More on Cannabis cures cancer.....

[cali]

62. yes. I've read that. Do you understand what pre-clinical means?

It's the process of gathering evidence in order to justify clinical trials. All research on the shrinking of or prohibition of growth of tumors is preliminary. And the only one done on humans (the abstract is in post 18) was done without a control group, making it difficult to judge the efficacy of treatment.

The National Cancer Institute does not say that there is an effective treatment for cancer using any form of cannabis. I'm sympathetic to people wanting to try it, but lying about it- saying there's a cure or that research has found that it's effective, is just wrong. Research on mice does not automatically apply to humans, though it is hopeful and more funding for research is needed. I'm all for that.

What are cannabinoids and how do they work?

“Cannabinoids” is a blanket term covering a family of complex chemicals (both natural and man-made) that lock on to cannabinoid receptors – protein molecules on the surface of cells.

Humans have been using cannabis plants for medicinal and recreational purposes for thousands of years, but cannabinoids themselves were first purified from cannabis plants in the 1940s. The structure of the main active ingredient of cannabis plants – delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – was discovered in the 60s. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that researchers found the first cannabinoid receptor, followed shortly by the discovery that we create cannabinoid-like chemicals within our own bodies, known as endocannabinoids.

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Can cannabinoids treat cancer?

There is no doubt that cannabinoids – both natural and synthetic – are interesting biological molecules. Hundreds of scientists around the world are investigating their potential in cancer and other diseases – as well as the harms they can cause – brought together under the blanket organisation The International Cannabinoid Research Society.

Researchers first looked at the anticancer properties of cannabinoids back in the 1970s, and many hundreds of scientific papers looking at cannabinoids and cancer have been published since then.

But claims that this body of preclinical research is solid “proof” that cannabis or cannabinoids can cure cancer is highly misleading to patients and their families, and builds a false picture of the state of progress in this area.

Let’s take a closer look at the evidence.
Lab research

Virtually all the scientific research investigating whether cannabinoids can treat cancer has been done using cancer cells grown in the lab or animal models. It’s important to be cautious when extrapolating these results up to real live patients, who tend to be a lot more complex than a Petri dish or a mouse.

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http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/07/25/cannabis-cannabinoids-and-cancer-the-evidence-so-far/#patent