Dosing Instructions

Michelle Aldrich (left) As VAlerie corrAl of WAMM writes out a dosing regimen for using cannabis oil as a treatment for lung cancer. Aldrich’s remarkable first-person story starts on page 18. continued on page 15 By Fred Gardner Increasing numbers of people have been using Cannabis “oil” —plant extracts consisting of 50% or more THC and/ or CBD— to treat conditions ranging from mild rashes to potentially fatal cancers. Reports of success are circulating among medical Cannabis users and on the internet. They gain plausibility from a parallel stream of papers published in scientific journals establishing that cannabinoids have anti-tumor effects on the cellular level and in animals. (See “The Anti-Cancer Potential of Cannabinoids,” page 4.) The anti-cancer properties of cannabinoids were a recurring theme at this year’s meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, and also in a course for physicians presented Oct. 24 at the University of California San Francisco. One speaker, Jeffrey Hergenrather, MD, described a particularly dramatic case seen by a San Diego colleague: a 90% reduction in the size of an infant’s brain tumor achieved over the course of a year by parents applying hemp oil to the baby’s pacifier before naptime and bedtime. (The illustration at right includes a more recent scan showing continued tumor regression.) Aptly dubbed “MMJ13001A” on the UCSF website, the half-day course on cannabinoid medicine included talks by three researchers whose findings about cannabis and cancer have been under-reported, to put it mildly: Stephen Sidney, MD, director of research for Kaiser-Permanente in Northern California; UCLA pulmonologist Donald Tashkin, MD; and Donald Abrams, MD, Chief of HematologyOncology at San Francisco General Hospital. (Additional coverage starts on page 12.) Some 60 doctors received continuing medical education credits for attending the half-day course at UCSF’s Laurel Heights auditorium, which was organized by the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids, with help from Abrams and the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, and reprised the next day in Santa Monica (MMJ13001B). A very interested auditor at the UCSF session, Michelle Aldrich, had used cannabis oil as a treatment for lung cancer. Her first-person account of the experience starts on page 18 of this issue. Donald Abrams, who consulted on Aldrich's case, says, “The fact that Michelle didn’t have cancer that could be located [after using the oil] is a bit unusual in someone who started treatment with an advanced stage. I don’t usually see that in my patients. Did the cannabis oil make a difference? We don’t know because we don’t have a controlled study.” Abrams has met with a UCSF neurooncologist “to discuss whether or not we should do a clinical trial adding oil to chemo for patients with glioblastoma [a brain tumor that is usually fast-moving and fatal]. Manuel Guzman’s studies have shown that cannabinoids have great potential in treating brain tumors.” Undoubtedly Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, who grows marijuana for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, can produce a uniform, highly concentrated extract for research purposes. But whether or not NIDA will let Abrams have some is uncertain. Abrams has jumped through bureaucratic hoops before. He has obtained all the necessary approvals and funding to