Politics v. Science: Understanding Cannabis Therapeutics Before it is Censored

Kris Hermes
Natural News

A milestone quietly occurred last month, and one the federal government would prefer to ignore. Yet, it could mean a step in the right direction for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who use a centuries-old botanical medicine: cannabis, otherwise know as marijuana.

According to the Washington Independent, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) changed its website on March 17th and for the first time listed cannabis as a Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM). At that time, the NCI website read:

“The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.”

And just in case the issue of medical efficacy was in question, NCI further stated that:

“Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years prior to its current status as an illegal substance.”

Besides the obvious “It’s about time” retort to the inclusion of cannabis in the CAM listing, there is definitely more here to this decades-long story of the struggle between politics and science. If the symptoms of cancer and the side effects from treatment can be ameliorated or fought-off with medical cannabis, wouldn’t that be worth significant research investment? And, wouldn’t the value of that research increase considerably if cannabis therapeutically benefited people with an array of other medical conditions? What if science showed that cannabis could halt or diminish the growth of tumors?

Unfortunately, despite promising studies on the effects of cannabis on tumor growth and a host of other scientific investigations into the therapeutic benefits of cannabis — mostly conducted outside of the United States — we have failed to rise to the occasion. Cannabis used for research in the U.S. is tightly controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The research that does occur is narrowly focused by NIDA on the supposed abuse potential of cannabis, bypassing vast areas of efficacy ripe for investigation.

In 2007, DEA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Mary Ellen Bittner ruled in a case attempting to expand and diversify the production of research cannabis in the U.S. that such research was “in the public interest.” However, DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart ignored her own ALJ’s recommendations and denied the petition that would have broken a 40-year old monopoly on federal research cannabis production, housed at the University of Mississippi. The federal monopoly on cannabis cultivation is complemented by a Byzantine approval process that would have made Franz Kafka proud.

With these tactics, the government has held a pretty tight lid on cannabis research over the years — an obstructionist’s approach really. But prioritizing politics over science is a tenuous affair, full of contradictions and hypocrisy.

Take for instance the revisions NCI made to its website not two weeks after it listed cannabis as a Complementary Alternative Medicine. Just to make sure its readers didn’t think it was endorsing the use of medical cannabis, NCI reminded us that “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of Cannabis as a treatment for any medical condition…” However, more importantly, NCI removed reference to a “possible direct antitumor effect.” They wouldn’t want to give the impression that cannabis should be further researched, would they?

After feeling some heat from mainstream media outlets, NCI offered an explanation for its apparent shiftiness around cannabis. Craftily, NCI distanced itself from the Physician Data Query (PDQ) Editorial Boards, which are responsible for the website content (i.e. the content on cannabis). “PDQ Editorial Boards review current evidence,” and “do not make recommendations,” said NCI in a written response. “Their work is editorially independent of [NCI],” and “The summary on Cannabis and cannabinoids does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH (National Institutes of Health).”

Okay, this is where it gets interesting. 

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