The term medical marijuana took on
dramatic new meaning in February, 2000
when researchers in Madrid announced they
had destroyed incurable brain tumors in
rats by injecting them with THC, the
active ingredient in cannabis.
The Madrid study marks only the second
time that THC has been administered to
tumor-bearing animals; the first was a
Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In
both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed
tumors in a majority of the test
subjects.
Most Americans don't know anything about
the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major
U.S. newspapers carried the story, which
ran only once on the AP and UPI news
wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.
The ominous part is that this isn't the
first time scientists have discovered that
THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at
the Medical College of Virginia, who had
been funded by the National Institute of
Health to find evidence that marijuana
damages the immune system, found instead
that THC slowed the growth of three kinds
of cancer in mice - lung and breast
cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.
The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia
study and all further cannabis/tumor
research, according to Jack Herer, who
reports on the events in his book, "The
Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976
President Gerald Ford put an end to all
public cannabis research and granted
exclusive research rights to major
pharmaceutical companies, who set out -
unsuccessfully - to develop synthetic
forms of THC that would deliver all the
medical benefits without the "high."
The Madrid researchers reported in the
March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they
injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer
cells, producing tumors whose presence
they confirmed through magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they
injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15
with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound
similar to THC. "All the rats left
untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after
glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ...
Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived
significantly longer than control rats.
THC administration was ineffective in
three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine
of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time
of death of untreated rats, and survived
up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was
completely eradicated in three of the
treated rats." The rats treated with
Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.
The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel
Guzman of Complutense University, also
irrigated healthy rats' brains with large
doses of THC for seven days, to test for
harmful biochemical or neurological
effects. They found none.
"Careful MRI analysis of all those
tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage
related to necrosis, edema, infection or
trauma ... We also examined other
potential side effects of cannabinoid
administration. In both tumor-free and
tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid
administration induced no substantial
change in behavioral parameters such as
motor coordination or physical activity.
Food and water intake as well as body
weight gain were unaffected during and
after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the
general hematological profiles of
cannabinoid-treated rats were normal.
Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor
markers of tissue damage changed
substantially during the 7-day delivery
period or for at least 2 months after
cannabinoid treatment ended."
Guzman's investigation is the only time
since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has
been administered to live tumor-bearing
animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a
1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited
breast cancer cell proliferation, but that
was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't
involve live subjects.)
In an email interview for this story, the
Madrid researcher said he had heard of the
Virginia study, but had never been able to
locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature
Medicine article characterizes the new
study as the first on tumor-laden animals
and doesn't cite the 1974 Virginia
investigation.
"I am aware of the existence of that
research. In fact I have attempted many
times to obtain the journal article on the
original investigation by these people,
but it has proven impossible." Guzman
said.
In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration
tried to persuade American universities
and researchers to destroy all 1966-76
cannabis research work, including
compendiums in libraries, reports Jack
Herer, who states, "We know that large
amounts of information have since
disappeared."
Guzman provided the title of the work -
"Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids,"
an article in a 1975 Journal of the
National Cancer Institute - and this
writer obtained a copy at the University
of California medical school library in
Davis and faxed it to Madrid.
The summary of the Virginia study begins,
"Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was
retarded by the oral administration of
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol
(CBN)" - two types of cannabinoids, a
family of active components in marijuana.
"Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with
THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor
size."
The 1975 journal article doesn't mention
breast cancer tumors, which featured in
the only newspaper story ever to appear
about the 1974 study - in the Local
section of the Washington Post on August
18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb
Is Studied," it read in part:
"The active chemical agent in marijuana
curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer
in mice and may also suppress the immunity
reaction that causes rejection of organ
transplants, a Medical College of Virginia
team has discovered." The researchers
"found that THC slowed the growth of lung
cancers, breast cancers and a
virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice,
and prolonged their lives by as much as 36
percent."
Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent
in his response after this writer faxed
him the clipping from the Washington Post
of a quarter century ago. In translation,
he wrote:
"It is extremely interesting to me, the
hope that the project seemed to awaken at
that moment, and the sad evolution of
events during the years following the
discovery, until now we once again Îdraw
back the veilâ over the anti-tumoral
power of THC, twenty-five years later.
Unfortunately, the world bumps along
between such moments of hope and long
periods of intellectual castration."
News coverage of the Madrid discovery has
been virtually nonexistent in this
country. The news broke quietly on Feb.
29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the
UPI wire about the Nature Medicine
article. This writer stumbled on it
through a link that appeared briefly on
the Drudge Report web page. The New York
Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles
Times all ignored the story, even though
its newsworthiness is indisputable: a
benign substance occurring in nature
destroys deadly brain tumors.
Raymond Cushing is a journalist, musician
and filmmaker. This article was named by
Project Censored as a "Top Censored Story
of 2000."
