Herb Ninja

Cannabis research gets £2m boost

5-24-2005 | BBC

A study into the use of cannabis-based medicines in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers has been given a £2m grant.
The Medical Research Council-funded trial will continue research on patients by the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth.

It suggested that THC in cannabis may protect nerve cells and help reduce muscle stiffness and disability.

The new three-year study will recruit 500 patients with progressive MS.

'Reasonable evidence'

It is hoped that by studying patients for a longer period than the previous 18-month tests, any benefits of cannabis may become clearer.

Currently very few medicines are effective in treating MS and none have been shown to have any effect in the later stages of the disease.

John Zycheck, research leader in the Cupid (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory Brain Disease) project, said: "Cannabis-based medicines may have an effect on the symptoms of MS, and we've got reasonable evidence for that at the moment.

"But what we haven't got evidence for is the longer-term effect on progressive MS and we hope that some of the cannabis-based medicines may do this."

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"Truth is treason in an empire of lies." -Ron Paul

Jose Melendez

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medi...p?newsid=25018

A trial to determine whether cannabis-based medicines can reduce disability in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been funded by the Medical Research Council, UK, (MRC).

The MRC has awarded £2 million to fund the CUPID study (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease) which will be led by Professor John Zajicek of the Peninsula Medical School and Derriford Hospital, in collaboration with Professor Alan Thompson at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (part of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) and Institute of Neurology, University College London.

The three-year CUPID study, which is due to begin later this year, will recruit 500 patients with progressive MS from neurology centres across the UK. The trial will evaluate whether the principal active compound found in cannabis, delta9-THC, might slow the development of disability. The research will follow on from a previous trial carried out by the same team, called Cannabinoids in MS (CAMS), which focused on testing the symptomatic benefit from cannabinoids over a 15-week and 12-month period.

Whilst the CAMS study was taking place, experimental evidence came to light to suggest that delta9-THC, a drug that was being used in the CAMS study, may have the potential to protect nerve cells.

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Using arguments from Gardner v. Clark:

http://home.olemiss.edu/~llibcoll/nd.../00D0087P.html

I hereby allege that John Walters and Barry McCaffrey have committed unlawful restraint of trade by

1) threatening to take legal action against doctors and providers engaged in the business of recommending or selling far less harmful herbal alternatives to avoid the greater harm known to be associated with defective and often deadly FDA and DEA approved drugs and drug delivery devices, unless they purchase such services from pharmaceutical interests publicly known to have acted in collusion with FDA to minimize or withhold public disclosure of serious and fatal side effects of said approved products;

2) initiating litigation under the false claim that approved medications or intoxicants are far safer than marijuana, smoked or otherwise, against individuals who offered such medication and intoxicant services, and

3) falsely claiming that a legal right to a monopoly of any permitted sales in the government estimated $10.5 billion dollar U.S. cannabis market was properly or lawfully transferred to one Mahmoud ElSohly.