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