Despite numerous studies that have shown that marijuana could potentially aid in treating various types of cancer, the United States government has yet to embrace the drug’s medical applications. Instead, the government’s strict regulations have unfortunately acted as a barrier that has suppressed insight into cannabis’s medical applications.
Guillermo Velasco and his colleagues at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain have recently found that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, caused brain cancer cells to undergo self-digestion, a process known as autophagy, thus suppressing the growth of cancerous tumors.
Velasco’s study, titled “Cannabinoid action induces autophagy-mediated cell death through stimulation of ER stress in human glioma cells,” was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in April 2009.
“These results may help to design new cancer therapies based on the use of medicines containing the active principle of marijuana and/or in the activation of autophagy,” Velasco told US News.
The findings of Velasco’s study were promising. However, it was not the first of its kind – some of the earliest tests showing THC’s useful medical applications were funded by the U.S. government itself.
Read the full article at the420times.com
