I have highlighted two figures of speech which do not give me much faith in this charities' goal to find a cure for cancer.Thank you for contacting Cancer Research UK. In your email you asked
about research into THC for the treatment of cancer. I hope the
following points will be helpful in answering your question.
Cannabinoids (the group of molecules which are structurally related to
THC) are the active chemical compounds present in some varieties of
cannabis plants which give it psychoactive properties.
Some research studies in the lab have shown that cannabinoids can have
an effect on cancer cells. This work relates to purified cannabinoids
and is still at a relatively early stage.
You can find some of the scientific papers relating to this work by
visiting the PubMed scientific journal search site:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
Searching using the term "cannabinol cancer" brings up a number of
research papers in this field.
Cancer Research UK is investigating the potential of a number of
naturally occurring chemicals for treating cancer, including
cannabinoids. For example, one of our scientists in Bristol is
investigating whether certain cannabinoids could be developed into drugs
for treating bowel cancer.
To date, the vast majority of work in this area has been done on mice or
cells grown in the laboratory. Clinical trials in a large number of
people will be needed to work out whether drugs derived from
cannabinoids could be a safe and effective treatment for people with
cancer. But further research is needed in this area to understand the
effect of cannabinoids on cells before we could begin to test them in
patients.
You may also be interested in some of the following information which
can be found on our patient information website:
http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/defau ... 7#research
Research into cannabinoids is promising and Cancer Research UK will
continue to monitor this area of study. However, there are many other
avenues of research that we are actively pursuing to find new ways to
prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. You can find out more about our work
on our News & Resources website:
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer ... tresearch/
I hope you have found this information useful and, once again, thank you
for contacting Cancer Research UK.
Finding a patentable cure for cancer seems a different story however.....
) has a medicinal benifit, surely we already have the most healthy method of consuming it developed? Vapourising?