The potential health risks associated with cannabis are less than those associated with alcohol and do not justify the continued criminalization of the plant or its users, according to a report published in October by The Beckley Foundation – an independent British think-tank that analyzes drug use and drug policy. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7723
The administration of natural plant cannabinoids significantly reduces the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus (aka MRSA), according to a study published this fall in the Journal of Natural Products. MRSA is responsible for over 18,000 hospital-stay deaths each year. Read the full story at: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7687.
[April 1, 2007]
When cannabis hits the headlines it is often in response to the latest cannabis farm that has been unearthed, be it in a remote field in the country or in someone’s roof in the city. Bad press all round for a plant known for its psychoactive properties and misuse, even though it is finding support from individuals and doctors for alleviating the symptoms of many illnesses. But what many people fail to appreciate is that there are other, safer, varieties of Cannabis sativa that bring different qualities to society.
The pot-smoking species is C. sativa subsp. indica, characterised by relatively large amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component. However, another cultivar, C. sativa subsp. sativa, produces only trace amounts of THC and grows long and tall, with little branching. This form is cultivated for its fibres and is more often known as industrial hemp. It is easy to grow, typically taking 4 months to rise to heights of 3-10 feet, its fast growth negating the need for herbicides.
It has been estimated that hemp is used in more than 25,000 products, including paper, fibreboard, textiles, biodegradable composites, plastics, rope, sails and furniture. Compared with wood chippings, hemp produces at least double the amount of fibre and does not require bleaching or other toxic chemicals.
But Cannabis sativa has one further property that can get careless industrialists and farmers off the hook. It can help to clean up soil that has been contaminated with toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, nickel and copper. Plants grown in soil that has been fouled by industrial effluent, metal-enriched fertilisers or herbicides can absorb metals into their root systems. So, ideally, crops could be grown on contaminated soil, then the fibres harvested for industrial use.
Little is known about how the Cannabis plant reacts when it takes up excess copper, especially within the proteome. How does it manage this, while still maintaining growth and its normal protein functions? This question has now been addressed by scientists from the University of Piemonte Orientale in Alessandria who have studied the proteome of Cannabis sativa var. Felina 34 grown under copper stress.
Seedlings were planted in a quartz sand-loam-gravel mix that was dosed with 150 ppm copper sulphate. This level is well above the mean world soil copper concentration of 20 ppm, while remaining below that at which serious plant toxicity is observed. After 6 weeks, the copper-treated plants were smaller than control plants, with shorter leaf areas, root lengths and root volumes.
The copper content, determined by ICPMS, doubled in the shoots, but increased 8-fold in the roots compared with controls. This distribution confirmed that copper intake was preferentially localised in the root system in agreement with published work which declared the copper gradient in hemp to be roots > stems > leaves > seeds.
Proteins in the roots were extracted by standard methods and separated by 2D gel electrophoresis. The protein spots that had statistically significant intensity differences from the control gel were selected for in-gel digestion with trypsin for tandem mass spectrometry analysis. Seven proteins were down-regulated, five were up-regulated and two disappeared altogether.
Subsequent identification was not straightforward, since the C. sativa genome has not yet been sequenced. So the researchers, led by senior reporter Maria Cavaletto, used de novo sequencing from the MS/MS spectra then aligned the proteins to database sequences of related organisms. This cross-species protocol was able to identify some of the protein with altered abundances.
Since no new proteins were observed under copper stress, the team concluded that the plant does not evolve a copper-specific mechanism to incorporate the excess metal ions. They proposed a copper-coping mechanism in which the first protein to interact with the copper ions, present as copper(II), was aldo/keto reductase. It acts as a scavenger, reducing copper(II) to copper(I), a process which makes it available for interactions with other proteins such as phytochelatins that bind copper(I). This reductase is an auxin-induced protein, confirming the involvement of auxin as a plant growth regulator handling the excess metal.
Other implicated proteins include the stress proteins formate dehydrogenase, a protein that increases in response to other stresses such as dark, cold and drought, as well as enolase and elicitor-inducible protein. Other implicated proteins are those which confer greater copper resistance and provide an efficient reducing system (thioredoxin peroxidase, peroxidase and cyclophilin) and those which regulate root growth (actin, ribosomal proteins and glycine-rich protein.
This preliminary work will mark a useful basis for future phytoremediation studies, perhaps being used to develop plants for biomonitoring or for the remediation of heavily metal-polluted soil.
Related links:
* Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Piemonte Orientale
* Proteomics 2007, 7, 1121: “Proteomic characterization of copper stress response in Cannabis sativa roots”
via videosift.com
Posted by Al Giordano – December 12, 2008 at 12:13 pm
By Al Giordano
President-elect Obama – fulfilling multiple campaign promises to more deeply involve the public in setting priorities for his administration – opened up his Change.Gov website to questions from citizens, and asked the people to then rate the questions up or down.
The first round of questions closed at midnight last night, and it should come as no surprise that many of the top questions involve issues that millions of Americans care deeply about but for which commercial media coverage doesn’t do justice in reporting or prioritizing.
The number one question for the first round was:
“Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”
A total of 2,521 7,947 participants recommended that question to only 102 634 that thought it inappropriate (the latter figure is particularly revealing, demonstrating that the “conventional wisdom” that drug policy reform is too controversial to touch is simply not reflected in public opinion, certainly not among Obama’s base supporters).
I have a suggestion for one of the ways the President-elect – who having promised it, now owes a serious response to that question beyond the usual sloganeering and grandstanding by politicians regarding matters of drug policy – can answer it consistent with his own stated positions while also advancing on those parts of it that he has not spoken out about clearly. I’ll get to that in a moment.
But first, it is interesting to note that other drug policy reform questions finished quite high up the list, too.
The seventh most popular question – out of many thousands submitted – was:
“13 states have compassionate use programs for medial Marijuana, yet the federal gov’t continues to prosecute sick and dying people. Isn’t it time for the federal gov’t to step out of the way and let doctors and families decide what is appropriate?”
The thirteenth:
“How will you fix the current war on drugs in America? and will there be any chance of decriminalizing marijuana?”
The fifteeth most popular question was:
“What kind of progress can be expected on the decriminalization and legalization for medicinal purposes of marijuana and will you re-prioritize the “War On Drugs” to reflect the need for drug treatment instead of incarceration?”
The eighteenth most popular question:
“The U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate, largely due to the War on Drugs. Our prisons are festering pits of rape, racism, and gang violence, and divert a lot of tax money to the corrupt prison industry. How can we fix this?”
And the ninteenth, on another area of drug policy:
“What will be done about the FDA and its cozy relationship with the Pharmaceutical industry? Will the protective legislation for the Pharm be reversed? Will the FDA pre-emption policy protecting the Pharm from liability be addressed?”
In other words, six of the top twenty questions – that’s 30 percent of them – are on drug policy and matters related to it.
If the President-elect and his advisors were to ask “how should we respond to those questions” I would answer in two parts:
1. Reiterate those campaign promises (to stop federal medical marijuana raids in states that have decided to allow patients access to that medicine, to end mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenders, and adequately fund drug treatment among them, prioritizing the latter over incarceration), implementing those that only require an executive order immediately upon taking office on January 20.
2. Appoint a National Commission of highly qualified and respected scientists, medical investigators, doctors, patients, civil libertarians and civil rights advocates, law enforcement professionals and experts, defense attorneys, prosecutors, economists, prison reform advocates, and some retired gray eminences from those fields to report back within sixth months with detailed answers to all of those questions and more. Charge the National Commission with making detailed recommendations for reforming US drug policy in ways that cease its counter-productive impacts on public safety, federal and state budgets, civil rights and liberties.
And then, when the report comes back, act upon it: implement changes that can be made through executive order immediately (including resetting priorities for US Attorneys and law enforcement agencies across the country) and propose legislation to Congress to deal with the rest.
And mobilize the grassroots supporters – Micah Sifry at TechPresident has published an Obama organization memo confirming that the field organization will be utilized for lobbying the House and Senate – to pressure Congress to comply.
The President-elect asked for public input and, lo’ and behold, he got it.
Now the ball is in his court to act on it in a meaningful way, a very important early test for whether he’ll walk his talk.
Aaron Houston, AlterNet – Buried in the latest Monitoring the Future survey — the major annual, federally funded survey of teen drug use — is an astonishing finding: More 10th-graders now smoke marijuana than smoke cigarettes. . . In the just-released survey, 13.8 percent of 10th-graders reported smoking marijuana in the past 30 days (considered “current use” by researchers), while just 12.3 percent smoked cigarettes. For eighth and 12th grades, cigarette use still exceeded marijuana, but the gap narrowed to insignificance. This year, current and past-year marijuana use increased for eighth- and 12th-graders and declined for 10th-graders, but none of the changes were large or statistically significant. In contrast, current cigarette smoking did drop significantly for 10th-graders. Changes for most other drugs were marginal, except for a significant increase in methamphetamine use among 10th-graders.
Q: “Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?” S. Man, Denton
A: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
December 02, 2008 | 9:36:52 PMA Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All has redefined the holiday special for the new millennium. But it may also have redefined holiday songs for the 21st century as well, especially Willie Nelson and Stephen Colbert’s “Little Dealer Boy.” Think “Little Drummer Boy” 2.0, substitute the phrase “finest gifts” for marijuana, and you’re there.
Or better yet, just check out the video of the entire song at right. It’s a double-exposure romp that might make Jesus blush, if he wasn’t already rumored to have used cannabis himself. After all, as Willie sings in the duet, cannabis is a “plant that smokes more sweetly than either frankincense or myrrh.”
If you like the tune, you’re probably going to love the rest of the bizarro standards found A Colbert Christmas, out now as an iTunes-only digital EP. Heck, you might even dig Toby Keith’s War-On-Christmas shocker “Have I Got a Present For You,” the very track that had me worried that Colbert’s holiday special might suck.
Boy, was I wrong about that.
Meanwhile, “Little Dealer Boy” has caught some flak on Colbert Nation, but I think it is one of the finest Christmas tunes ever laid down. Am I high? Post a comment below and let me know.
Jesus was almost certainly a cannabis user and an early proponent of the medicinal properties
of the drug, according to a study of scriptural texts published this month. The study suggests
that Jesus and his disciples used the drug to carry out miraculous healings.The anointing oil
used by Jesus and his disciples contained an ingredient called kaneh-bosem which has since
been identified as cannabis extract, according to an article by Chris Bennett in the drugs magazine,
High Times, entitled Was Jesus a Stoner? The incense used by Jesus in ceremonies also contained
a cannabis extract, suggests Mr Bennett, who quotes scholars to back his claims.
“There can be little doubt about a role for cannabis in Judaic religion,” Carl Ruck, professor
of classical mythology at Boston University said. Referring to the existence of cannabis in anointing
oils used in ceremonies, he added: “Obviously the easy availability and long-established tradition of
cannabis in early Judaism _ would inevitably have included it in the [Christian] mixtures.”
Mr Bennett suggests those anointed with the oils used by Jesus were “literally drenched
in this potent mixture _ Although most modern people choose to smoke or eat pot, when
its active ingredients are transferred into an oil-based carrier, it can also be absorbed through
the skin”. Quoting the New Testament, Mr Bennett argues that Jesus anointed his disciples
with the oil and encouraged them to do the same with other followers. This could have been
responsible for healing eye and skin diseases referred to in the Gospels.
“If cannabis was one of the main ingredients of the ancient anointing oil _ and receiving
this oil is what made Jesus the Christ and his followers Christians, then persecuting those
who use cannabis could be considered anti-Christ,” Mr Bennett concludes.