By Erik
Source:
the420times.com
Since the early 1990s, several countries around the globe have
rediscovered hemp as a versatile renewable raw material and an ideally
viable commercial crop. Most individuals throughout the world have a
tendency to identify hemp as a crop that produces fiber, clothing, seed
foodstuffs and fuel oil, but have you ever considered
the prospective medicinal usages that this miraculous plant has to offer?
In the United States, the perceived drug potential of industrial hemp
is one of the hindrances to its re-legalization as a commercial crop.
As most of us in the cannabis community know, the THC content of
industrial hemp that is farmed commercially is as low as 0.2 percent.
When comparing that particularly low percentage to the high-THC
levels of cannabis that is currently cultivated for medicinal purposes
it makes one question the medical benefits of hemp.
The answer lies in the extremely high levels of Cannabidiol or CBD
that low-THC industrial hemp contains, with some varieties testing at
ranges between 2 and 17 percent overall CBD.
Up
until just a few years ago, there has been essentially no published
investigational research on the drug potential of industrial hemp due to
the fact that our federal government chose to unjustly categorize it as
a controlled substance.
According to reports to the International Association for Cannabis as
Medicine, several persons in recent years have attempted to produce
pharmacological effects for medicinal and recreational purposes by
ingesting or smoking fiber hemp.
However, these individuals didn’t experience any of the analgesic or
cannabinoid effects caused by the ingestion of drug type cannabis or
from the Food and Drug Administration approved dronabinol (THC) that can
be legally prescribed by physicians.
In fact, studies have shown that cannabis with higher levels of CBD
can actually antagonize the effects that THC has on the brain’s
cannabinoid receptor. In other words, the higher the CBD levels compared
to THC can have an adverse result on the psychotropic effects one
normally experiences with low-CBD/high-THC cannabis.
Harvested industrial hemp.
CBD on its own doesn’t exert any psychotropic effects, but several
other clinically pertinent properties have been discovered in past and
recent studies. Among them are anticonvulsant effects in epileptic
patients and antidystonic effects in movement disorders. It has also
been shown to retain sleep-inducing, anxiety relieving and
anti-psychotic effects.
High doses of THC can induce anxiety, panic reactions and functional
psychotic states among certain individuals, but a research group found
significant anxiety reduction occurred in a model of speech simulation
after administering 300 mg of CBD, comparable to that caused by 10 mg of
the pharmaceutical sedative diazepam.
The very same research group treated a young schizophrenic man who
was admitted to a medical care facility for aggressive behavior,
self-injury, incoherent thoughts and hallucinations. Over a period of
four weeks the young man in question received daily doses of up to 1,500
mg CBD and all of his symptoms improved extraordinarily.
Scientists
at Temple University conducted a research study on lab mice to attempt
to prevent the neuropathic pain that can result from the use of the
chemotherapy drug paclitaxel via the use of a Cannabidiol extract.
Among the study mice that were administered the chemotherapy drug;
those that also received Cannabidiol displayed a significant reduction
in their sensitivity to pain compared to the subject’s that were given
paclitaxel by itself.
“From what we’ve seen so far, it’s almost a complete prevention of
the onset of the neuropathic pain,” explained Sara Jane Ward, research
assistant professor at Temple’s School of Pharmacy and the study’s lead
author.
Another
study conducted by two scientists at San Francisco’s California Pacific
Medical Center Research Institute showed that the use of Cannabidiol
has the ability to “turn off” the activity of a gene responsible for
metastasis in breast and other types of cancers.
“The preclinical trial data is very strong, and there’s no toxicity.
There’s really a lot of research to move ahead with and to get people
excited,” proclaimed Sean McAllister, who along with his colleague
Pierre Desprez, have comprehensively studied cannabinoids and refer to
them as potent inhibitors of metastatic disease.
According to Dr. William Courtney, a medical cannabis expert and
founder of Cannabis International, the molecule Cannabidiol bridges the
gap of neurotransmission in the central nervous system, including in the
brain, by providing a two-way system of communication that completes a
positive “feedback loop.”
As opposed to a one-way transmission, which can stimulate chronic
inflammation of healthy tissue, the unique two-way transmission system
engaged by CBDs imitates the body’s own natural two-way communications
system.
This
means that individuals whose systems are compromised by autoimmune
disorders, cellular dysfunction, chronic inflammation, cancer cells, and
various other illnesses can derive a wide range of health-promoting
benefits simply by consuming CBDs.
Dr. Ethan Russo, Seattle, Washington area physician and senior
advisor to GW Pharmaceuticals, a British drug company that is utilizing
CBDs in their product Sativex, explains the reason why the use of
Cannabidiol might be effective for overall wellness in human beings.
“There’s a tendency to discount claims when something appears to be
good for everything, but there’s a reason this is the case,” Dr. Russo
declared. ”The endogenous cannabinoid system acts as a modulator in
fine-tuning a lot of these systems, and if something is deranged
biochemically in a person’s body, it may well be that a cannabinoid
system can bring things back into balance.”
It seems that the beneficial properties of industrial hemp are almost
limitless, especially when considering the fact that it has the ability
to produce high levels of the potentially life-saving molecule CBD
without producing a sufficient psychotropic level of THC, which is the
reason the federal government uses when attempting to rationalize the
fact that industrial hemp remains illegal to cultivate. It’s time for
the politicians in Washington to come up with a new line of
bureaucratic-bull chips because that particular argument is about as
effective as a lead filled balloon.
We can only hope that further studies will continue to reveal the
truth regarding the hemp plant and all of its phenomenal uses which
would also be effective in helping pro-hemp advocates prove that the
prohibition of hemp cultivation is beyond unjust and inhumane.
Researchers at the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran assessed the impact of hemp seed oil, evening primrose oils, and a restricted diet in 23 patients diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS. They reported that participants at the study’s completion “were healthier in comparison to baseline” and that “clinical and immunological parameters showed improvement in the patients after the intervention.”
