The legalization and/or decriminilzation of cannabis (aka marijuana) might seem like something that shouldn't be important to someone. However, when  you have watched someone suffer through cancer, or other illnesses, and witnessed first hand how the medical use of it can make life better for them, and in some cases - save their life; you get over the stigma, and just stand up for what you know and believe in.

 

My mother was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer in Spring 2011 called Uterine Leiomyosarcoma. In August 2011, in returned in her abdomen and also had distantly metastasized to her lungs. She began chemo soon after she healed from surgery. She had lost a lot of weight, and the nauseau from the chemo, stress, and in the later stages of cancer the sheer fact she had so much pressure against her stomach and bowels - she didn't have much of an apetite, and could barely keep food down. She was prescribed something after other things called Dronabinol (aka Marinol) which is actually a synthetic THC. She didn't realize this, but she took it and it helped greatly. However, the price of it even after Medicaid was outrageous. People that I know now that suffer from the side effects of chemo, chemo pills, and numerous other cancer issues can't and shouldn't have to be prescribed the synthetic form of something that is a plant. The argument that it has no medicinal use, as defined in Federal Law, is absolutely a lie which people bought into hook, line, and sinker.

Patent No. 6630507, held by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, covers the use of cannabinoids for treating a wide range of diseases.

 

Under U.S. federal law, marijuana is defined as having no medical use. So it might come as a surprise to hear that the government owns one of the only patents on marijuana as a medicine. The patent (US6630507) is titled “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants” and was awarded to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in October 2003.It was filed four years earlier, in 1999, by a group of scientists from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

 

Even for those that are religious, the bible says many things that would support the use of it. I like to compare it to the aloe plant. Look at the medicinal qualities of it. Or all of the other natural and organic things that are being used as substitutes now to the man-made chemicals that have been put in our foods and daily used products for decades.

 

Genesis 1:12 -The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

 

Genesis 1:29-31- And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

 

Genesis 9:3 - Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

 

Proverbs 31:6-7 - Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

 

Hebrews 6:7 - For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

 

Revelation 22:2 - Through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 

The Science is there. Religion even backs it up. Alcohol & tobacco are legal - and are proven bad for our bodies. So why is this plant considered a Schedule I drug? This is a plant, which is proven to have medicinal properties... while our roads crumble; our education system lacks; our jails and prisons are full... We waste valuable resources in both government money, and man-hours on the prohibition of cannabis. I've seen first hand how it helped my mother. I've seen first hand how it helped someone who was told they had testicular cancer, and onlly had a few months to live. I've seen how it helped someone after having Cancer, and dealing with the horrible side effects. It's time to end prohibition of Cannabis. It is not a drug. That is something that has been engrained into people's heads. So, I'm here to simply help educate.

 

 

Let me help you digest that...It is time for a little dose of reality everyone. Get ready. It is considered a SCHEDULE I drug. It is scheduled with HEROIN. (WTF?) Not a single person has ever died from an overdose of it and the US government has a patent out on it's Medicinal Properties, yet it is scheduled above Vicodin, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Methadone, Dilaudid, Demerol, OxyContin, Fentanyl, Adderall, Ritalin, Ketamine, Xanax, Darvocet, Valium, and so on and so forth....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The patent talked about above claims exclusive rights on the use of cannabinoids for treating neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and stroke, and diseases caused by oxidative stress, such as heart attack, Crohn’s disease, diabetes and arthritis.

 

Cannabinoids are a diverse class of compounds that include many of the unique compounds found in marijuana. A number of experts, including CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, have noted the contradiction between federal marijuana law and the government’s patent. - “The United States government owns a patent on marijuana as a medical application… So we have a patent through our Department of HHS on marijuana as a therapeutic and we also schedule it as a Schedule I.”

 

It is easy to think of the patent as a patent on marijuana itself. However, this would be inaccurate, since the patent actually covers non-psychoactive cannabinoids (both synthetic and natural), meaning those that don’t cause a high.The patent also covers only a specific application of these cannabinoids and not the production or use of marijuana and cannabinoids overall.

 

The patent claims to “provide a new class of antioxidant drugs, that have particular application as neuroprotectants.” According to the description, the inventors recognized “a previously unanticipated antioxidant property of the cannabinoids in general (and cannabidiol in particular).” Importantly, the patent does not cover cannabinoids that act through cannabinoid pathways, also known as receptors. - “This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”

 

The government’s patent does not cover THC, the main ingredient in marijuana. On the other hand, cannabidiol (CBD) is specifically mentioned as an example of a cannabinoid that is covered. The patent describes CBD and other non-psychoactive cannabinoids as superior when taken in higher doses. - “Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses.”

 

According to the description, CBD can be ingested in very large amounts without side effects.“No signs of toxicity or serious side effects have been observed following chronic administration of cannabidiol to healthy volunteers, even in large acute doses of 700mg/day.” The patent explains that cannabidiol previously had not been considered useful as a neuroprotectant. However, it cites various studies on cannabidiol as an antiepileptic and as a potential treatment for glaucoma.