News » Feds ‘Recognize’ Anti-Cancer Potential of Cannabis

Several cannabis news outlets around the Web have splashed headlines regarding the National Institute of Cancer’s recognition of marijuana’s therapeutic utility for cancer patients. The NIC is part of the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency. In essence, a federal agency just acknowledged that cannabis has potential as a treatment for cancer.

Should we be elated at this admission?

While NORML and The American Independent seem to think this is great news, we here at CannaCentral are leery of the announcement. Why?

The Independent linked to and quoted from the new white paper from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, but failed to draw the line between the paper’s statements and this NIC announcement.

To summarize: what we’re seeing are the bureaucratic steps and “scientific” backing needed to justify a Big Pharma back door for medical cannabis. How? Read the ASAM white paper and it’s spelled out. Their beef with marijuana is not over it’s medical use or even over questions of whether or not it’s addictive. Their beef is that it’s not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Read that again, folks. They are unhappy about medical cannabis because it’s not regulated by the FDA. Yes, that FDA. The same one that’s in bed with Big Pharma and a revolving door of executives to and from pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists.

The same FDA that’s pushing to have the DEA reclassify cannabinoids and THC so that their pill-pushing buddies can patent THC-derivatives and CBs to sell on the market.

Do you think your home-grown or collectives will withstand the politics that will then be created? Because your plants aren’t “regulated” and can’t “guarantee dosages,” they’ll become targets for removal. You’ll have to take Mary Jane Pills, folks. Patent medicines that won’t come cheap and won’t contain the hundreds of compounds in marijuana that make it do what it does.

Big Pharma is reeling because they’re running out of pills to push as patents run out quickly. The best they can do right now is create new iterations of the same old pills and get their FDA buddies to outlaw the older generics (over 500 off the market just for colds and allergies).

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see the writing on the wall here. Lets sum it up:

The DEA, under pressure from the FDA, is considering reclassifying marijuana so that drug companies can use its compounds in patent medicines. The FDA is pulling older (generic-available) drugs off the market to favor still-patented versions. A federal agency that is part of the National Institutes of Health just said that cannabis has anti-cancer potential. The American Society of Addiction Medicine responds to the NIH with a paper emphasizing that cannabis is not FDA regulated.

It doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to put this puzzle together, people. We’re going to get hosed. Again.

Tags: addictive medicine, asam, cancer, cannabis, DEA, fda, marijuana, medical, MMJ, NIC, NIH, NORML