through
Speaker 2: various salves and other things. That the purported in medical
Speaker 2: effects there outweigh any dangers that may exist around the
Speaker 2: substance because of you know, the dangers that were purported
Speaker 2: in order to get it as a Schedule one substance
Speaker 2: in this country. So what we're going to do now is,
Speaker 2: as we continue through this episode is look at those
Speaker 2: beneficial effects, those medical effects and claims that maybe go
Speaker 2: beyond what you've heard.
Speaker 1: And to do that, we'll have to examine the difference
Speaker 1: between two acronyms and two very similar substances THHC and CBD.
Speaker 1: Will do that. After a word from our sponsor, we've returned.
Speaker 1: So CBD is a lot like THC. It has the
Speaker 1: same chemical formula, but the atoms are arranged differently, and
Speaker 1: this tiny variance causes THHC to have that sy goactive
Speaker 1: effect that Matt You and ol mentioned earlier, and CBD, again,
Speaker 1: because of that slight difference in design, does not have
Speaker 1: the psychoactive effect. This means that if someone ingests CBD
Speaker 1: for any of those medicinal purposes, they're more likely to
Speaker 1: They're likely to experience a relief in their pain or discomfort,
Speaker 1: but they're likely to have less of a noticeable deterioration
Speaker 1: of their cognitive abilities or change in their cognitive abilities.
Speaker 1: And this is funny because this came into play for
Speaker 1: our state here in the US, in Georgia, southeastern US,
Speaker 1: where marijuana is still they should say illegal throughout the state.
Speaker 1: I believe in the city of Atlanta, it's decriminalized, which
Speaker 1: has put it on the level of a parking ticket,
Speaker 1: huge asterisk at the officer's discretions.
Speaker 2: Right, depending on which kind of officer you run into.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting too because there may talked about this
Speaker 3: in the past, but there were some cases in the
Speaker 3: past here in Georgia outside of Atlanta, like kind of
Speaker 3: in some of the suburbs. I believe it might have
Speaker 3: been in Gwinnett County, which is a little bit more
Speaker 3: of a bedroom community, I guess of Atlanta. But there
Speaker 3: are certain officers that take specific training courses that claim
Speaker 3: to teach them how to identify someone who is quote
Speaker 3: unquote high or you know, under the influence of marijuana
Speaker 3: by the way their eyes move and like you know,
Speaker 3: they can literally without giving you a test. This particular
Speaker 3: training qualifies them to say, you're high on weed, and
Speaker 3: I'm taking you to jail because you're driving under the influence.
Speaker 3: So there were some pretty nasty cases where you know,
Speaker 3: they were supposedly got it wrong, you know, and someone
Speaker 3: went to jail. And the problem with THHC is it
Speaker 3: stays in your system for a very, very very long time,
Speaker 3: so you could be accused of being under the influence
Speaker 3: of the drug in the moment, and you might well
Speaker 3: have it in your system, but there's no way to
Speaker 3: pinpoint is to win that instance of you know, consuming
Speaker 3: that substance happened, so at the officer's discretion is a
Speaker 3: very big caveat.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And the strange thing about the way CBD became or THHC,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, became the criminalized here
Speaker 1: in Georgia. The strange thing about it is that even
Speaker 1: the supporters in the local legislature made a weird, semi
Speaker 1: puritanical argument and they said, Okay, this cannabinoid oil they
Speaker 1: would call it, does have the ability to reduce symptoms
Speaker 1: of pain, and they also claimed, i think maybe a
Speaker 1: reduced likelihood of seizures in certain types of epilepsy. And
Speaker 1: their big selling point when they spoke to the voting
Speaker 1: public was don't worry, no one's going to get high.
Speaker 1: It's just going to relieve pain. Essentially, the argument is,
Speaker 1: don't worry, no one is going to have fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the way it was presented, and I'm being a
Speaker 1: little cavalier there, but obviously they were saying that because
Speaker 1: people will get these medical or medicinal rather benefits of
Speaker 1: this substance. They if they don't get high. When that happens,
Speaker 1: we are much less concerned about things that propaganda has
Speaker 1: historically tied to this vision of marijuana, dangers of addiction,
Speaker 1: criminal acts. You know, I'm out here stealing radios and
Speaker 1: pulling copper wire out out of houses because I need
Speaker 1: my fix of marijuana. I need to inject my marijuana unit.
Speaker 2: It is. Yeah, that's a whole discussion we can have
Speaker 2: later just about supposedly not being able to get addicted
Speaker 2: to the substance because there's not habit forming, but then
Speaker 2: also the societal or normalized like use of this and
Speaker 2: how it becomes ingrained in a just your everyday life,
Speaker 2: and just what the difference between that and addiction.
Speaker 3: Well, there's physical addiction and then there's mental addiction, or
Speaker 3: just routine or just enjoying something and enjoying the way it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's part of your life, and maybe you
Speaker 3: take that a little too far and it does become
Speaker 3: a crutch of some sort or another.
Speaker 2: Well, especially when you're talking about something like CBD that
Speaker 2: doesn't have that the fun part, right, but it has
Speaker 2: the medicinal effect of like a painkiller.
Speaker 1: Well I would I would say, you know, when an
Speaker 1: addiction is widely misunderstood and the mental aspect is just
Speaker 1: often just as powerful, you know what I mean. That's
Speaker 1: why people get addicted to routines that have no real
Speaker 1: physiological impact.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So this is strange because now we have to now
Speaker 1: we have to address something that is a controversial, ongoing
Speaker 1: topic in the debate about marijuana here in the United States,
Speaker 1: and to be fair abroad, and that is this let's
Speaker 1: call it medicine or mumbo jumbo. So there are people
Speaker 1: who say, okay, marijuana should be legal, it should only
Speaker 1: be medicinal. There are people who say marijuana should be
Speaker 1: you know, it's Katie bar the door. It should be recreationally.
Speaker 1: You're over a certain age, do what you want forward
Speaker 1: the future. It's a brave new world. And have you
Speaker 1: ever really listened to music, if you ever really felt
Speaker 1: that groove?
Speaker 3: This is what they do.
Speaker 1: They point to research into the perceived medical benefits of marijuana,
Speaker 1: and there are some well established aspects here. The most
Speaker 1: common one, by far, the most common argument for medical
Speaker 1: marijuana in the US is for pain control.
Speaker 2: No weed, no matter.
Speaker 1: How strong it is, right, or how strong people tell
Speaker 1: you it is. It's pain relieving effect is not going
Speaker 1: to be strong enough to get you through, say, the
Speaker 1: severe pain of instantly being in a car accident. There's
Speaker 1: the reason why EMTs don't automatically give people in the
Speaker 1: intensely traumatic car accidents a weed brownie. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It still is effective though, for chronic pain,
Speaker 1: and chronic pain is a huge problem for millions of
Speaker 1: people in this country, especially as people age. It is
Speaker 1: whether you love it or hate it or don't care.
Speaker 1: Marijuana and it's different derivative products are all safer than opiates.
Speaker 1: You can't really overdose on it. Addiction debate a side.
Speaker 1: It is far less addictive than an opioid. It can
Speaker 1: also people will argue, They'll say it will take the
Speaker 1: place of things like advil or leave if you can't
Speaker 1: use those things due to you know, their delettorious effects
Speaker 1: on the kidneys, or you know, maybe they interact with
Speaker 1: pre existing ulcers or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, marijuana for a long time has
Speaker 2: been purported to do a ton of other helpful things
Speaker 2: like easing just nerve pain in general, like that chronic
Speaker 2: pain or just other general pain. It's said to be
Speaker 2: able to act as a muscle relaxant and people, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, actually, we know it's been shown to lessen
Speaker 2: tremors in Parkinson's disease and as we mentioned, the seizures
Speaker 2: in epilepsy like it has been shown to do this.
Speaker 2: And you know, it does feel as though, at least
Speaker 2: if you're looking at it from the reporting and the
Speaker 2: scientific you know, reports that have been coming out on
Speaker 2: it for years and years and years now, it seems
Speaker 2: to have lots of beneficial effects.
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean the old getting the munchies
Speaker 3: quality of weed is actually a very very powerful and
Speaker 3: important thing for folks who are going through cancer treatment.
Speaker 3: Let's say, who don't want to eat because they're constantly nauseous,
Speaker 3: or they're just don't don't feel well. You know, you
Speaker 3: don't want to you don't have an appetite if you
Speaker 3: constantly in pain, and marijuana absolutely does give you an
Speaker 3: increased appetite.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's in addition to being a muscle relaxant
Speaker 1: and a general pain pain lessener I'm making that, yeah,
Speaker 1: and something that can generally suppress pain, it also suppresses nausea,
Speaker 1: It relieves eye pressure, decreases muscle spasms, simulates the appetite,
Speaker 1: stops convulsions, and apparently can go a long way toward
Speaker 1: eliminating menstrual pain. This just full disclosure. There was an
Speaker 1: Illuminati Global Unlimited commercial for some related products. However, due
Speaker 1: to the sticky federal status of marijuana, they pulled out
Speaker 1: at the last second.
Speaker 2: So sticky federal status of the icky, sticky iky Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's also because of these therapeutic effects used to treat
Speaker 1: symptoms of conditions that are often in cure. We're talking
Speaker 1: about aids. For example, right as you said, your stomach
Speaker 1: feels a little better, you're finally able to eat. Glaucoma
Speaker 1: and epilepsy, and even multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis in particular
Speaker 1: is an area where there there aren't a ton of
Speaker 1: options for treatment. You know, people who have taken things
Speaker 1: like neurotin lyrica or opiates find them to be effective,
Speaker 1: but to also have this massive sedative effect, right, or
Speaker 1: sedating effect. So they'll say, look, I could take these
Speaker 1: drugs that will knock me out like I've been hit
Speaker 1: with a you know, uh, industrial level tranquilizer. But if
Speaker 1: I ingest marijuana in some way, I can do whatever
Speaker 1: I was doing beforehand or whatever I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and I don't feel completely out of it. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I'm on a mandatory forced nap where I'm
Speaker 1: somehow mentally checked out. I still feel present. But these
Speaker 1: claims remain controversial, and part of it is because there
Speaker 1: are a ton for everyone sort of scientifically supported claim
Speaker 1: about benefits of this substance. There are ten twelve, twenty five,
Speaker 1: fifty seven sixty nine nice different ideas or claims about
Speaker 1: other stuff that marijuana can purportedly do. And to some people,
Speaker 1: make no mistake, marijuana transcends medicine entirely. Like it's a
Speaker 1: substantial part of the religion of Rastafarianism, you know, And
Speaker 1: people will say, okay, you know, this is a holy
Speaker 1: thing to me. I take this in some way as
Speaker 1: part of my religious practices. Right, So, marijuana it occupies
Speaker 1: a unique space in the world of like drugs or sacrament.
Speaker 1: But of course there's a conspiracy because some people say,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, yeah, marijuana.
Speaker 2: May do more.
Speaker 1: I'm waving my finger in the air here, Yeah marijuana
Speaker 1: may help paying But it does more than that, you see.
Speaker 1: They argue marijuana has been unfairly vilified and banned, not
Speaker 1: because it is dangerous to humans, but because it is
Speaker 1: instead dangerous to the financial status quo of things like
Speaker 1: big pharma and the healthcare industry. Weed, they argue, can
Speaker 1: actually cure cancer. I know many of us are saying, wait, what,
Speaker 1: that's what this episode is about.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it was in the title. Guys, people forgot
Speaker 2: because of the short term memory loss thing. You know,
Speaker 2: because everybody listening to this.
Speaker 1: Is here's where it gets crazy. It is true, well
Speaker 1: at least it's true that some people believe marijuana can
Speaker 1: cure cancer. We have a specific exam just to give
Speaker 1: you a more humanistic, qualitative anecdotal account here.
Speaker 3: So in twenty fourteen, a then sixty three year old
Speaker 3: gentleman by the name of Mike Cutler claimed that cannabis
Speaker 3: oil cured him of cancer of the liver, which he'd
Speaker 3: been diagnosed with in two thousand and nine, actually received
Speaker 3: a liver transplant the same year, and then the cancer
Speaker 3: came back in late twenty twelve after he learned about
Speaker 3: cannabis oil from a YouTube video. No less sure as
Speaker 3: doctor was all about that. You know, it's like YouTube
Speaker 3: or WebMD that is a doctor's worst enemy. Cutler said
Speaker 3: that he began to take the oil and his pain
Speaker 3: disappeared in only three days. Then a biopsy at the
Speaker 3: Royal Free Hospital in London proved that his cancerous cells
Speaker 3: had in fact vanished.
Speaker 2: Yep, that was great for a time, but he got
Speaker 2: diagnosed with lung cancer in July twenty fourteen, and unfortunately
Speaker 2: he passed away in twenty fourteen in December.
Speaker 1: So this is just one example, and there are multitudes
Speaker 1: of similar stories, perhaps some stories that will come to
Speaker 1: us directly from you listening. In some of these stories,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. A lot of them end with someone
Speaker 1: someone ultimately dying of cancer because it pops up somewhere
Speaker 1: else in their body. But in other stories there are
Speaker 1: inexplicable remissions, and it does seem that the cancer cells
Speaker 1: not only disappear like they did the Royal Free Hospital
Speaker 1: in London, but that they disappear for good. And this
Speaker 1: leads to these conspiratorial claims, and they're very they're very familiar.
Speaker 1: They differ a little bit in the specifics, but if
Speaker 1: we look at it academically, we see this shame trends
Speaker 1: time and time again, and it's many people who believe
Speaker 1: cannabis can cure all or some types of cancer that
Speaker 1: it functions as a panacea for cancer. Also believe that
Speaker 1: this is not They're not some like a person who's
Speaker 1: hip to a secret truth of the world. They believe
Speaker 1: this is common knowledge at the top of the medical industry.
Speaker 1: And the argument goes like this, it's more profitable for
Speaker 1: big Pharma or insert medical boogeyman here to sell synthetic
Speaker 1: drugs or even substances that are derived ultimately from cannabis,
Speaker 1: and instead of curing patients, lock them into a subscription service.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've talked about this so many times on the
Speaker 2: show before. The cons true, Well, the cons yes. On
Speaker 2: the base level, it is true that if you can
Speaker 2: lock someone into a subscription service of any kind, it
Speaker 2: is a better business model for you. And that goes
Speaker 2: for everything from the media you consume, to the drugs
Speaker 2: you take, to the sickness you have. In this case,
Speaker 2: in a very messed up way, it makes more sense
Speaker 2: to sell someone a monthly service than to just cure
Speaker 2: them so they don't have to buy anything from you ever.
Speaker 1: Again, right, and from a business perspective, from a capitalist perspective,
Speaker 1: why would someone what would a company allow a plant
Speaker 1: that grows wild and is readily cheaply available to eat
Speaker 1: into your profits. All you had to do. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is prime the pump a little bit
Speaker 1: with some lobbying millions and make sure that the plant
Speaker 1: is illegal. You can do it through racist propaganda, or
Speaker 1: you can just sponsor the right politicians to push that
Speaker 1: bill through, and then after that plant's illegal, you can
Speaker 1: get a loophole in the bill whereby you sell proprietary,
Speaker 1: expensive derivatives and they're the only game in town, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So you could you could pay
Speaker 1: I don't know how much people pay for weed, but
Speaker 1: you know you could pay buy like a joint and
Speaker 1: smoke it. Or you could get a one hundred plus
Speaker 1: dollars a month prescription that just kept you popping pills
Speaker 1: to repress your chronic pain while not at all curing
Speaker 1: the condition. So it's bad for the people, but it's
Speaker 1: great for the companies. And the fact that this does
Speaker 1: not seem outright and possible, the fact that, like you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: there are similar cases where stuff like this has happened,
Speaker 1: even if they don't evolve weed. That fact disturb everyone listening.
Speaker 1: You know, we no longer think of this as some
Speaker 1: way out there quote unquote tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. We
Speaker 1: all listen to this and we think of stories we've
Speaker 1: heard in recent years.
Speaker 4: And go, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It does feel at least to make a li more
Speaker 2: sense than one would hope.
Speaker 1: But is it true. We'll dive into that after word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: All right, we are back. Now, let's jump right into this,
Speaker 2: and let's kind of aim at the more skeptical people
Speaker 2: in the audience. If you don't mind everyone listening, Thank
Speaker 2: you for speaking with you.
Speaker 3: Now that's the non high ones, right, Well, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it just depends.
Speaker 2: But let's consider just this concept of an industry, specifically
Speaker 2: healthcare industry, of some sort of big pharma suppressing cannabis
Speaker 2: without some kind of miraculous cancer cure, without it being
Speaker 2: a cancer cure. Right, So let's look to twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: because that year the Guardian found that some pharma pharmaceutical
Speaker 2: companies were putting money, a lot of money, just pouring
Speaker 2: it into the fight to keep illegal and they weren't alone.
Speaker 2: Other companies that sell a product that is meant to
Speaker 2: have a similar effect alcohol companies were doing the same thing.
Speaker 2: So strangely enough, they kind of alcohol and healthcare found
Speaker 2: themselves on the same side, right, big alcohol, I guess
Speaker 2: in big pharma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big booze, how about that? Yeah? Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing because their motivation, from what we can tell,
Speaker 1: seems to be less a matter of hiding some miraculous
Speaker 1: cure and more a matter of protecting their financial interest,
Speaker 1: protecting their market share in what I'd like to call
Speaker 1: the intoxication racket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does make sense if you think about
Speaker 2: it for a few moments.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Ryman, who was manager of marijuana Law
Speaker 1: and Policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group
Speaker 1: that promotes drug reforms, said we've definitely seen a more
Speaker 1: active opposition from the pharma industry. Research conducted by myself
Speaker 1: and others shows that medical cannabis patients are substituting cannabis
Speaker 1: for pharmaceuticals at a very high rate and for alcohol
Speaker 1: at a pretty high rate as well. So this is
Speaker 1: a financial threat maybe.
Speaker 2: And then if we go and look at the old alcohol,
Speaker 2: I don't know what we call him, big alcohol, the
Speaker 2: inebriati ooh, the Inebriati.
Speaker 1: I didn't make that up. That's from some comedy writers
Speaker 1: that I enjoy.
Speaker 2: Well, Hey, comedy writers, whoever you are, Michel and we oh,
Speaker 2: Mitchell and web Oh yeah, Inebriati oh Man, thanks guys.
Speaker 2: I could listen to them for hours. So let's go.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the Arizona Wine and Spirits Wholesale Association,
Speaker 2: because this outfit gave one of the largest donations to
Speaker 2: the Arizona anti anti legalization campaign. It paid ten grand
Speaker 2: for Arizona's for Responsible Drug Policy. They just, you know,
Speaker 2: ten grand isn't a ton of money, but it is
Speaker 2: a pretty hefty donation. They were very much interested in
Speaker 2: not having marijuana become legalized in Arizona. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then the Beer Distributors Political Action Committee recently donated
Speaker 3: twenty five k to the Campaign for a Safe and
Speaker 3: Healthy Massachusetts, making it the state's third largest backer of
Speaker 3: the opposition to recreational cannabis.
Speaker 2: I have to say, I'm honestly a little surprised that
Speaker 2: these numbers aren't higher.
Speaker 3: I am too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason they seem smaller is because they're specific donations.
Speaker 1: If you looked, if you pulled the numbers for maybe
Speaker 1: beer distributors pac overall, you would see these dribs and drabs,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, kind of like the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Public Roads was channeling in very small amounts across
Speaker 1: a wide distribution network. That way you can stay out
Speaker 1: of the news for you know, giving a million dollars
Speaker 1: to the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: Here's some irony for you. We've got Purdue Pharma and
Speaker 3: Abbott Laboratories, makers of oxy content and Vikaden, which are
Speaker 3: you know, very powerful opioid painkillers. They were among the
Speaker 3: largest contributors to the Anti Drug Coalition of America. Wait
Speaker 3: a minute, drug companies, Yes, contributing to anti drug packs
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. It is that a would you
Speaker 3: consider that a pack coalition?
Speaker 2: Look, if you can smoke it, noel or snort it,
Speaker 2: it's not a real drug.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, we'll tell that other the people that crush
Speaker 3: up and snort oxy content.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, that's their medicine.
Speaker 2: Go back to middle school. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh to see dare to get the data presentation idea.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, guys, I still thought that song slapped.
Speaker 1: They got me with the.
Speaker 3: Song there's a song. Yeah, I remember the dare sound.
Speaker 1: I'll play it for you off air, right, So there
Speaker 1: were a couple I think, but but you're right. And
Speaker 1: to compound this, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America,
Speaker 1: this is one of marijuana's biggest official opponents, spent almost
Speaker 1: nineteen million dollars on lobbying in twenty fifteen and then
Speaker 1: increased that in twenty sixteen. And they didn't This didn't
Speaker 1: come out of just some brainstorming session. They have a
Speaker 1: lot of quantitative data to back their apprehension because in
Speaker 1: states that have legalized medical marijuana, opiate overdoses have dropped
Speaker 1: by roughly twenty five percent. That's a huge number. And
Speaker 1: that's in comparison to states that have prohibited sales marijuana.
Speaker 1: And this was a study not by some advocacy group
Speaker 1: paid shadow money. This was a study in twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: from the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is
Speaker 1: above legit in most In most of these kinds of conversations,
Speaker 1: think about that they're pouring millions of dollars into legislative
Speaker 1: mechanisms to stop marijuana legalization, not because they're concerned about
Speaker 1: the health of people. But because it's reducing opioid use.
Speaker 2: Okay, I did think about that, Ben, and I don't
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: So the studies imply that people could be using medical
Speaker 1: marijuana to treat their chronic pain rather than the alternative
Speaker 1: of opioid painkillers, or maybe they're mixing the two and
Speaker 1: they're taking lower doses of opioids than they would normally
Speaker 1: be taking, which would of course a produce.
Speaker 2: Bottom line, Yeah, that would be bad for Purdue, the manufacturer,
Speaker 2: and for the insurance industry as well.
Speaker 1: And research by the University of Georgia shows that medicare
Speaker 1: prescriptions for drugs that would treat chronic pain and anxiety
Speaker 1: also dropped in states that legalized at least medical marijuana.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about the idea, and this is
Speaker 1: an idea that many people believe that marijuana can somehow
Speaker 1: cure cancer and has been suppressed by the powers that be,
Speaker 1: we have to look at the claims and they're controversial.
Speaker 1: Going back to our opening anecdote, while Cutler was almost
Speaker 1: certainly correct that marijuana lessened his pain, he did ultimately
Speaker 1: pass away due to cancer. And then we have to
Speaker 1: look at the proven functions, because marijuana does appear to
Speaker 1: be legit at doing some of the things people say
Speaker 1: it does.
Speaker 3: So let's go into some of the facts the proven
Speaker 3: functions of marijuana. It does appear that it's effective in
Speaker 3: treating conditions associated with chronic diseases and cancer, and some
Speaker 3: cannabinoids may have anti cancer qualities. Weed has not been
Speaker 3: conclusively proven effective at combating cancer itself, though, or.
Speaker 2: Has it well for that. Let's check out this recent
Speaker 2: article from the Journal of the American Medical Association. There
Speaker 2: is a doctor here, doctor Donald Abrams. He's an integrative
Speaker 2: oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco. And there's
Speaker 2: another gentleman, doctor Manuel Guzman, a researcher and professor of
Speaker 2: biochemistry over at the University of Madrid or the Complictense
Speaker 2: University in Madrid. And these guys were very optimistic or
Speaker 2: at least found optimistic results when they were looking at
Speaker 2: this pre clinical evidence of the anti cancer activities of cannabinoids.
Speaker 2: It's pretty crazy. The author's site studies mainly conducted using
Speaker 2: animal models, so using a testing method of trying it
Speaker 2: out on an animal, right, And there are four areas
Speaker 2: where cancer finding effects of cannabinoids were found right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they found they could help induce death of cancer
Speaker 1: cells while not this is important, while not targeting healthy cells,
Speaker 1: could also block the proliferation of cancer cells, could impair
Speaker 1: tumor growth, and could inhibit the spread of these cancer cells.
Speaker 1: These are all these all sound very closely related, but
Speaker 1: they are. They are distinct things and very important, that's right.
Speaker 1: Especially again the golden goose here is just as much
Speaker 1: what these substances do not target as it is what
Speaker 1: they do target. Yes, So the doctors say there are
Speaker 1: two other additional areas, and they found this in vitro
Speaker 1: and animal studies. They said cannaboids selectively target cancer cells.
Speaker 1: And they said they they can act in synergy with
Speaker 1: standard anti cancer therapies, so they can be kind of
Speaker 1: a cocktail.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They have a cumulative effect with other cancer treatments, and
Speaker 1: they can help mitigate tumor growth without increasing toxicity to
Speaker 1: the host. Because you know, for a long time cures
Speaker 1: for cancer were incredibly traumatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, You're you're introducing chemicals into the body that are
Speaker 2: going to injure you, You're going to lose your hair.
Speaker 2: There are all kinds of effects that you're going to
Speaker 2: get from trying to kill off the bad things, and
Speaker 2: it's hurting the rest of your body as well. Right.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that the authors themselves are not
Speaker 1: one hundred percent on board with this because they're worried
Speaker 1: that it'll get twisted out of proportion, as you know,
Speaker 1: as so often happens with science headlines. They say, look,
Speaker 1: don't take these results that we found in these very
Speaker 1: controlled conditions and try to, you know, extrapolate those to
Speaker 1: real life conclusions.
Speaker 2: And make blanket statements about them.
Speaker 1: And make blanket statements exactly. They say, you know, the
Speaker 1: one of the most dangerous things you can do is
Speaker 1: throw conventional treatments out of the water and just start
Speaker 1: trying to mess with really, really potent cannabis medicine, because
Speaker 1: if you're doing that instead of consulting with a doctor
Speaker 1: and going through proven cancer treatments, you're dramatically lowering your
Speaker 1: chances of recovery. We even have a quote from doctor
Speaker 1: Abrams about this.
Speaker 3: That's right. He says, one of the most painful things
Speaker 3: that I have to deal with are people who have
Speaker 3: a potentially curable malignancy who choose to treat it with
Speaker 3: cannabis oils, and by the time they come to see me.
Speaker 3: They are incurable with metastatic disease. He went on to
Speaker 3: observe the people who claim that cannabis cured their cancer
Speaker 3: often forget that they had already used other conventional treatments,
Speaker 3: which he finds to be particularly misleading.
Speaker 1: Right, maybe they're misattributing the true cause of their improvement
Speaker 1: right there. This is something that physicians who specialize in
Speaker 1: cannabis can also agree with. There's a guy named doctor
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Hergan rather and I love that name. He has
Speaker 1: some of the same concerns as these doctors in that
Speaker 1: Jama article, and he says, look, in some cases, using
Speaker 1: cannabis has stopped tumor growth or caused a cancer to disappear,
Speaker 1: but in others it didn't work to great effect, and
Speaker 1: not all cancers are the same, so of course not
Speaker 1: all cancers respond the same way. But he said, there's
Speaker 1: an interesting trick of the methodology here because a lot
Speaker 1: of patients who used cannabis and swear by it used
Speaker 1: it along with their conventional therapies, and the fact that
Speaker 1: they used it that way excludes them from being included
Speaker 1: in the National Cancer Institute database. So maybe it's good
Speaker 1: for them individually, but we were lacking opportunity to build
Speaker 1: a larger understanding to a long story short, Yes, people
Speaker 1: believe it. There is a little bit of science behind it,
Speaker 1: and there is truth to the story of these established
Speaker 1: businesses trying to repress this, likely for a profit motive,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. If even if there is
Speaker 1: some panas some silver bullet cure for cancer from marijuana,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Even if there's not one, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: These companies want to make money. That's why they're there.
Speaker 1: They're trying to adapt in an environment where the attitude
Speaker 1: toward cannabis is changing.
Speaker 3: Which it absolutely is.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Research continues, but as of now, experts do agree that
Speaker 3: the best use of cannabis towards cancer is as a
Speaker 3: symptom reliever, not as a cure. Nausea, appetite, loss, pain, sleep, anxiety,
Speaker 3: all of that stuff are greatly improved by use of cannabis.
Speaker 3: There's no question about that. At least some of these
Speaker 3: indications are supported in the landmark twenty seventeen Report on
Speaker 3: the Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids that was published
Speaker 3: by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.
Speaker 1: So what do you think? This is an ongoing story
Speaker 1: because research does continue. There's more and more research as
Speaker 1: people are able to legally engage in clinical trials, or
Speaker 1: I should say, as it's easier for people to get
Speaker 1: clinical trials approved. What place should marijuana have in the
Speaker 1: United States, in the world at large, and in the
Speaker 1: hospitals in those countries and on our planet? Let us know.
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Speaker 2: All right? Yeah, leave me alone. My name is Matt Frederick. Cool,
Speaker 2: I'm just showking. It's Matt Frederick Underscore, iHeart I believe.
Speaker 2: Good luck to you. If you don't want that stuff,
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Speaker 2: tell us anything you want about this episode or any
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Speaker 2: us in talk about the hot sauce cancer cure that
Speaker 2: I'm reading about right now. I was really hoping that
Speaker 2: this study here would be a little a little more
Speaker 2: positive that yeah, hot sauce does cure cancer, because I
Speaker 2: would be so cancer free. But it looks like I
Speaker 2: may be wrong. Yeah, any other things that you think
Speaker 2: or that we need to know about as far as
Speaker 2: a cancer cure, a possible cancer cure, let us know.
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