Can anybody give me any information on cannabis oil. If anyone has used it etc.I thought it was a scam and didn't help, but have just watched a BBC news piece about it.
I've never used it but I have read an awful lot about it and despite my best efforts I find it difficult to keep an open mind. The hype around it is overwhelming but it looks and feels like yet another "snake oil" miracle cure whose main advocates almost always seem to be the people who are selling it.
Like the Black Cumin Oil claims I helped debate a few days ago, most of the claims are based on in vitro (test tube) or animal experimentation in which chemicals extracted from cannabis oil are directly applied to cancer cells. Hardly a practical way of applying them inreal life - expecially if we're talking about swallowing them as they will be digested and broken down long before they can reach the levels within the blood stream which will replicate the levels when directly applied in a test tube.
Here are some pretty good articles which helped shape my opinion - there are lots of others!
skepdic.com/ricksimpson.html - which contains the classic line "Rick Simpson may be a brilliant man and I don't think we should hold it against him that he has no medical background or that his education stopped in the 9th grade. But, like many brilliant men, Simpson did not try to back up his personal experience with scientific evidence. He did what most of do most of the time: he set out to confirm what he believed."
CRUK has also produced a pretty good blog about this which has quite naturally been dismissed by many pro-cannabis lobbyists on the grounds that CRUK and other Cancer Charities have a vested interest in NOT finding a cure for cancer because that would put them all out of a job.
If you really want you could use it alongside your current treatments. Its cheaper by far than the black cumin seed oil recently discussed but neither will cure your cancer. As Davek points out you digestive system will just use it as food the same as if you consumed some olive oil or sunflower oil. The oil sold in health food shops is from the seeds of hemp plants and in many parts of the world is used for cooking with. There is another oil made from cannabis flowers which is a narcotic and is illegal here in the UK. Dave posted some excellent links on the subject which took quite some reading, I didnt understand a lot of the chemistry and methodology of the trials but got the gist that its not a miracle cure. I did however get one of my sons who has a masters degree in chemistry to read the Science Based Medicine article and he too concurred there is no certain proof in the results from those trials that cannabis is beneficial in the treatment of cancer. The doses of individual components given to mice in the trials was very high, the breast cancer surgeon who wrote the article put into laymans terms that you would have to smoke 1000 joints to get that level in the bloodstream. A pothead friend of mine doesnt smoke that in a year! The well regarded BBC often reports sensationalist headlines to keep their audience figures up so keep your guard.
Just to add to the interesting discussion here, at the moment there isn't enough evidence from clinical trials in patients to know whether cannabis or cannabinoids are an effective cancer treatment, but research is ongoing.
There is evidence that molecules found in cannabis can kill cancer cells in the lab, but Petri dishes aren't people. Cancer Research UK is supporting clinical trials of cannabis extract and a synthetic cannabinoid, to find out how best to use these molecules to benefit patients. You can read more here.
