Urine Testing for Hemp Shampoo

According to General McCaffrey, through the urine testing and hair testing of job seekers, employees, parolees, probationees and prisoners, they can detect if these people eat hemp seed or candies or even use hemp shampoo. McCaffrey’s reasoning for the prohibition of hemp products is that it will make the current testing procedures for THC invalid by creating a false positive for THC.

Positive marijuana research has been deliberately prohibited in the United States since December 1976. Other countries in the world realize medicinal benefits of marijuana and are aware that research must continue.

On November 11, 1998, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, Cannabis, the Scientific and Medical Evidence (9th Report, HL Paper 151 Session 1997-98) made recommendations that “clinical trials of cannabis for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and chronic pain should be mount-ed as a matter of urgency,” and that the government should take steps to transfer cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2, so as to allow doctors to prescribe an appropriate preparation of cannabis, albeit as an unlicensed medicine and on the named patient basis and to allow doctors and pharmacists to supply the drug prescribed.” In keeping with U.S. policies and practice, the U.K. Government rejected the Lords’ report. In spite of the initial rejection, in April 2000, the clinical trials of cannabis forms and chronic pain began.

In March 2000, the House of Lords recommendations were borne out by the announcement by Pharmos, an Israeli pharmaceutical company, that dexanabinol, a marijuana constituent, can protect healthy brain cells after a stroke by blocking the production of glutamate, the neurotransmitter of this poison.

A team lead by the British born biologist Aidan Hampson at the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health, in Maryland, discovered that two active components of cannabis, compounds called THC and cannabidiol, will act to prevent damage to brain tissue placed in laboratory dishes. (Hampson, A.J., et al., 1998 Cannabidiol and Tetrahydrocannabinol are Neuroprotective Antioxidants; proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95 (July 7).

It has since been proven that cannabidiol is the best treatment for other neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

The NIMH reported that marijuana smoke is the only medicine we currently know of on Earth that can fully stop the brain damage after a stroke occurs, (1) by causing the arteries to enlarge and allowing virtually any clot to flow harmlessly through the brain and (2) by stopping the production of glutamate, which poisons and kills brain cells after the blood clot is in place.

About 600,000 Americans have strokes every year, while worldwide more than 5 million people suffer each year from stroke, head trauma or other conditions associated with neuronal cell death. About 350,000 of the 5 million happen during or just after an operation because of the thickening of the blood and the anesthesiologist’s slowing down of the metabolic rate, etc. Yet, just one puff of a marijuana cigarette right after a stroke could stop the severe damage which may occur. Even ditch weed from Iowa will stop the aftereffects of 95% of all strokes, virtually ending paralysis, speech loss and coma resulting from strokes. Strokes are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

People usually don’t realize they are having a stroke because of confusion from the brain damage.

About one hundred fifty thousand people die in the U.S. as a result of strokes or complications from these strokes each year! This number could be theoretically reduced to 7,500 with the use of medicinal marijuana. 150,000 more will become paralyzed or partially paralyzed and have to use canes or walkers. All because they didn’t have access to a joint right after the stroke. It is the only medicine on Earth that STOPS the damage from a stroke, on the spot, within one second! What they are using now takes six hours or longer to begin working, and by then the damage is already done. In March 1999, the Institute of Medicine Report (IOM) stated that there is “no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting!”

The opponents of medical marijuana have been saying that it should not be used medically because it is “addictive.” This argument is totally irrelevant because many highly addictive drugs are used in medicine and the IOM in their report found that marijuana has no significant addictive potential. The report notes that “few marijuana users develop dependence “and if there are withdrawal symptoms, they are “mild and short-lived.”


Gateway Theory is a Social Theory

The IOM report also stated that “the gateway theory is a social theory. The latter does not suggest that the pharmacological qualities of cannabis/marijuana make it a risk factor for progression to other drug use. Instead, it is the legal status of marijuana that makes it a gateway drug.” In other words, the real “gateway” to hard drugs is marijuana prohibition, not marijuana!

The IOM also says that, despite considerable research, marijuana has not been shown to cause immunocological damage in humans. Despite their obsessions with the hazards of smoking, they had to admit that marijuana still has not been proven to cause lung cancer, or any other type of malignancy.

Alison Smiley, a University of Toronto researcher, did a study which shows that marijuana is not a factor in driving accidents. Her findings were presented at a symposium of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Florida in February 1999. Her paper was also published in Health Effects of Cannabis, a publication of Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in March 1999.

Recent research into impairment and traffic accident reports from several countries shows that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts does not significantly increase a driver’s risk of causing an accident – unlike alcohol, says Smiley, an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. While smoking marijuana does impair driving ability, it does not share alcohol’s effect on judgment. Drivers on marijuana remain aware of their impairment, prompting them to slow down and drive more cautiously to compensate, she explains.

“The safety hazards of smoking marijuana and driving are overrated.”

—Alison Smiley, University of Toronto

“Both substances impair performance,” Smiley says. “However, the more cautious behavior of subjects who received marijuana decreases the drug’s impact on performance. Their behavior is more appropriate to their impairment, whereas subjects who received alcohol tend to drive in a more risky manner.”

Smiley says her results should be considered by those debating mandatory drug tests for users of transportation equipment such as truck or train drivers, or the decriminalization of marijuana for medical use. “There’s an assumption that because marijuana is illegal, it must increase the risk of an accident. We should just try to stick to the facts.”

A team led by scientists from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has demonstrated the prevalence of cannabinoid receptors in the retina, indicating an important role for cannabinoids, a family of compounds which includes the psychoactive components of marijuana and hashish, in retinal function and perhaps vision in general.

In the December 7, 1999 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the UCSD researchers described for the first time the specific distribution and effects on retinal function of the cellular receptor proteins activated by cannabinoids.

These findings may provide a missing link in efforts to unravel the complicated and fascinating machinery by which the retina turns light into meaningful information in the brain.

In the March 2000 issue of Nature Medicine, a research team from Complutense University and Autonoma University in Madrid, Spain announced the findings of a study on rats and mice and stated that marijuana’s active ingredient called THC, killed tumor cells in advanced cases of glioma, a rare malignant cancer which heretofore has been 100 percent fatal.

Researchers injected the active compounds, called cannabinoids, directly into the brain cancers. Lead researcher Manuel Guzman says, “We observed a remarkable growth inhibiting effect.” The THC, for the first time, eradicated the brain tumors in one third of the treated rats and about one third of the treated rats lived “significantly longer” than those given no drug, some up to about three times as long.

Laboratory studies showed that THC killed glioma cells while leaving normal brain cells unharmed. The drug caused a build-up of a fat molecule called ceramide, which provoked a death spiral in the cancer cells.

Guzman tested THC at very low doses and at a late stage, when untreated mice were already starting to die. He predicts that THC should work better if given earlier.

It seems that the more research that is done relating to the medicinal value of marijuana, the more we realize how valuable marijuana is as a medicine (for Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, cancer tumors, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, pain, nausea, and as an appetite stimulant, muscle relaxer, and who knows what else). We need to demand that research be allowed on marijuana. If it can save a life, or even improve the quality of life of any human being, this medicine must be studied. We must throw away all the years of misinformation and disinformation and seek the truth.

I have talked with so many people who have stated that before using marijuana as a medicine they felt that they were dying of their AIDS or their cancer, yet with marijuana as a medicine they feel they are living with their cancer or their AIDS.

In 2007, while many events on the hemp horizon seem promising, the government and DEA’s insistence in doggedly maintaining Anslinger’s absurd and oppressive laws of 1937 are continuing to inflict pain and suffering upon all Americans despite the fact a recent CNN poll indicates that 95% of U.S. citizens support the legalization of medical marijuana! An earlier poll of Californians showed 40% in sup-port of legalization of industrial, medicinal, nutritional and personal use by adults 21 years and older.

My fervent hope is that we are merely seeing the darkness before the inevitable dawn.

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