Seemingly in the light of the introduction of the ‘Medical Innovation Bill‘ in South Africa’s parliament in 2014, the Cancer Society of South Africa has revised it’s position on cannabis and cancer. It seems to have five more pages than their 2012 position paper but their conclusion remains the same:
“CANSA is (also) of the opinion that there are sufficient
medicines available in South Africa for the effective
treatment of nausea, vomiting and other conditions related
to cancer including end-of-life care”
Download their Feb 2014 position paper here:
CANSA-Fact-Sheet-and-Position-Statement-on-Cannabis-20140221
To this day i have yet to be in anyway convinced that the cansa assosiation actually help cacer patients. In fact everytime i arrived at their offices they had a personel crises of some sort or were out campaigning with no one to assist. In fact i have spoken to four people in Rustenburg who have asked for assistance and never even had the courtesy of a follow up phone call. So i do not believe they have the patient in mind only their paychecks.They wont agree with trying alternative measures because then the public would not be so eager to hand them their hard earned cash….
It is quite evident that CANSA knows next to nothing about the properties of Cannabis. One word: APOPTOSIS! Cannabis instructs cancer cells to self destruct and leaves the good cells unharmed! It is a sin not to at least approvde clinical tests!
Not to mention morphine is insanely addictive.
I read the Cancer Associations paper on Cannabis with interest. What struck me are the obvious inconsistencies, and what appears to be an embarrasses shuffling around of hard scientific facts , in an attempt to continue to cling to its outdated and discredited position on this much maligned medicinal and recreational herb.
The paper is long on emphasizing cannabis’s alleged harmful effects , and at best gives over to the use of MM for symptomatic relive. It is only towards the end of its long winded statement does it seems to give in , and then only apparently grudgingly, to the the curative potential of MM : “While not every strain of cannabis has the same effect, more and more patients are experiencing success in cancer reduction in a short period of time by using cannabis”
It then goes on to to give a long list of peer review papers, some in top medical journals on the use of cannabis for cancer. Just a glace through the titles of the papers tells an amazing story that apparently many would prefer never was mentioned in polite company…
“reduces tumor growth…,inhibits tumor growth and angiogenesis in animal models……. data from this research support the clinical testing of Cannabinoids against prostate carcinoma” etc
But the position paper goes on to say ” It is still not clear whether the health risks associated with the use of
Cannabis outweighs the benefits ….. so if you are dying of cancer , and conventional treatments have only pushed you closer to the abyss, you really need to be concerned about the potential health risk of using a herb, that has repeatedly been shown, in many studies to have relative benign side effects (certainly relative to the risks of using most prescribed medications)
And then to push it even further it puts in a plug for big pharma ( its obvious , bed fellow): “Morphine is one of the drugs of choice for the control of severe pain and is also available at a reasonable cost”… so Morphine is a safe and ‘cheap’ drug…. I don’t think so, morphine is lethal if slightly overdosed,and has many health side effects, that far outweigh the use or risks of accidental overdosing of MM.
SO why does this position paper make me feeling even more suspect …who hiding what and why ?
The human body is wired to receive cannabinoids and it is every body’s God given right to use Cannabis if they so choose.