Pot times
Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1065/a03.html
Newshawk: Kirk
Pubdate: Sat, 02 Jul 2005
Source: CounterPunch (US Web)
Column: Pot Shots
Copyright: 2005 CounterPunch
Contact:
counterpunch@counterpunch.org
Website: http://www.counterpunch.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3785
Author: Fred Gardner
Cited: International Cannabinoid Research Society
http://www.cannabinoidsociety.org/
Cited: Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/
Cited: California Cannabis Research Medical Group http://www.ccrmg.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm
(Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm
(Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232
(Chronic Pain)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?323
(GW Pharmaceuticals)
SMOKING MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE LUNG
CANCER
Marijuana smoking -"even heavy longterm use"- does not cause cancer
of the lung, upper airwaves, or esophagus, Donald Tashkin reported at this
year's meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society. Coming
from Tashkin, this conclusion had extra significance for the assembled
drug-company and university-based scientists ( most of whom get funding from
the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse ). Over the years,
Tashkin's lab at UCLA has produced irrefutable evidence of the damage that
marijuana smoke wreaks on bronchial tissue. With NIDA's support, Tashkin
and colleagues have identified the potent carcinogens in marijuana smoke,
biopsied and made photomicrographs of pre-malignant cells, and studied the
molecular changes occurring within them. It is Tashkin's research that
the Drug Czar's office cites in ads linking marijuana to lung cancer.
Tashkin himself has long believed in a causal relationship, despite a study in
which Stephen Sidney examined the files of 64,000 Kaiser patients and found
that marijuana users didn't develop lung cancer at a higher rate or die
earlier than non-users. Of five smaller studies on the question, only
two -involving a total of about 300 patients- concluded that marijuana smoking
causes lung cancer. Tashkin decided to settle the question by conducting
a large, prospectively designed, population-based, case-controlled study.
"Our major hypothesis," he told the ICRS, "was that heavy,
longterm use of marijuana will increase the risk of lung and upper-airwaves
cancers."
The Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance program provided Tashkin's team
with the names of 1,209 L.A. residents aged 59 or younger with cancer (
611 lung, 403 oral/pharyngeal, 90 laryngeal, 108 esophageal ).
Interviewers collected extensive lifetime histories of marijuana, tobacco,
alcohol and other drug use, and data on diet, occupational exposures, family
history of cancer, and various "socio-demographic factors." Exposure
to marijuana was measured in joint years ( joints per day x 365 ).
Controls were found based on age, gender and neighborhood. Among them,
46% had never used marijuana, 31% had used less than one joint year, 12% had
used 10-30 j-yrs, 2% had used 30-60 j-yrs, and 3% had used for more than 60
j-yrs. Tashkin controlled for tobacco use and calculated the relative
risk of marijuana use resulting in lung and upper airwaves cancers. All
the odds ratios turned out to be less than one ( one being equal to the
control group's chances )! Compared with subjects who had used less than one
joint year, the estimated odds ratios for lung cancer were .78; for 1-10
j-yrs, .74; for 10-30 j-yrs, .85 for 30-60 j-yrs; and 0.81 for more than 60
j-yrs. The estimated odds ratios for oral/pharyngeal cancers were 0.92
for 1-10 j-yrs; 0.89 for 10-30 j-yrs; 0.81 for 30-60 j-yrs; and 1.0 for more
than 60 j-yrs. "Similar, though less precise results were obtained
for the other cancer sites," Tashkin reported. "We found
absolutely no suggestion of a dose response." The data on tobacco use, as
expected, revealed "a very potent effect and a clear dose-response
relationship -a 21-fold greater risk of developing lung cancer if you smoke
more than two packs a day." Similarly high odds obtained for
oral/pharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer and esophageal cancer.
"So, in summary" Tashkin concluded, "we failed to observe a
positive association of marijuana use and other potential confounders."
There was time for only one question, said the moderator, and San Francisco
oncologist Donald Abrams, M.D., was already at the microphone: "You don't
see any positive correlation, but in at least one category [marijuana-only
smokers and lung cancer], it almost looked like there was a negative
correlation, i.e., a protective effect. Could you comment on that?"
"Yes," said Tashkin. "The odds ratios are less than one
almost consistently, and in one category that relationship was significant,
but I think that it would be difficult to extract from these data the
conclusion that marijuana is protective against lung cancer. But that is
not an unreasonable hypothesis."
Abrams had results of his own to report at the ICRS meeting. He and his
colleagues at San Francisco General Hospital had conducted a randomized,
placebo-controlled study involving 50 patients with HIV-related peripheral
neuropathy. Over the course of five days, patients recorded their pain
levels in a diary after smoking either NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes or
cigarettes from which the THC had been extracted. About 25% didn't know
or guessed wrong as to whether they were smoking the placebos, which suggests
that the blinding worked. Abrams requested that his results not be
described in detail prior to publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal,
but we can generalize: they exceeded expectations, and show marijuana
providing pain relief comparable to Gabapentin, the most widely used treatment
for a condition that afflicts some 30% of patients with HIV.
To a questioner who bemoaned the difficulty of "separating the high from
the clinical benefits," Abrams replied: "I'm an oncologist as well
as an AIDS doctor and I don't think that a drug that creates euphoria in
patients with terminal diseases is having an adverse effect." His study
was funded by the University of California's Center for Medicinal Cannabis
Research.
* * *
The 15th annual meeting of the ICRS was held at the Clearwater, Florida,
Hilton, June 24-27. Almost 300 scientists attended. R.
Stephen Ellis, MD, of San Francisco, was the sole clinician from California.
Los Angeles Farmacy operator Mike Ommaha and therapist/cultivator Pat Humphrey
showed up to audit the proceedings... Some of the younger European
scientists expressed consternation over the recent U.S. Supreme Court
ruling and the vote in Congress re-enforcing the cannabis prohibition.
"How can they dispute that it has medical effect?" an investigator
working in Germany asked us earnestly. She had come to give a talk on
"the role of different neuronal populations in the pharmacological
actions of delta-9 THC." For most ICRS members, the holy grail is a legal
synthetic drug that exerts the medicinal effects of the prohibited herb.
To this end they study the mechanism of action by which the body's own
cannabinoids are assembled, function, and get broken down. A drug that
encourages production or delays dissolution, they figure, might achieve the
desired effect without being subject to "abuse..." News on the
scientific front included the likely identification of a third cannabinoid
receptor expressed in tissues of the lung, brain, kidney, spleen and smaller
branches of the mesenteric artery. Investigators from GlaxoSmithKline
and AstraZeneca both reported finding the new receptor but had different
versions of its pharmacology. It may have a role in regulating blood
pressure.
Several talks and posters described the safety and efficacy of Sativex, G.W.
Pharmaceuticals' whole-plant extract containing high levels of THC and CBD (
cannabidiol ) formulated to spray in the mouth. G.W. director
Geoffrey Guy seemed upbeat, despite the drubbing his company's stock took this
spring when UK regulators withheld permission to market Sativex pending
another clinical trial. Canada recently granted approval for doctors to
prescribe Sativex, and five sales reps from Bayer ( to whom G.W. sold
the Canadian marketing rights ) are promoting it to neurologists.
Sativex was approved for the treatment of neuropathic pain in multiple
sclerosis, but can be prescribed for other purposes as doctors see fit.
A more detailed report on the ICRS meeting will appear in the upcoming issue
of O'Shaughnessy's, a journal put out by California's small but growing group
of pro-cannabis doctors. To get on the mailing list, send a contribution
of any amount to the CCRMG ( California Cannabis Research Medical Group ) at
p.o. box 9143, Berkeley, CA 94709. It's a 501c3 non-profit and
your correspondent's main source of income.
Meanwhile, Back in San Francisco...
The California contingent was en route to the ICRS meeting when Marian Fry,
M.D. and her husband, attorney Dale Schafer, were arrested on federal
charges of conspiring to provide marijuana to a patient. On the same
day, three San Francisco cannabis clubs were raided by the DEA and 19 people
-all Asians and a few Latinos- charged with conspiracy to cultivate and
distribute marijuana. Affidavits allege that they grew cannabis in
rented houses in S.F., the East Bay and the Peninsula for sale to dispensaries
and on the black market. Three men were charged with intent to sell
ecstasy. ( An undercover agent allegedly had purchased 1,000 tabs from a
man named Enrique Chan. During the raids on 26 locations, a total of 50
tabs were found on one individual. ) The two alleged ringleaders,
Richard Wang and Vincent Wan, were charged with money laundering.
Defense lawyers say the alleged money laundering consisted of using dispensary
proceeds to underwrite the grow ops. At a July 1 detention hearing, bail
for Wang was set at $2 million. Wan has not yet been apprehended or
turned himself in.
Former district attorney Terence Hallinan is representing Sergio Alvarez, who
hired him several months ago after police raided a house in the Sunset
district where Alvarez was allegedly cultivating marijuana. "I
didn't know at the time that that would become part of a conspiracy
case," Hallinan said after the detention hearing. Alvarez's bail
was set at $500,000; his working-class parents are putting up their modest
Sunnyvale home as surety. Hallinan says that every cannabis dispensary
has links to a network of growers, and that the decision to take down these
three was an attempt to exploit anti-Asian sentiment. "They asked
themselves, 'Who will we start with now that we've been given permission [by
the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Raich case]? Let's go after the
Chinese!' San Francisco has more than a hundred-year history of anti-Chinese
attitudes and policies." Contemporary resentments towards Asians in San
Francisco center around their apparent economic successes. It's an
impossibly expensive housing market, and one occasionally hears non-Asians
say, with mixed admiration and envy, things like: "How can they arrive
from Hong Kong in 1995 and buy a house in the Sunset in 1996?" The answer
is: by pooling resources ( conspiring ) with friends and family to make the
down payment.
THE INNER SUNSET
I used to have the real estate knack
But all that I gaineth, I giveth back
Only to wind up with you in this cozy
Old shack in the Inner Sunset years
*
Obviously I did everything wrong
Except one or two that strung me along
The road to the club called Chez Nancy Wong
A shack in the Inner Sunset years
*
Where there's noodles at midnight
If you are in need of a treat
Where the Judah car makes an 'N'
'n careens down the street
*
I still believe that it's all within reach
A big enough place between here and the beach
And from each and according to each
A shack in the sunset in the sunset years
*
The blood orange sunset years
The cool gray sunset years
