Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

PARIS – The ingredient that gives cannabis its “high” and famously whets the appetite can help cancer patients recover lost pleasure in food, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Researchers in Canada enrolled 21 patients who had been treated with chemotherapy for advanced cancer, and gave them either capsules containing THC — delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis — or dummy lookalike pills.

The volunteers took the tablets for 18 days, and were asked to fill in questionnaires.

Seventy-three percent of those who took the THC reported an increased liking for food and 55 percent said the medication “made food taste better”. In the placebo group, these figures were only 30 percent and 10 percent.

Both groups consumed roughly the same total of calories, but the THC patients said they ate more protein than before the start of the experiment and enjoyed savoury foods more.

The THC-takers also reported better quality of sleep and relaxation than in the placebo group.

The experiment is small scale but the first to explore the touted qualities of THC through random selection of volunteers and use of a “control” group by which to make a comparison.

Lead investigator Wendy Wismer, an associate professor at the University of Alberta, said the findings were important because cancer, or its treatment, can cripple appetite and lead to dangerous weight loss.

Many cancer patients, for instance, complain that meat smells and tastes unpleasant, so they eat less of it.

“For a long time, everyone has thought that nothing could be done about this,” Wismer said in a press release.

“Indeed, cancer patients are often told to ‘cope’ with chemosensory problems by eating bland, cold and colourless food. This may well have the result of reducing food intake and food enjoyment.”

Wismer said that doctors should consider THC treatment for cancer patients suffering from loss of taste, smell and appetite.

THC was well tolerated, and in terms of side effects there were no differences between the THC and placebo groups, which suggests that long-term therapy is also an option, she said.

The study appears in the journal Annals of Oncology, published by the European Society for Medical Oncology.

David Edwards
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

It’s becoming more and more difficult to find juries that will produce a guilty verdict in marijuana cases, according to a judge in Missoula County, Montana.

“I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount,” District Judge Dusty Deschamps said Friday after potential jurors refused to convict a Montana man for having a 1/16 of an ounce of Marijuana.

An April 23 search of Touray Cornell’s home found several used marijuana joints, a pipe, and some residue. He’s is also charged with the criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

Cornell’s neighbors had called the police because they thought he was selling drugs. The defendant admitted in an affidavit that he had distributed small amounts of marijuana.

One potential juror after another told the court that the would not convict the man for possessing a 1/16 of an ounce.

Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul told the Associated Press that the jurors staged “a mutiny.”

“District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree,” the Missoulianreported. “Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised their hands. A couple of others had already been excused because of their philosophical objections.”

“I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we can seat a jury,” Deschamps said.

Paul and Cornell’s attorney, Martin Elison, worked out a plea deal during recess.

Public opinion “is not supportive of the state’s marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances,” Elison wrote in the plea agreement.

Cornell entered an Alford plea Friday, not admitting guilt, but acknowledging there was enough evidence to convict him. The judge sentenced Cornell to 20 years with 19 of them suspended. Cornell was given credit for the 200 days already served.

“I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount,” the judge said.

“It’s kind of a reflection of society as a whole on the issue,” he added.

“If more potential jurors start turning down nonviolent drug cases, our drug laws will change,”Jason Kuznicki wrote for the blog The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

Jury nullification often happens when a law is perceived to be unjust. During alcohol prohibition, nearly 60 percent of trials were nullified by jurors. Nullification was also often used in cases involving the Alien and Sedition and Fugitive Slave Acts.

In a more recent case, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf suspectedthat jury nullification was used to spare former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Chris Morris, CNBC.com

Recreational users of marijuana are seeing price cuts on the street thanks to the growing number of states that have approved the drug for medicinal use.

The price of cannabis, of course, varies wildly — depending on the strain purchased, its potency and the parts of the plant. Top quality pot in New York, for example, costs nearly $442 per ounce, while low quality is just $161, according to one website that tracks costs, PriceofWeed.com.

On the whole, though, prices have been dropping nationwide over the past three to four years.

High Times magazine, in its October issue, declared “It’s a buyer’s market!”, noting that the average price per ounce nationwide had fallen $49 in the past month alone.

Oregon boasts the country’s cheapest pot, with the price of a high quality ounce running $259.13, according to PriceofWeed.com, a site that uses crowd-sourcing methodology to track marijuana prices around the country. (Anonymous users who buy the drug on the street input what they paid — and for how much — and the site averages out prices for the state or territory.) Montana comes in second at $273.87 per ounce. Both states are among the 14 to have passed laws allowing the medicinal use of the drug.

Georgia and Virginia are the states with the most expensive cannabis, both coming in at roughly $452 per ounce. Neither has legalized the drug in any form.

Geographically, pot tends to be more expensive along the East Coast — with the exceptions of Florida and Maine. Users there generally pay $425 or more for high quality product Midwest tokers pay a bit less.. And Western marijuana users – from Colorado onward –pay the least (typically less than $400 per ounce).

PriceofWeed.com is one of four sources insiders look to as they track the street price of pot. Allen St. Pierre, executive director of Norml (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) cites it as one his organization regularly monitors.

The others are the official DEA pricing index (which St. Pierre says is the least accurate), High Times’ monthly Trans-High Market Quotations, and Weedmaps.com, which has employees call medical dispensaries weekly for price, potency, strain name and more and then determines pricing trends from that information.

But even with the cost declines of the past few years, prices remain steep, which surprises some people.

“The vexation for the customer has been that for years, the individuals who would pay [high costs for recreational pot] did so because suppliers had all these legal threats,” says St. Pierre. “As that has been removed, there has not been a commensurate reduction in prices.”

That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, though.

In California, the price of high-grade cannabis is down roughly 17% over the past 12 months — a trend that is likely to accelerate, due in part to changes in the business practices of marijuana farmers.

“Ten to 20 yeas ago, the people who were, for lack of a better term, the migrant marijuana workers were paid in cash,” says St. Pierre. “Two or three years ago, they started getting paid in product … which they have trouble converting to cash, so they logically begin selling it illegally. People are walking to the dispensary with the mindset that they’re going to pay X dollars, then these workers will undercut that by 50%. That phenomenon is the equivalent of having a wholesaler stop people before they walk into a Wal-Mart.”

The rise of city-sanctioned grow farms, like those being planned in Oakland, could also put pressure on street prices of pot, because it would substantially boost supply.

And if more states pass medical marijuana laws and wider legalization efforts prove successful down the road, that should continue to impact prices.

A recent California ballot initiative to legalize the sale and consumption of marijuana (as well as tax it) was defeated, partly because producers feared it would result in drastically lower prices.

St. Pierre says Norml expects the price could eventually fall to something comparable to a pack of cigarettes.

The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, say researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies.

They say this is the first set of experiments to show that the compound, Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), inhibits EGF-induced growth and migration in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Lung cancers that over-express EGFR are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy.

THC that targets cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 is similar in function to endocannabinoids, which are cannabinoids that are naturally produced in the body and activate these receptors. The researchers suggest that THC or other designer agents that activate these receptors might be used in a targeted fashion to treat lung cancer.

“The beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer,” said Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine.

Acting through cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2, endocannabinoids (as well as THC) are thought to play a role in variety of biological functions, including pain and anxiety control, and inflammation. Although a medical derivative of THC, known as Marinol, has been approved for use as an appetite stimulant for cancer patients, and a small number of U.S. states allow use of medical marijuana to treat the same side effect, few studies have shown that THC might have anti-tumor activity, Preet says. The only clinical trial testing THC as a treatment against cancer growth was a recently completed British pilot study in human glioblastoma.