February 12, 2020 • 55 mins
With a growing number of Western countries decriminalizing or outright legalizing cannabis, the controversial plant seems set to become an acceptable alternative to some preexisting treatments for appetite loss, chronic pain and more. Yet some supporters of medicinal marijuana products argue the chemicals in this plant can do much more than just make someone hungry or ease their pain -- marijuana, they argue, may actually cure cancer, and this is something the established pharmaceutical industry doesn't want you to know. So how do these claims hold up?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled deconds. 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 for a lot of
(00:45):
a lot of straight shooting kids in middle school and
maybe even high school, was a terrifying subject. Today, we're
talking about marijuana. That's right, conspiracy realist, left hand cigarettes,
the Devil's tobacco, Uncle Jimmy's Brain, medicine, nap nuggets, yeah,
uh pot. I'm a big fan of the Devil's lettuce.
(01:07):
That's one. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, uh grass uh, 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 Reefer Madness? Man? No, No, they
just said, don't be messing around with that stuff. Matt
and I said okay, they said, himp belongs in a necklace,
(01:27):
and some some people came to my school and they
showed me a bunch of stuff about how bad it was.
And then the police had guns and they were like,
we will use these on you if you smoke this
wacky tobaccy and I was like, okay, I does see.
They came to my school and brought a giant like
Hunter S. Thompson style suitcase full of drugs and I
was like, I want to try that one and that
(01:49):
one and that one. It just it wasn't a very
good Uh. They didn't do a good scared straight um
for in my experience. Yeah, as an award winning essayist
for Dare, I can tell you, uh, 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 trifuld wooden contraption and then they passed
(02:14):
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 guys of telling
(02:35):
us how to recognize them, you know. And 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, let's say,
a party, if something like this was going down, and
they could, I don't know, mention it to somebody, some authority.
I'm talking about physical symptoms. Yeah, yeah, you know, it
(02:59):
was well intentioned and uh, what was it? Gruff McGruff,
scruff McGruff. Yeah, he took a bite, took a bite
out of its six oh six five, really made an
impression on you. Wow, that was deep in there. So
(03:21):
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 um, this strange and
prominent position in culture and folklore and the zeitgeist. And
as a kid, you may have learned about marijuana and
(03:41):
the sort of boogeyman way like stay stay away from it.
You know. Uh, Sandy Jenkins injected one marijuana and then
committed uh dolphin genocide. You know, like these very strange,
uh exaggerated propagandistic stories that came again from a good place.
(04:01):
They 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 more and
more states are decriminalizing or even legalizing marijuana, and more
(04:24):
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 shure hindrance,
but what if it's also helpful? And to answer that
we have to first figure out what we'd actually is
and how it works. So here are the facts. I'll
(04:45):
start here. Um, 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, eve at least human humanity believes it originated
somewhere in India, specifically in a region just north of
(05:07):
the Himalayan mountains. Um. You know, we think, right, we
we know. I'm just gonna 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 uh
(05:30):
for four to five point four meters. It's pretty tall.
That's actually really dang tall. Um. And there are even
reports that these things can grow as high ast twenty
five ft. That's huge. There's another variety, um, the indica,
I suppose, So I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I
honestly don't know if it's cannabis indica, if that's what
(05:51):
it's called, or it's just an indica. I don't know
the difference. Well, indica and 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. Sorry,
I was just I think that's all it's. I don't know,
there's not there's not really an opposing one for sativa.
(06:13):
But sativa is the one that makes it gives you
a little more energy, and they referred to it as
more of a mental high, whereas an 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. Don't you make that one up?
That was good. But in the parlance of our time,
(06:34):
the whole boy, there's the indica variety, whatever that exactly entails,
is going to be shorter than the other varieties. These
more sativa variety. And as you said, being that's annual.
It has a season. When it's outdoors, it grow, it blooms.
Those flowers you mentioned Matt bloom from late summer to midfall.
(06:54):
And then, of course, surprise, a lot of people grow
this stuff inside to green houses. Uh they're the closet
of their step dad's summer cottage or something some house
near where I live, because I swear if I opened
my door, it just smells like marijuana. It's true, it's true.
(07:14):
It's also you know, you may have heard in rap
lyrics referred to as indo oh, and it's it's good
to consume along with some gin and juice. What about
sour diesel? That's just another verb. So, so it's weird
because also side sides of not condoning illegally growing pot
in your house, legally growing wheat in your house. But
(07:38):
if you are running a big grow operation, just be aware.
In areas where marijuana is still illegal, police when investigating
grow houses are able to monitor energy usage, and that's
how a lot of people get popped. Big spikes and
energy and specific times. That's a real red flag for
the authorities, right exactly. Crotchety neighbors opening their door, we're
(08:00):
going 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. 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
(08:21):
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 um in California. It's it's perfectly legal,
So you're gonna 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 then emphasized
that that's not the case everywhere exactly exactly. But also,
(08:43):
you know, it is more of a conversation now that
people are gonna be 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, et ceter around.
So let's talk about why all these people out in
California and across this nation in the world, in Colorado
(09:07):
are are smoking these flowering plants and or again, well, yeah, yeah,
that's the interest 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,
(09:29):
there are a lot of claims about this stuff because
we don't still one 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. Uh,
(09:49):
it 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
(10:11):
hundreds of different things. And of those hundreds of chemicals,
a hundred and nine of them fit into a category
called cannab anoids. That's the stuff for which Cannabis sativa
is named. That's what the annoid was named after. Himber
the Domino's pizza mascot, Thennoid. He seemed like he'd had
a little bit too much of the old Devil's lettuce
if you asked me. Yeah, and maybe it was I
(10:34):
thought maybe it was a mispronunciation of nerd, but also
possible nooid could happen. Yeah, that guy was a freak.
When what do what do Stoner's enjoy Yo Yo's pizza? Pizza?
Oh yeah, like, uh, I just went for the I
was way way past the age when I should have
figured this out, But it wasn't until like two or
(10:58):
three years ago maybe that it hit me that Bill
and Ted were stoner's. As a kid, I just thought
they were goofy, fun guys. 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
(11:19):
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. 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 name that had a picture of
Adam Driver next to a picture of Kanu Reeves and
(11:41):
they said, Adam Driver looks like somebody tried to draw
Keiana Reeves from memory. Yeah, there's also one with with
a cat that looks like Adam Driver. Cats intense. But yeah,
so so we know we know some of the chemistry here.
We know that every time someone ingests marijuana in some form, smoking, vaping,
(12:03):
drinking tea of your fancy that there is one chemical
that comes into play, yes, Delta nine tetra hydro cannabinol,
well do yeah, or th HC and other chemicals that
enter the body and they make their way through the
bloodstream right to the old brain and then eventually to
(12:25):
the rest of the body. And that th HC 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 and listening to this show right now? I'm
gonna say, uh, well, you know, no judgment if you are,
(12:52):
just be in a safe place. We can't tell if
you're wondering, so you know we we honestly can't tell
right now if you're so you guys don't even know
if I'm high or not. But that that that person
just walked past you. They know that's such an evil
thing to do to someone. I'm kidding, No, no, they
don't know. Out of my head. So so you're right, though,
(13:16):
there is this protagonist chemical, this prime player TXC. 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
(13:36):
a synapse between every neuron that 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 protein 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
(13:58):
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 th HC can sort of pull a
doppelganger effect on your bridge builders, on your neurotransmitters, so
(14:21):
they can mimic some of the things that you're ordinary
neurotransmitter would do, or they can block some of the
bridge building effects that would normally happen. And uh, this
this is interesting because these neurons, uh, they're not they're
not all created equally in terms of the kind of
stuff they're receptive to So in three areas of the
(14:44):
human brain, the hippo campus, the cerebellum, and the basil 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
(15:04):
the front of your brain here, and uh, you know
what it deals with short term memory? I forgot. Yeah,
you may have noticed if you have ever attempted U
two to tango with this particular substance, that that is
(15:25):
one thing that occurs. Um. And also I mean there
are a couple of other places in your brain also,
the cerebellum and the basil ganglia, which is just a
fun thing to say. Um, when THHC binds with the
receptors that are inside that hippocampus, it really does mess
with your short term memory because it's again like Ben
was explaining there, it it is pretending or your brain
(15:49):
those receptions in your brain think that you're like stuff
is being turned on or it's blocking things from being
turned on. There. Uh, it's just very odd. It's very
very odd that a chemical can do that. It um.
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
(16:11):
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
(16:33):
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 right. Yeah. Now that's the thing that
you know, and that's why it's always so funny when
we'd gets a bad rap as being some kind of
(16:55):
crazy dangerous drug like that, can you know, make you
do terrible things? See know, a lot of the propaganda
stuff that was entry for madness, for example, that accused
it of causing people to commit murder and you know,
rape women potentially. Well this is all from this this
propaganda film. But you know, if anything, it just causes
you to be a little sluggish, giggle at stupid stuff
(17:17):
and h like you said, maybe drive a little on
the slow side. Um, so yeah, that's it'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
(17:37):
harm to yourself or others. Absolutely. I mean, okay, so
how do we use this? Uh, just assuming ground level.
If there's anyone listening and you never knew, you were
too embarrassed to ask, you were afraid that your local
FBI or n S a intern we get mad at
you for googling it. We will tell you, by far,
the most common way people use marijuana now is through smoking,
(18:01):
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 T HC 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
(18:22):
have a ton of surface area and they help They
make it possible for the TCHC and other stuff to
enter your body, and they absorbed the smoke mere seconds
after inhalation. Vaporizers do uh similar thing. They they heat
the substance such that they vaporize the active ingredients, but
(18:44):
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 uh. This is something that people have h
often underestimated the effects of what would be called and
edible because it's it's a slow bird, right, it is
because it requires your body to actually metabolize uh the
(19:08):
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
(19:29):
tongue sublingually and that would kick in much faster. But
if you eat say baked good that has th HC
cooked in with it, it's going to take uh, depending
on how much food is already in your stomach, for example,
various amounts of time. Um. And you know the old
joke is, uh, you can always eat more, you can
never eat less. So always smart to pace yourself in
(19:50):
that respect and not think that you should just eat
an entire brownie because you also know that you don't
you don't know what the concentration is, for example, like
how much was cooked in how concentrated one little bite
of a bait 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
(20:11):
on the packet of how much is in it and
how many milligrams, for example, are in a particular dose.
So uh, handle with care, 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
(20:32):
in this country, in 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 medical effects their outweigh any dangers that
(20:52):
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. UM. So, what
we're gonna 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
(21:15):
do that, we'll have to examine the difference between two
acronyms and two very similar substances, t HC and CBD.
Will do that after a word from our sponsor, we've returned.
So cb D there's a lot like t HC and
(21:37):
has the same chemical formula, but the atoms are arranged differently.
And this very this tiny variance UH causes th HC
to have that psychoactive effect that Matt you and no
m mentioned earlier, and cb D again, because of that
uh slight difference in design, does not have the psychoactive effect.
(22:00):
This means that if someone ingest CBD for any of
those medicinal purposes, they're more likely to they're they're likely
to experience a relief in their pain or discomfort, but
they're likely to have less of a noticeable uh deterioration
of their cognitive abilities or change in their cognitive abilities.
(22:21):
And this is funny because this came into play for
our state here in the US, in Georgia, the southeastern US,
where marijuana is still i 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 asterix at the officers discretions spending on which kind
(22:44):
of officer you run into. Well, it's interesting too because
there we may have talked about this in the past,
but there were some cases in the past here in
Georgia outside of Atlanta, like a kind of in some
of the suburbs. I believe it might have been in
Gwinnette 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
(23:08):
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 out the influence. There
was some pretty nasty cases where you know, they were
(23:29):
supposedly got it wrong, you know, and someone went to jail.
And the problem with t HC 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 um at the officer's discretion is a
(23:50):
very big caveat. Yes. And the strange thing about the
way c b D became THC, whatever you want to
call it, became the criminalized here in Georgia, UH the
streets think about it is that even uh the supporters
in the local legislature made a weird, semi puritanical argument
(24:16):
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 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,
(24:40):
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. That's the way it was presented,
and and and being a little cavalier there, but obviously
they were saying that because people will get these medical
(25:00):
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 and pulling copper wire
(25:21):
out of out of houses because I need my 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 this is the societal or normalized like use of
(25:47):
this and how it becomes ingrained in a just your
everyday life, and just what the difference between that and addiction. Well,
there's there's physical addiction, and there's mental addiction, or just
routine or just enjoying something and enjoying the way, and
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, especially when you're
talking about something like CBD that doesn't have that the
(26:10):
fun part, right, but it has the the medicinal effect
of like a pain killer. 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 no real physiological impact. Right. So this
(26:36):
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,
(26:56):
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 should be recreational. 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
this is what they do. They point to research into
(27:17):
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. You know, we'd no matter how
strong it is, right, how strong people tell you it is,
(27:39):
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
E m T s don't automatically give people in intensely
traumatic car accidents a weed brownie. You know what I mean.
(27:59):
It's 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. Uh, marijuana and it's
different derivative products are all safer than opiates. You can't
(28:21):
really overdose on it. Addiction debate aside, 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 delatorious effects on the kidneys or
you know, maybe they they interact with pre existing ulcers
(28:44):
or something. Yeah, and 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 uh people, well, I mean, actually, we know that
(29:06):
it's been shown to lesson tremor's in Parkinson's disease, and
as we mentioned, um, 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, uh,
reports that have been coming out on it for years
(29:28):
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're constantly in pain, and marijuana absolutely does
(29:52):
give you an increased appetite. Yeah. Yeah, it's in addition
to being a muscle relaxant, uh into a general pain
uh pain lessener I'm making it, yeah, and something that
can generally suppress pain, it also suppresses nausea, It relieves
eye pressure, decreases muscle spasm, stimulates the appetite, stops convulsions,
(30:15):
and uh 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,
(30:37):
sticky icky Yeah. It's also because of these therapeutic effects
used to treat symptoms of conditions that are often incurable.
We're talking about AIDS for example. Right as we said,
your stomach feels a little better, You're finally able to eat.
Glaucoma and epilepsy and even multiple sclerose is. Multiple sclerosis
(31:02):
in particular is an area where there there aren't a
ton of options for treatment. You know, um, people who
have taken things like neuroton lyrica or obi It's find
them to be effective, but having 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
(31:25):
like I've been hit with uh 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
(31:46):
feel present. But these claims remain controversial, and part of
it is because there are a ton of for everyone
sort of scientifically supported claim about ben of fits of
this substance. There are ten twelve fifty seven sixty nine
(32:06):
nice uh 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 it's a a
substantial part of the religion of Rastafarianism, you know, and
people will say, okay, you know this is a holy
(32:27):
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,
(32:49):
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 are
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
(33:12):
and the healthcare industry. We they argue, can actually cure cancer.
I know many of us are saying, wait, what, that's
what this episode is about. Yes, it wasn't. It wasn't
a title of guys, just 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,
(33:39):
well at least it's true that some people believe marijuana
can cure cancer. We have a specific example just to
give you a more humanistic, qualitative or anecdotal account here.
So a then sixty year old gentlem by the name
(34:00):
of Mike Cutler claimed that cannabis oil cured him of
cancer of the liver, which he had been diagnosed within
two thousand and nine, actually received a liver transplant the
same year, and then the cancer came back in late
after he learned about cannabis oil from a YouTube video.
No less sure his doctor was all about that, and
(34:23):
you know it's like YouTube or web md as the
doctor's worst enemy. Um. 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 cancer as cells had in fact vanished. Yep.
(34:47):
That was great for a time, but he got diagnosed
with lung cancer in July and unfortunately he passed away
in December. So the this is just one example, and
there are multitudes of similar stories, perhaps some some stories
that will come to us directly from you listening in
(35:10):
some of these stories. Here's the thing, a lot of
them end with someone uh, 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
(35:31):
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 the same trends time and time again. And
it's this. Many people who believe cannabis can cure all
(35:52):
or some types of cancer, that it functions as a
panacea for cancer, also believe that this is not they're
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
(36:12):
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 talked about this so many times on the show
before the cons true, well, the cons yes. On the
(36:34):
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
(36:58):
someone a monthly service than to just cure them so
they don't have to buy anything from you. Ever. Again,
right 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 uh to to
eat into your profits when you all you have to do,
(37:19):
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 uh the right politicians to
push that bill through and then after that plants illegal.
You can get a loophole in the bill whereby you
(37:40):
sell proprietary, expensive derivatives and they're the only game in town,
you know what I mean. So you could you could pay.
I I don't know how much people pay for weed,
but you know you could pay buy like by like
a joint and smoke it, or you could get a
plus dollar a month prescription that just kept you popping
(38:04):
pills to repress your chronic pain while not at all
curring 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 impossible. 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 should disturb
(38:28):
everyone listening. You know, we no longer think of this
as some way out there uh quote unquote tinfoil had
conspiracy theory. We all listen to this, and we we
think of stories we've heard in recent years and a goo. Yeah,
I don't know. It does feel at least to make
a lot more sense than one would hope. But is
(38:51):
it true. We'll dive into that after a word from
our sponsor. M all right, we are back. Now, let's
jump right into this. Uh and and let's let's kind
of aim at the more skeptical people in the audience,
(39:13):
if if you don't mind, everyone listening. Thank you for
speaking with you. Now that's the non high ones, right,
Uh well, I don't know, it just depends. But let's
let's consider just this concept of an industry, specifically health
care industry, of some sort of big pharma suppressing cannabis
without some kind of miraculous cancer cure, without it being
(39:34):
a cancer cure. Right, So let's look to because that
year the Guardian found that some farm pharmaceutical companies were
putting money, a lot of money, just pouring it into
the fight to keep weed illegal. And they weren't alone.
Other companies that sell a product that is meant to
(39:55):
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, yeah,
big booze about that. Uh yeah, yeah. This this is
(40:17):
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 interests,
protecting their market share in what I'd like to call
the intoxication racket. You know, it really does make sense
(40:39):
if you if you think about it for a few moments. Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Ryman, who was manager of Marijuana Law and Policy
of the Drug Policy Alliance UH, 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
(41:00):
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. Uh, the the inebriati. Oh, the Inebrioti. I
(41:25):
didn't make that up. That's from some comedy writers that
I enjoy. Well, hey, comedy writers, whoever you are, Fanche Oh,
Mitchell and Webb Oh yeah in Nebrioti. Oh Man, thanks guys.
I could listen to the for hours. So let's go.
Let's go to the Arizona Wine and Spirits Wholesale Association
because the this outfit gave one of the largest donations
(41:48):
to the Arizona anti anti legalization campaign. It paid ten
grand for Arizonan's for Responsible Drug Policy UH 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,
(42:09):
and then the Beer Distributors Political Action Committee recently donated
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 um surprised that these numbers aren't higher. I am too. Yeah. Well,
(42:32):
the reason they seem smaller is because they're specific donations.
If you looked, if you pulled the numbers for maybe
Beer Distributors PC overall, you would see these dribs and drabs,
you know what I mean. Uh, kind of like how
the Bureau of Public Roads was channeling you know, very
(42:53):
small amounts across a wide distribution network. That way you
can stay out of the news for you know, giving
million dollars to the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts.
Here's some irony for you. We got Purdue Pharma and
Abbott Laboratories, makers of oxy content and vicaden, which are
you know, very powerful opioid painkillers. Um, they were among
(43:17):
the largest contributors to the Anti Drug Coalition of America.
Wait a minute, drug companies contributing to anti drug packs
or whatever it is is it is that what you
consider that a pack coalition? Look, if you can smoke it,
noll or snort it, it's not a real DRUGA We'll
(43:39):
tell that. 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 to see dare ideas. I gotta tell you, guys,
I still thought that song slapped. I was they got
me with the song. There's a song, yeah, dare so
(44:01):
I don't remember the d I'll play it for you
off air. Right, So, 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 million dollars on lobbying in
(44:21):
and then increased that in twenty six. 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 that's a huge number
(44:44):
in and that's in comparison to states that prohibited sales
of marijuana. And this was a study not by some
advocacy group paid shadow money. This was a study inteen
from the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is
above legit in most and most of these kinds of conversations,
(45:05):
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.
Uh okay, I did think about that, Ben, and I
(45:25):
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 pain killers, 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
(45:48):
effect produce bottom line Yeah, that would be bad for Perdue,
the manufacturer, and for the insurance industry as well. And
research by the University of Georgia's show is that medicare
prescriptions for drugs that would treat chronic pain and anxiety
also dropped in states that legalized at least medical marijuana.
(46:09):
So when we talk about the idea, and this is
an idea that many people believe that marijuana can someha
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
(46:31):
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 does appear that it's effective
and treating conditions associated with chronic diseases and cancer, and
some cannabinoids may have anti cancer qualities. We has not
(46:53):
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's
a doctor here, doctor Donald Abrams. He's an integrative oncologist
at the University of California, San Francisco. And there's another gentleman,
(47:15):
doctor Manuel Guzman, a researcher and professor of biochemistry over
at the University of Madrid or the compliments University of Madrid.
And these guys were very optimistic or at least found
optimistic results um when they were looking at this pre
clinical evidence of the anti cancer activities of cannabinoids. It's
pretty crazy. The authors um site studies mainly conducted using
(47:37):
animal models, so using a testing method of trying it
out on an animal. Right, and there are four areas
where cancer fighting 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 prolif voration of cancer cells, could
(48:01):
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. So the doctors say, there
(48:22):
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 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 other cancer treatments,
(48:45):
and they can help mitigate tumor growth without increasing toxicity
to the host. Because you know, for a long time, UH,
cures for cancer were incredibly traumatic. Yeah, you're you're introducing
chemical chemicals into the body that are going to injure you.
You're gonna lose your hair, They're all kinds of effects
(49:06):
that you're gonna 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 add 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
(49:28):
controlled conditions and try to, you know, extrapolate those two
real life conclusions and make blanket statements about them, and
make blankets 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
(49:52):
you're doing that instead of consulting with a doctor and
going through proving cancer treatments, you're you're dramatically lowering your
chances of recovery. We even have a quote from Dr
Abrahams about this, that's right. He says, one of the
most painful things that I have to deal with are
people who have potentially curable malignancy who choose to treat
it with cannabis oils, and by the time they come
(50:13):
to see me, they are incurable with metastatic disease. Um.
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.
(50:35):
This is something that physicians who specialize in cannabis can
also agree with. There's a guy named Dr Jeffrey Hergan Rother,
and I love that name. Uh. 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 cause the cancer to disappear, but
in others it didn't work to great effect. And not
(50:58):
all cancers are the aims, 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 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,
(51:23):
but we were lacking law opportunity to build a larger understanding.
So long story short, Yes, people believe it. There is
a little bit of science behind it, uh, And there
is truth to the story of these established businesses trying
to repress this, likely for a profit motive, you know
(51:44):
what I mean. Even if even if there is some panacea,
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 that's why they're there. They're
trying to adapt in an environment where the attitude towards
(52:04):
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, laws, pain, sleep, anxiety,
all of that stuff are greatly improved by use of cannabas.
(52:25):
There's no question about that. At least some of these
indications are supported in the landmark 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
(52:46):
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 on Twitter, you
can find us on Instagram. We are conspiracy stuff. Uh.
(53:09):
And then when a conspiracy stuff show, specifically on Instagram,
you can also find us as individuals if you do
wish to. 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 Bullying HSW on Twitter. Follow me to me pictures
(53:30):
of your pets and need and need a chuckle of
this dark world of ours. All right, yeah, leave me alone.
My name is Matt Frederick. Cool, I'm just show king. Um,
It's Matt Frederick underscore my heart. I believe good luck
to you. Um. If you don't want to do that stuff,
you can give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. You
(53:55):
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. UM.
I was really hoping that this 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.
(54:17):
But it looks like I may be wrong. Uh yeah.
Any other things that you think or that we need
to know about as far as um a cancer cure,
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.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(54:58):
don't want you to know is a p induction of
I heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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 I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled deconds. 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 for a lot of
(00:45):
a lot of straight shooting kids in middle school and
maybe even high school, was a terrifying subject. Today, we're
talking about marijuana. That's right, conspiracy realist, left hand cigarettes,
the Devil's tobacco, Uncle Jimmy's Brain, medicine, nap nuggets, yeah,
uh pot. I'm a big fan of the Devil's lettuce.
(01:07):
That's one. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, uh grass uh, 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 Reefer Madness? Man? No, No, they
just said, don't be messing around with that stuff. Matt
and I said okay, they said, himp belongs in a necklace,
(01:27):
and some some people came to my school and they
showed me a bunch of stuff about how bad it was.
And then the police had guns and they were like,
we will use these on you if you smoke this
wacky tobaccy and I was like, okay, I does see.
They came to my school and brought a giant like
Hunter S. Thompson style suitcase full of drugs and I
was like, I want to try that one and that
(01:49):
one and that one. It just it wasn't a very
good Uh. They didn't do a good scared straight um
for in my experience. Yeah, as an award winning essayist
for Dare, I can tell you, uh, 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 trifuld wooden contraption and then they passed
(02:14):
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 guys of telling
(02:35):
us how to recognize them, you know. And 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, let's say,
a party, if something like this was going down, and
they could, I don't know, mention it to somebody, some authority.
I'm talking about physical symptoms. Yeah, yeah, you know, it
(02:59):
was well intentioned and uh, what was it? Gruff McGruff,
scruff McGruff. Yeah, he took a bite, took a bite
out of its six oh six five, really made an
impression on you. Wow, that was deep in there. So
(03:21):
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 um, this strange and
prominent position in culture and folklore and the zeitgeist. And
as a kid, you may have learned about marijuana and
(03:41):
the sort of boogeyman way like stay stay away from it.
You know. Uh, Sandy Jenkins injected one marijuana and then
committed uh dolphin genocide. You know, like these very strange,
uh exaggerated propagandistic stories that came again from a good place.
(04:01):
They 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 more and
more states are decriminalizing or even legalizing marijuana, and more
(04:24):
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 shure hindrance,
but what if it's also helpful? And to answer that
we have to first figure out what we'd actually is
and how it works. So here are the facts. I'll
(04:45):
start here. Um, 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, eve at least human humanity believes it originated
somewhere in India, specifically in a region just north of
(05:07):
the Himalayan mountains. Um. You know, we think, right, we
we know. I'm just gonna 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 uh
(05:30):
for four to five point four meters. It's pretty tall.
That's actually really dang tall. Um. And there are even
reports that these things can grow as high ast twenty
five ft. That's huge. There's another variety, um, the indica,
I suppose, So I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I
honestly don't know if it's cannabis indica, if that's what
(05:51):
it's called, or it's just an indica. I don't know
the difference. Well, indica and 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. Sorry,
I was just I think that's all it's. I don't know,
there's not there's not really an opposing one for sativa.
(06:13):
But sativa is the one that makes it gives you
a little more energy, and they referred to it as
more of a mental high, whereas an 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. Don't you make that one up?
That was good. But in the parlance of our time,
(06:34):
the whole boy, there's the indica variety, whatever that exactly entails,
is going to be shorter than the other varieties. These
more sativa variety. And as you said, being that's annual.
It has a season. When it's outdoors, it grow, it blooms.
Those flowers you mentioned Matt bloom from late summer to midfall.
(06:54):
And then, of course, surprise, a lot of people grow
this stuff inside to green houses. Uh they're the closet
of their step dad's summer cottage or something some house
near where I live, because I swear if I opened
my door, it just smells like marijuana. It's true, it's true.
(07:14):
It's also you know, you may have heard in rap
lyrics referred to as indo oh, and it's it's good
to consume along with some gin and juice. What about
sour diesel? That's just another verb. So, so it's weird
because also side sides of not condoning illegally growing pot
in your house, legally growing wheat in your house. But
(07:38):
if you are running a big grow operation, just be aware.
In areas where marijuana is still illegal, police when investigating
grow houses are able to monitor energy usage, and that's
how a lot of people get popped. Big spikes and
energy and specific times. That's a real red flag for
the authorities, right exactly. Crotchety neighbors opening their door, we're
(08:00):
going 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. 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
(08:21):
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 um in California. It's it's perfectly legal,
So you're gonna 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 then emphasized
that that's not the case everywhere exactly exactly. But also,
(08:43):
you know, it is more of a conversation now that
people are gonna be 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, et ceter around.
So let's talk about why all these people out in
California and across this nation in the world, in Colorado
(09:07):
are are smoking these flowering plants and or again, well, yeah, yeah,
that's the interest 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,
(09:29):
there are a lot of claims about this stuff because
we don't still one 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. Uh,
(09:49):
it 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
(10:11):
hundreds of different things. And of those hundreds of chemicals,
a hundred and nine of them fit into a category
called cannab anoids. That's the stuff for which Cannabis sativa
is named. That's what the annoid was named after. Himber
the Domino's pizza mascot, Thennoid. He seemed like he'd had
a little bit too much of the old Devil's lettuce
if you asked me. Yeah, and maybe it was I
(10:34):
thought maybe it was a mispronunciation of nerd, but also
possible nooid could happen. Yeah, that guy was a freak.
When what do what do Stoner's enjoy Yo Yo's pizza? Pizza?
Oh yeah, like, uh, I just went for the I
was way way past the age when I should have
figured this out, But it wasn't until like two or
(10:58):
three years ago maybe that it hit me that Bill
and Ted were stoner's. As a kid, I just thought
they were goofy, fun guys. 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
(11:19):
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. 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 name that had a picture of
Adam Driver next to a picture of Kanu Reeves and
(11:41):
they said, Adam Driver looks like somebody tried to draw
Keiana Reeves from memory. Yeah, there's also one with with
a cat that looks like Adam Driver. Cats intense. But yeah,
so so we know we know some of the chemistry here.
We know that every time someone ingests marijuana in some form, smoking, vaping,
(12:03):
drinking tea of your fancy that there is one chemical
that comes into play, yes, Delta nine tetra hydro cannabinol,
well do yeah, or th HC and other chemicals that
enter the body and they make their way through the
bloodstream right to the old brain and then eventually to
(12:25):
the rest of the body. And that th HC 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 and listening to this show right now? I'm
gonna say, uh, well, you know, no judgment if you are,
(12:52):
just be in a safe place. We can't tell if
you're wondering, so you know we we honestly can't tell
right now if you're so you guys don't even know
if I'm high or not. But that that that person
just walked past you. They know that's such an evil
thing to do to someone. I'm kidding, No, no, they
don't know. Out of my head. So so you're right, though,
(13:16):
there is this protagonist chemical, this prime player TXC. 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
(13:36):
a synapse between every neuron that 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 protein 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
(13:58):
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 th HC can sort of pull a
doppelganger effect on your bridge builders, on your neurotransmitters, so
(14:21):
they can mimic some of the things that you're ordinary
neurotransmitter would do, or they can block some of the
bridge building effects that would normally happen. And uh, this
this is interesting because these neurons, uh, they're not they're
not all created equally in terms of the kind of
stuff they're receptive to So in three areas of the
(14:44):
human brain, the hippo campus, the cerebellum, and the basil 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
(15:04):
the front of your brain here, and uh, you know
what it deals with short term memory? I forgot. Yeah,
you may have noticed if you have ever attempted U
two to tango with this particular substance, that that is
(15:25):
one thing that occurs. Um. And also I mean there
are a couple of other places in your brain also,
the cerebellum and the basil ganglia, which is just a
fun thing to say. Um, when THHC binds with the
receptors that are inside that hippocampus, it really does mess
with your short term memory because it's again like Ben
was explaining there, it it is pretending or your brain
(15:49):
those receptions in your brain think that you're like stuff
is being turned on or it's blocking things from being
turned on. There. Uh, it's just very odd. It's very
very odd that a chemical can do that. It um.
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
(16:11):
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
(16:33):
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 right. Yeah. Now that's the thing that
you know, and that's why it's always so funny when
we'd gets a bad rap as being some kind of
(16:55):
crazy dangerous drug like that, can you know, make you
do terrible things? See know, a lot of the propaganda
stuff that was entry for madness, for example, that accused
it of causing people to commit murder and you know,
rape women potentially. Well this is all from this this
propaganda film. But you know, if anything, it just causes
you to be a little sluggish, giggle at stupid stuff
(17:17):
and h like you said, maybe drive a little on
the slow side. Um, so yeah, that's it'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
(17:37):
harm to yourself or others. Absolutely. I mean, okay, so
how do we use this? Uh, just assuming ground level.
If there's anyone listening and you never knew, you were
too embarrassed to ask, you were afraid that your local
FBI or n S a intern we get mad at
you for googling it. We will tell you, by far,
the most common way people use marijuana now is through smoking,
(18:01):
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 T HC 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
(18:22):
have a ton of surface area and they help They
make it possible for the TCHC and other stuff to
enter your body, and they absorbed the smoke mere seconds
after inhalation. Vaporizers do uh similar thing. They they heat
the substance such that they vaporize the active ingredients, but
(18:44):
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 uh. This is something that people have h
often underestimated the effects of what would be called and
edible because it's it's a slow bird, right, it is
because it requires your body to actually metabolize uh the
(19:08):
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
(19:29):
tongue sublingually and that would kick in much faster. But
if you eat say baked good that has th HC
cooked in with it, it's going to take uh, depending
on how much food is already in your stomach, for example,
various amounts of time. Um. And you know the old
joke is, uh, you can always eat more, you can
never eat less. So always smart to pace yourself in
(19:50):
that respect and not think that you should just eat
an entire brownie because you also know that you don't
you don't know what the concentration is, for example, like
how much was cooked in how concentrated one little bite
of a bait 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
(20:11):
on the packet of how much is in it and
how many milligrams, for example, are in a particular dose.
So uh, handle with care, 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
(20:32):
in this country, in 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 medical effects their outweigh any dangers that
(20:52):
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. UM. So, what
we're gonna 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
(21:15):
do that, we'll have to examine the difference between two
acronyms and two very similar substances, t HC and CBD.
Will do that after a word from our sponsor, we've returned.
So cb D there's a lot like t HC and
(21:37):
has the same chemical formula, but the atoms are arranged differently.
And this very this tiny variance UH causes th HC
to have that psychoactive effect that Matt you and no
m mentioned earlier, and cb D again, because of that
uh slight difference in design, does not have the psychoactive effect.
(22:00):
This means that if someone ingest CBD for any of
those medicinal purposes, they're more likely to they're they're likely
to experience a relief in their pain or discomfort, but
they're likely to have less of a noticeable uh deterioration
of their cognitive abilities or change in their cognitive abilities.
(22:21):
And this is funny because this came into play for
our state here in the US, in Georgia, the southeastern US,
where marijuana is still i 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 asterix at the officers discretions spending on which kind
(22:44):
of officer you run into. Well, it's interesting too because
there we may have talked about this in the past,
but there were some cases in the past here in
Georgia outside of Atlanta, like a kind of in some
of the suburbs. I believe it might have been in
Gwinnette 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
(23:08):
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 out the influence. There
was some pretty nasty cases where you know, they were
(23:29):
supposedly got it wrong, you know, and someone went to jail.
And the problem with t HC 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 um at the officer's discretion is a
(23:50):
very big caveat. Yes. And the strange thing about the
way c b D became THC, whatever you want to
call it, became the criminalized here in Georgia, UH the
streets think about it is that even uh the supporters
in the local legislature made a weird, semi puritanical argument
(24:16):
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 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,
(24:40):
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. That's the way it was presented,
and and and being a little cavalier there, but obviously
they were saying that because people will get these medical
(25:00):
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 and pulling copper wire
(25:21):
out of out of houses because I need my 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 this is the societal or normalized like use of
(25:47):
this and how it becomes ingrained in a just your
everyday life, and just what the difference between that and addiction. Well,
there's there's physical addiction, and there's mental addiction, or just
routine or just enjoying something and enjoying the way, and
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, especially when you're
talking about something like CBD that doesn't have that the
(26:10):
fun part, right, but it has the the medicinal effect
of like a pain killer. 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 no real physiological impact. Right. So this
(26:36):
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,
(26:56):
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 should be recreational. 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
this is what they do. They point to research into
(27:17):
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. You know, we'd no matter how
strong it is, right, how strong people tell you it is,
(27:39):
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
E m T s don't automatically give people in intensely
traumatic car accidents a weed brownie. You know what I mean.
(27:59):
It's 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. Uh, marijuana and it's
different derivative products are all safer than opiates. You can't
(28:21):
really overdose on it. Addiction debate aside, 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 delatorious effects on the kidneys or
you know, maybe they they interact with pre existing ulcers
(28:44):
or something. Yeah, and 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 uh people, well, I mean, actually, we know that
(29:06):
it's been shown to lesson tremor's in Parkinson's disease, and
as we mentioned, um, 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, uh,
reports that have been coming out on it for years
(29:28):
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're constantly in pain, and marijuana absolutely does
(29:52):
give you an increased appetite. Yeah. Yeah, it's in addition
to being a muscle relaxant, uh into a general pain
uh pain lessener I'm making it, yeah, and something that
can generally suppress pain, it also suppresses nausea, It relieves
eye pressure, decreases muscle spasm, stimulates the appetite, stops convulsions,
(30:15):
and uh 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,
(30:37):
sticky icky Yeah. It's also because of these therapeutic effects
used to treat symptoms of conditions that are often incurable.
We're talking about AIDS for example. Right as we said,
your stomach feels a little better, You're finally able to eat.
Glaucoma and epilepsy and even multiple sclerose is. Multiple sclerosis
(31:02):
in particular is an area where there there aren't a
ton of options for treatment. You know, um, people who
have taken things like neuroton lyrica or obi It's find
them to be effective, but having 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
(31:25):
like I've been hit with uh 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
(31:46):
feel present. But these claims remain controversial, and part of
it is because there are a ton of for everyone
sort of scientifically supported claim about ben of fits of
this substance. There are ten twelve fifty seven sixty nine
(32:06):
nice uh 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 it's a a
substantial part of the religion of Rastafarianism, you know, and
people will say, okay, you know this is a holy
(32:27):
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,
(32:49):
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 are
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
(33:12):
and the healthcare industry. We they argue, can actually cure cancer.
I know many of us are saying, wait, what, that's
what this episode is about. Yes, it wasn't. It wasn't
a title of guys, just 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,
(33:39):
well at least it's true that some people believe marijuana
can cure cancer. We have a specific example just to
give you a more humanistic, qualitative or anecdotal account here.
So a then sixty year old gentlem by the name
(34:00):
of Mike Cutler claimed that cannabis oil cured him of
cancer of the liver, which he had been diagnosed within
two thousand and nine, actually received a liver transplant the
same year, and then the cancer came back in late
after he learned about cannabis oil from a YouTube video.
No less sure his doctor was all about that, and
(34:23):
you know it's like YouTube or web md as the
doctor's worst enemy. Um. 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 cancer as cells had in fact vanished. Yep.
(34:47):
That was great for a time, but he got diagnosed
with lung cancer in July and unfortunately he passed away
in December. So the this is just one example, and
there are multitudes of similar stories, perhaps some some stories
that will come to us directly from you listening in
(35:10):
some of these stories. Here's the thing, a lot of
them end with someone uh, 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
(35:31):
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 the same trends time and time again. And
it's this. Many people who believe cannabis can cure all
(35:52):
or some types of cancer, that it functions as a
panacea for cancer, also believe that this is not they're
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
(36:12):
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 talked about this so many times on the show
before the cons true, well, the cons yes. On the
(36:34):
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
(36:58):
someone a monthly service than to just cure them so
they don't have to buy anything from you. Ever. Again,
right 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 uh to to
eat into your profits when you all you have to do,
(37:19):
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 uh the right politicians to
push that bill through and then after that plants illegal.
You can get a loophole in the bill whereby you
(37:40):
sell proprietary, expensive derivatives and they're the only game in town,
you know what I mean. So you could you could pay.
I I don't know how much people pay for weed,
but you know you could pay buy like by like
a joint and smoke it, or you could get a
plus dollar a month prescription that just kept you popping
(38:04):
pills to repress your chronic pain while not at all
curring 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 impossible. 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 should disturb
(38:28):
everyone listening. You know, we no longer think of this
as some way out there uh quote unquote tinfoil had
conspiracy theory. We all listen to this, and we we
think of stories we've heard in recent years and a goo. Yeah,
I don't know. It does feel at least to make
a lot more sense than one would hope. But is
(38:51):
it true. We'll dive into that after a word from
our sponsor. M all right, we are back. Now, let's
jump right into this. Uh and and let's let's kind
of aim at the more skeptical people in the audience,
(39:13):
if if you don't mind, everyone listening. Thank you for
speaking with you. Now that's the non high ones, right,
Uh well, I don't know, it just depends. But let's
let's consider just this concept of an industry, specifically health
care industry, of some sort of big pharma suppressing cannabis
without some kind of miraculous cancer cure, without it being
(39:34):
a cancer cure. Right, So let's look to because that
year the Guardian found that some farm pharmaceutical companies were
putting money, a lot of money, just pouring it into
the fight to keep weed illegal. And they weren't alone.
Other companies that sell a product that is meant to
(39:55):
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, yeah,
big booze about that. Uh yeah, yeah. This this is
(40:17):
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 interests,
protecting their market share in what I'd like to call
the intoxication racket. You know, it really does make sense
(40:39):
if you if you think about it for a few moments. Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Ryman, who was manager of Marijuana Law and Policy
of the Drug Policy Alliance UH, 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
(41:00):
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. Uh, the the inebriati. Oh, the Inebrioti. I
(41:25):
didn't make that up. That's from some comedy writers that
I enjoy. Well, hey, comedy writers, whoever you are, Fanche Oh,
Mitchell and Webb Oh yeah in Nebrioti. Oh Man, thanks guys.
I could listen to the for hours. So let's go.
Let's go to the Arizona Wine and Spirits Wholesale Association
because the this outfit gave one of the largest donations
(41:48):
to the Arizona anti anti legalization campaign. It paid ten
grand for Arizonan's for Responsible Drug Policy UH 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,
(42:09):
and then the Beer Distributors Political Action Committee recently donated
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 um surprised that these numbers aren't higher. I am too. Yeah. Well,
(42:32):
the reason they seem smaller is because they're specific donations.
If you looked, if you pulled the numbers for maybe
Beer Distributors PC overall, you would see these dribs and drabs,
you know what I mean. Uh, kind of like how
the Bureau of Public Roads was channeling you know, very
(42:53):
small amounts across a wide distribution network. That way you
can stay out of the news for you know, giving
million dollars to the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts.
Here's some irony for you. We got Purdue Pharma and
Abbott Laboratories, makers of oxy content and vicaden, which are
you know, very powerful opioid painkillers. Um, they were among
(43:17):
the largest contributors to the Anti Drug Coalition of America.
Wait a minute, drug companies contributing to anti drug packs
or whatever it is is it is that what you
consider that a pack coalition? Look, if you can smoke it,
noll or snort it, it's not a real DRUGA We'll
(43:39):
tell that. 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 to see dare ideas. I gotta tell you, guys,
I still thought that song slapped. I was they got
me with the song. There's a song, yeah, dare so
(44:01):
I don't remember the d I'll play it for you
off air. Right, So, 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 million dollars on lobbying in
(44:21):
and then increased that in twenty six. 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 that's a huge number
(44:44):
in and that's in comparison to states that prohibited sales
of marijuana. And this was a study not by some
advocacy group paid shadow money. This was a study inteen
from the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is
above legit in most and most of these kinds of conversations,
(45:05):
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.
Uh okay, I did think about that, Ben, and I
(45:25):
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 pain killers, 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
(45:48):
effect produce bottom line Yeah, that would be bad for Perdue,
the manufacturer, and for the insurance industry as well. And
research by the University of Georgia's show is that medicare
prescriptions for drugs that would treat chronic pain and anxiety
also dropped in states that legalized at least medical marijuana.
(46:09):
So when we talk about the idea, and this is
an idea that many people believe that marijuana can someha
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
(46:31):
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 does appear that it's effective
and treating conditions associated with chronic diseases and cancer, and
some cannabinoids may have anti cancer qualities. We has not
(46:53):
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's
a doctor here, doctor Donald Abrams. He's an integrative oncologist
at the University of California, San Francisco. And there's another gentleman,
(47:15):
doctor Manuel Guzman, a researcher and professor of biochemistry over
at the University of Madrid or the compliments University of Madrid.
And these guys were very optimistic or at least found
optimistic results um when they were looking at this pre
clinical evidence of the anti cancer activities of cannabinoids. It's
pretty crazy. The authors um site studies mainly conducted using
(47:37):
animal models, so using a testing method of trying it
out on an animal. Right, and there are four areas
where cancer fighting 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 prolif voration of cancer cells, could
(48:01):
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. So the doctors say, there
(48:22):
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 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 other cancer treatments,
(48:45):
and they can help mitigate tumor growth without increasing toxicity
to the host. Because you know, for a long time, UH,
cures for cancer were incredibly traumatic. Yeah, you're you're introducing
chemical chemicals into the body that are going to injure you.
You're gonna lose your hair, They're all kinds of effects
(49:06):
that you're gonna 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 add 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
(49:28):
controlled conditions and try to, you know, extrapolate those two
real life conclusions and make blanket statements about them, and
make blankets 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
(49:52):
you're doing that instead of consulting with a doctor and
going through proving cancer treatments, you're you're dramatically lowering your
chances of recovery. We even have a quote from Dr
Abrahams about this, that's right. He says, one of the
most painful things that I have to deal with are
people who have potentially curable malignancy who choose to treat
it with cannabis oils, and by the time they come
(50:13):
to see me, they are incurable with metastatic disease. Um.
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.
(50:35):
This is something that physicians who specialize in cannabis can
also agree with. There's a guy named Dr Jeffrey Hergan Rother,
and I love that name. Uh. 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 cause the cancer to disappear, but
in others it didn't work to great effect. And not
(50:58):
all cancers are the aims, 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 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,
(51:23):
but we were lacking law opportunity to build a larger understanding.
So long story short, Yes, people believe it. There is
a little bit of science behind it, uh, And there
is truth to the story of these established businesses trying
to repress this, likely for a profit motive, you know
(51:44):
what I mean. Even if even if there is some panacea,
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 that's why they're there. They're
trying to adapt in an environment where the attitude towards
(52:04):
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, laws, pain, sleep, anxiety,
all of that stuff are greatly improved by use of cannabas.
(52:25):
There's no question about that. At least some of these
indications are supported in the landmark 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
(52:46):
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 on Twitter, you
can find us on Instagram. We are conspiracy stuff. Uh.
(53:09):
And then when a conspiracy stuff show, specifically on Instagram,
you can also find us as individuals if you do
wish to. You can find me exclusively on Instagram, where
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of course still at Ben Bullen at Instagram and at
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(53:30):
of your pets and need and need a chuckle of
this dark world of ours. All right, yeah, leave me alone.
My name is Matt Frederick. Cool, I'm just show king. Um,
It's Matt Frederick underscore my heart. I believe good luck
to you. Um. If you don't want to do that stuff,
you can give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. You
(53:55):
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. UM.
I was really hoping that this 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.
(54:17):
But it looks like I may be wrong. Uh yeah.
Any other things that you think or that we need
to know about as far as um a cancer cure,
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.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(54:58):
don't want you to know is a p induction of
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