Study: Marijuana Appears to Slow Cancer Growth in Laboratory Setting

Source: BBC News  
A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer spreading throughout the body, US scientists believe.

The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.

Unlike cannabis, CBD does not have any psychoactive properties so its use would not violate laws, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics reports.

Initiative Petition 131, the so-called Oregon Crimefighting Act, pushed by right-wing Republican Kevin Mannix , will be pulled from circulation, Mr. Mannix informed The Willamette Week .  Mannix claims that lack of resources has caused him to end this ill-advised boondoggle even though the effort recieved a $50,000 contribution from Save Our Society From Drugs (S.O.S.), a Florida-based organization that works to treat patients like criminals all across the country.  Mannix and his cronies were attempting to mislead Oregon voters by hiding the repeal of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act (OMMA) behind provisions that increase the punishment for sex offenders and drunk drivers, while also establishing a taxpayer-funded Marinol prescription drug program that would cost hard-working Oregonians millions of dollars.

While we have won a major victory in 2008, the fight to preserve the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program continues as Mannix stated that he may try to abolish the program in 2010.   

Instead of showing compassion for sick and disabled patients, Mannix and S.O.S. work to put patients behind the bars of jail cells. Don't be fooled by Kevin Mannix and his political cronies --their proposals won't fight crime, it will create new crimes and treat law-abiding patients as drug dealers. 

Treating patients suffering through severe and debilitating medical conditions like cancer as criminals will divert our limited law enforcement resources from combatting violent and serious crimes as thousands of patients are investigated, arrested, convicted and jailed as common criminals.  We have witnessed such ill-advised tactics at the federal level as the Bush Administration has chosen to arrest medical marijuana patients and providers instead of allocating those resources towards fighting violent criminals and terrorists.  Further, Mannix hopes to waste millions of dollars on a boondoggle prescription drug program for an ineffective drug that patients don't even want!

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, John Conyers, D-Mich, asked the Drug Enforcement Agency whether our nation's limited resources should be wasted by targeting medical cannabis patients and their providers.  In a letter to the agency, Rep. Conyers asked, "do you think the DEA's limited resources are best utilized conducting enforcement raids on individuals and their caregivers who are conducting themselves legally under California law?” 

The chairman also inquired into how much the agency was spending on the raids.

Conyers further questioned why civil forfeiture laws, usually reserved for "the worst drug traffickers and kingpins" would be used against landlords of medical cannabis dispensaries.  The chairman also inquired into how much the agency was spending on the raids.

Tell your representative that you support Conyers’ tough questioning of the DEA and that the agency should stop persecuting medical cannabis patients.

Cannabis activists were well behaved and “nothing compared to the anarchists,” Portland Police Sgt. Robert Voepel told the Willamette Week.  Activists rallied for equal rights, calling for medical cannabis to be “taxed by the state” and to regulate and tax the sale of cannabis to adults.