A New Revelation: Cannabis Can Fight Against Colon Cancer
Whenever I say that cannabis helps those who suffer from cancer, I usually have two kinds of reaction (I am talking about people who are not doctors, of course).
On the one hand I usually find a bunch of characters who come back to me saying they actually heard about it. They think it’s a good thing, but they are actually not quite sure how the whole thing works. These are usually pot lovers who would love their plant no matter what, people who are therefore extremely willing to agree whenever someone says something positive about cannabis.
On the other hand I find myself discussing with those who completely reject the idea. For these people cannabis is just as bad as tobacco, if not worst. According to them, in fact, marijuana is socially unacceptable and physically and physiologically dangerous if not deadly… just bad, bad and bad. Talking about cannabis with someone who believes this sort of things is like trying to explain to a banker that money maybe isn’t that good after all: it is frustrating and almost completely useless.
Still, both reactions have something in common: they are based on ignorance. That’s why I decided to share with you (and it doesn’t really matter if you are a pot lover or a complete hater) one of the latest, most exciting discoveries. It is based on a piece that was published on the prestigious academic journal called Phytomedicine. The article is titled Inhibition of colon carcinogenesis by a standardized Cannabis sativa extract with high content of cannabidiol, and it was written by Barbara Romano, Francesca Borrelli, Ester Pagano, Maria Grazia Cascio, Roger G. Pertwee and Angelo A. Izzo. In describing the purpose of their research, the authors claimed that “colon cancer is a major public health problem. Cannabis-based medicines are useful adjunctive treatments in cancer patients. Here, we have investigated the effect of a standardized Cannabis sativa extract with high content of cannabidiol (CBD), here named CBD BDS, i.e. CBD botanical drug substance, on colorectal cancer cell proliferation and in experimental models of colon cancer in vivo” (Romero et al., 2014, p. 631).
So, what was the answer? Can cannabis help us fight against cancer? The conclusion was a big YES: “CBD BDS exerts beneficial actions in experimental models of colon cancer and antiprolifera- tive CB1 and CB2 mediated effects in colorectal cancer cells” (Romero et al., 2014, p. 638).
