Part 5: Ironically, MMJ blocks clinical research into cannabis’ healing properties

fireworks

Yep, MMJ advocates, we’ve got more fireworks for you.

Today is July 4th, American Independence Day, a celebratory day we pause to examine “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” after 235 years.

That’s a long time, 235 years. 80 years is a good chunk of change, too. That’s how long a falsely accused herb has spent sequestered in solitary confinement, strapped in a restraint device that rhymes with fall and rain.

It’s bad enough that keeping cannabis under wraps is strangling the economy. But as we learn more and more about the healing properties of cannabis — and I’m not just talking about providing palliative relief from headaches, I’m talking about tackling the most toxic diseases and defeating them — Cannabis Commerce finds itself at a crossroads. So, should this publication stick to poteconomics, while others talk up the tremendous promise of cannabinoids and other disease-scavenging THC sub-compounds?

Suffice it to say I’ve turned down the best drunken pig-outs and fireworks Denver has on tap to bring you the saddest fallout from MMJ in the mainstream.

I’ve been sitting on this one, waiting for the right time and the right place to unleash it.

That time is now. The place is here.

In an ironic twist, “medical” marijuana actually blocks critical clinical research into cannabinoids that could confirm THC’s effectiveness at controlling, neutralizing, and reversing any number of catastrophic ailments.

That’s because when you approve MMJ initiatives, like the pending Ohio Medical Cannabis Act of 2012, authored “for the sole benefit of the sick and dying,” you essentially give the DEA tacit approval that it’s perfectly OK with you to maintain cannabis as a Schedule One drug . . . and to manage it in a very special way, under very special conditions, that no other drug or herb is subject to.

That’s with the crack management team Ball & Chain in charge, meaning it will be next to impossible to conduct telling studies on an illicit substance.

Messrs. Ball and Chain are one and the same overseers who gave us the following agenda:

  • Dynamic MMJ laws will force existing businesses, who jumped through every beaurocratic hoop, onto the street.
  • MMJ will limit cannatax to 5% of what it could be.
  • MMJ will limit cannajobs to 5% of what they could be.
  • MMJ will limit contribution to GDP to 5% of what it could be.

Now we can add to the list, “MMJ will indefinitely postpone clinical studies into the curative power of THC on systemic diseases in humans.” That achievement is hereby awarded its own bullet point:

  • MMJ will indefinitely block research into THC’s healing effects . . . even as a half-million Americans die each year of cancer.
female lab worker performing tests on cannabis thc

The cannabis plant’s positive effect on vitality is finally receiving mainstream attention. Unfortunately, this lab worker is testing on mice, not humans. Schedule One drugs can’t be tested on humans.

That tandem of Ball and Chain, which got up to speed attending intensive seminars at the vaunted DEA School of Hypocrisy, doesn’t just hand out “Schedule One drugs” like M&Ms to any lab itching to blow the world away with breakthrough research. Why would they? If a substance they’ve portrayed as a demonic drug for eighty years actually turns out to have “miraculous” healing properties — which proponents have insisted since the 70’s — then the DEA looks foolish for suppressing the information for so long.

The DEA already knows that every man, woman, and child will eventually realize the agency has been lying to them for eighty years. However, everyone who presently works for the DEA brings home the bacon in the form of sizable government paychecks. DEA agents are also piling up government pensions. They’re delaying the inevitable for as long as they possibly can.

Inadvertently, MMJ activists have actually been helping the DEA maintain the status quo.

I hate to break this to you, but a vote for MMJ is a vote against holding clinical studies targeted at proving cannabis’ effectiveness at mitigating major human maladies.

sculpture showing head made of pills about to swallow another pill held by hand made of pills

Witty caption unnecessary.

There is a school of thought which suggests that another force entirely is at work. Could Big Pharma, not “the government,” be suppressing research into the rejuvenating properties of cannaboloids, cannabinoids, and other THC sub-compounds . . . because it can’t patent them or control them? And because cannabis-based products would compete against their own questionably-effective cancer drugs?

There’s no way to prove or disprove if that sort of conspiracy exists. Big Pharma mimics Big Tobacco in forcing employees to to sign ironclad non-disclosure agreements. Potential whisteblowers face financial devastation, not to mention substantial jail time, if they’re disgruntled enough to disclose inner-sanctum dialog about MJ, MMJ, or both.

But do I subscribe to that school of thought?

It doesn’t feel right to me.

Premlinary research indicates that the THC molecule and it’s disease-fighting sub-molecules are effective against a broad spectrum of ailments from cancer to . . . ahem . . . hammertoe. So it stands to reason that there are any number of profitable pharmaceutical lines worth developing, whether or not a patent is held. If one pharmaceutical company released a line of cannathrerapy products, they’d all follow suit.

I would be shocked if every Big Pharma player doesn’t have contingency plans A, B, and C in place, ready to unleash the nanosecond Legalization Day arrives.

old photo of chain gang

“See if you boys kin dig me up summa them cannibblenoids, willya?

But, as things stand, working on the chain gang as we are, we won’t know if cannabis can “cure” cancer, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis — to name a trio that looks promising — unless we realize MMJ has sold us a bill of goods and take appropriate action.

That means one thing only: repealing prohibition, enabling scientists to perform clinical studies.

It’s disheartening to note that curing cancer might require that monster prerequisite. What is known for certain is that desperately needed clinical studies — on humans, not mice — won’t be taking place under any MMJ system anytime soon.

Meanwhile, dispensary owners and young ladies with the natural attributes to be working at Hooters, but who are instead employed as budtenders at dispensaries — because ownership believes “patients” come in for the tits as much as the pot — will keep pretending they actually know enough about the insufficiently researched healing properties of THC to recommend specific strains for specific ailments. God bless the goddess babes, but ouch.

btw, Len Richmond’s fine DVD, What If Cannabis Cured Cancer, offers a 48-minute crash course in THC’s curative powers. It’s reviewed here.