Doctors say Cannabis treats Meniere’s disease...

Burd--do you serve your brownies at the Oregon gathering? No wonder things sound so wonderful and friendly there--an afternoon where no one has symtoms!

 

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I wished I lived in California now............

 

Well it's not like I announced the recipe, just wanted to do my part to make sure everyone was feeling real good.

 

Michigan just legalized it. I live in Michigan....yep... Don't know if I want to re-live those days! But it's nice to know that it's a possibility and I have a large garden! Yes, you can grow your own. And I'm allergic to Morphine and of course cancer runs in the family...

BTW... I helped with that... I voted Yes...

 

Since I have been, and still am, a chronic pot user for the past 30 years I thought I might say something here.
When I first started getting MM attacks, 5 years or so ago, I really thought that pot was the cause. Part of the reason for this is the high quality and potency of the pot I've been using. I extensively researched this, and didn't find a thing to back up my feelings. There is simply nothing out there indicating that pot causes Meniere's attacks.
The doctors that I have spoken to believe it's a "nasty" habit, and I have to agree. Sucking any smoke into your lungs can't be good overall. Anybody who says differently is justifying their addiction. The doctors also say, however, that unlike tobacco smoke, pot smoke "doesn't seem to penetrate as deeply into the alveoli of the lungs." That's good news. Clearly tobacco smoke is much, much more harmful.
Do I think smoking pot recreationally is a good thing? Maybe for some (like me) it is. I enjoy the mind-expanding that takes place.
But to me the real danger is this:

Pot makes being bored OK.

But this is off-topic.
If pot can help alleviate the nasty symptoms of MM, then it's just fine to use it, as far as I'm concerned. Someday maybe research will show that it's alot worse than previously thought. But I'm a healthy individual, with an MBA from a top business school and a prominent job in a major american city. And I've been using it almost daily for a long, long time.

 

I don't indulge but I have three different prescription medicines that I have to take every day, two of them three times a day. Two of the meds mimic the effects of pot, so for me couple of tokes in the morning would be a huge benefit.

Maybe one day.

 

This topic is interesting. And I am willing to try anything. Does pot only help with the dizzies or does it help with the other symptoms? My dizzies have really gone down lately. thanks to a better diet. I am now left with mostly, tinnitus, hearing loss, and brain fog. And only get the dizzies about once - twice a month (which is WAY better!) I cannot imagine it helping with brain fog since it probably causes that. But someone at work said that some folks actually get hyper on pot instead of the sleeps/munchies. Heidi

 

Unless my memory has completely left me, I seem to remamber a story from when I was out in Manhattan Beach back in the 60's that there was a bit of a scandal when someone realized that there had been some cannibas planted in the shrubbery on the city hall lawn....anybody remember anything like that?

Anyway, I'm just curious about some of the states that have legalized it for medical purposes. I've also heard perhaps some strange twists in the law like "it's ok to grow it, but if you leave your house with it in your pocket you can be arrested for possession" or "it's ok for this disease but not that disease and only for this disease if you are pretty near death anyway."

Anybody know if some of these states have played a bit of a Catch 22? Just curious.

TOny

 

Just legal lately in MI, like weeks ago and you had to apply for a permit, a medical slip from your doctor....etc. People recently arrested for dealing are trying to use the "medical purposes" defense. Which really ticks me off because they had pounds and pounds of it. My daughter was an asst. DA here and she was highly against it just because it will be an excuse for many. Which is sad because it might hurt the ones that really need it. If I recall...it's just like alcohol, if you have it on you....

 

Looks like you're getting ready for some serious Meniere's treatment, Larry. Or some kind of treatment, anyway.

Can I have the other one in the pic? I have teenagers at home and I need it! On second thought, they'd probably just steal it from me anyway.

Bob

 

I wonder what it could do for someone with MAV. I do have some friends who smoke but I was always afraid to try it for my illness.

 

I've long wished that extracts were a proper prescription drug. I'm not interested in it for myself, but there's been a lot of cancer in the family. It's a shame people can't get nausea treatment with their chemo therapy, it might improve their will to live.

 

Marijuana Does Not Raise Lung Cancer Risk

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

By Salynn Boyles

People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer, new research suggests.

While a clear increase in cancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users.

Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers.

The findings surprised the study’s researchers, who expected to see an increase in cancer among people who smoked marijuana regularly in their youth.

“We know that there are as many or more carcinogens and co-carcinogens in marijuana smoke as in cigarettes,” researcher Donald Tashkin, MD, of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine tells WebMD. “But we did not find any evidence for an increase in cancer risk for even heavy marijuana smoking.” Carcinogens are substances that cause cancer.

Tashkin presented the findings today at The American Thoracic Society’s 102nd International Conference, held in San Diego.
Related

Boomers Reaching Cancer Age

The study population was limited to people who were younger than 60 because people older than that would probably not have used marijuana in their teens and early adult years.

“People who may have smoked marijuana in their youth are just now getting to the age when cancers are being seen,” Tashkin says.

A total of 611 lung cancer patients living in Los Angeles County, and 601 patients with other cancers of the head and neck were compared with 1,040 people without cancer matched for age, sex, and the neighborhood they lived in.

All the participants were asked about lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, as well as other drugs, their diets, occupation, family history of lung cancer, and socioeconomic status.

The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 and 22,000 joints.

While two-pack-a-day or more cigarette smokers were found to have a 20-fold increase in lung cancer risk, no elevation in risk was seen for even the very heaviest marijuana smokers.

The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater their risk of developing lung cancer and other cancers of the head and neck. But people who smoked more marijuana were not at increased risk compared with people who smoked less and people who didn’t smoke at all.

The THC Connection

Studies suggest that marijuana smoke contains 50 percent higher concentrations of chemicals linked to lung cancer than cigarette smoke. Marijuana smokers also tend to inhale deeper than cigarette smokers and hold the inhaled smoke in their lungs longer.

So why isn’t smoking marijuana as dangerous as smoking cigarettes in terms of cancer risk?

The answer isn’t clear, but the experts say it might have something to do with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is a chemical found in marijuana smoke.

Cellular studies and even some studies in animal models suggest that THC has antitumor properties, either by encouraging the death of genetically damaged cells that can become cancerous or by restricting the development of the blood supply that feeds tumors, Tashkin tells WebMD.

In a review of the research published last fall, University of Colorado molecular biologist Robert Melamede, PhD, concluded that the THC in cannabis seems to lessen the tumor-promoting properties of marijuana smoke.

The nicotine in tobacco has been shown to inhibit the destruction of cancer-causing cells, Melamede tells WebMD. THC does not appear to do this and may even do the opposite.

While there was a suggestion in the newly reported study that smoking marijuana is weakly protective against lung cancer, Tashkin says the very weak association was probably due to chance.

Cancer risk among cigarette smokers was not influenced by whether or not they also smoked marijuana.

“We saw no interaction between marijuana and tobacco, and we certainly would not recommend that people smoke marijuana to protect themselves against cancer,” he says.

By Salynn Boyles, reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

 

There was a resent study where scientist used the common " North American Ground Squirrel" in a test to record the effects of cannabis on the squirrels. The study was to feed the test subjects the equivalent of 20 marijuana cigarettes a day for two weeks.

At the end of the test the only considerable difference between the the tested and untested squirrels was.


The tested squirrels had a tendency to play with their nuts as apposed to hiding them.

Just thought you would want to know.

 

I hate it when that happens...

 

The Chancellor's Wife

Fred Garner Counterpunch.org

Nashville, TN Sept 30, 2006 -- E. Gordon Gee, 62, has been the chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, since 2000. Vandy lured Gee away from the top job at Brown, which had lured him away a few years earlier from Ohio State. Gee is an awesome fundraiser who spends lavishly on his own needs and wants. In an attempt to constrain his spending, some trustees recently exposed his wife's medical marijuana use.

According to a page-one Wall St. Journal profile Step. 26, "Vanderbilt paid more than $6 million, never approved by the full board, to renovate and enlarge Braeburn, the Greek-revival university-owned mansion where Mr. Gee and his wife, Constance, live. The university pays for the Gees' frequent parties and personal chef there. The annual tab exceeds $700,000. Some trustees' concern was aroused when they learned that Mrs. Gee was using marijuana at the mansion. The chancellor told some trustees she was using it for an inner-ear ailment."

Constance Gee, 52, uses marijuana to treat Meniere's disease, an inner-ear problem that causes vertigo, nausea, and hearing loss. She discussed her situation frankly with writers who did a follow-up piece for the Tennesseean Sept. 27. Implicitly questioning whether Gee's use was really medical, they reported that Timothy Hullar of Washington University School of Medicine ("one of two major centers of study on Meniere's") said "he's never heard of anyone using medical marijuana to treat symptoms of Meniere's." They quoted Hullar saying "I can't imagine going to the extreme of marijuana."

California doctors routinely approve the use of cannabis by Meniere's patients who say that it helps ease their symptoms. "Meniere's causes dizziness, dizziness causes nausea, cannabis relieves nausea," says David Bearman, MD. "I wouldn't be surprised if the symptoms caused Mrs. Gee to be a little depressed and of course cannabis helps that, too."

Robert Sullivan, MD, corroborates: "I've issued many recommendations for Meneire's, as well as tinnitus [ringing in the ears]. It works well enough to make a significant improvement in patients' lives, i.e., symptoms not gone but much abated so they can function and carry on their daily activities, instead of sitting and suffering. It also aids sleep."

R. Stephen Ellis, MD, has given some thought to how cannabis might help in the treatment of Meniere's. "Three possible mechanisms come to mind," he says. "Number one, the anti-anxiety effect of cannabis would be very useful to a Meniere's patient. These people are anxious as can be when they hit the ER. When they get an attack it's as if they are wired -that's why Ativan is one of the treatments, to bring them down. Two would be the anti-nausea effect. Duh! You're barfing and there's a drug that offers relief in 10 seconds. The third is slowing down the vertigo itself -the sensation of spinning caused by the inner ear problem. My patients say cannabis is as good as Benadryl, which is the classic treatment. I recall reading that the auditory nerve does have CB1 receptors. I don't know about the cochlear structure itself."

[Small world department: Dr. Ellis's grandfather graduated from the old Vanderbilt Medical-Dental School. His grandparents' nine-acre estate in Nashville is now owned by Crystal Gayle.]

Constance Gee once aspired to be a painter but instead became a professor of "arts education." She is an independent thinker. Back in Ohio, where the Gees married in 1995, Mrs. Gee opposed a publicly-funded arena that Mr. Gee was campaigning for. In 2004, after Bush's re-election, she lowered the flag outside the mansion to half staff. Her husband quickly raised it. When Condoleezza Rice was invited to campus last year, she signed a letter of protest.

According to the Wall St. Journal, Chancellor Gee was physically trembling as trustees confronted him in his office with charges that his wife was smoking marijuana at the mansion. The man is in a double bind. He has seen first hand that cannabis really helps his wife cope with the symptoms of Meniere's Disease. But he can't uphold her rights -let alone encourage the faculty at the medical school to pursue research in the field of cannabinoid therapeutics- because you don't get to be a great fundraiser without the drug companies' backing. Gee agreed to run his expenditures by an oversight committee. Mrs. Gee has accepted a reprimand of some kind from the university.

Tennessee has no medical marijuana law, but Constance Gee is protected by the American two-tier system of justice: the rich can get away with what the poor do time for. If it were otherwise, Prohibition would end immediately. But why should the elite get rid of the drug laws when the drug laws don't apply to them (in their full draconian viciousness)?

The danger in making an issue of unequal justice is that, in the name of fairness, law enforcement will crack down on Mrs. Gee and others of her class instead of lightening up on those "less privileged." It's the old Shelley Mandel principle -demand uniform justice and they'll impose uniform harshness. (In the early 1970s a young clerical worker named Shelley Mandel sued to make Yom Kippur a paid holiday for California state, county and municipal employees. Her lawyers argued that Catholics got paid when they took off Good Friday, and Jewish employees deserved equal treatment. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Bostic said he agreed with their premise and ruled that henceforth Good Friday would not be a paid holiday.)

Righties Turn A New Leaf

John Tierney is a New York Times columnist who thinks that the war on drugs is not in the best interests of the U.S. ruling class. The defense of coca by Bolivian president Evo Morales at the United Nations last week inspired Tierney to publish a forceful op-ed Sept. 23 calling for an end to U.S. interdiction efforts. Tierney describes Morales as "ranting" (and he gratuitously disses Hugo Chavez, Noam Chomsky, and Cuba) before making his cogent points.

The U.S. government, Tierney writes, has:

"sacrificed soldiers' lives and spent billions of dollars trying to stop peasants from growing coca in the Andes and opium in Afghanistan and other countries. But the crops have kept flourishing, and in America the street price of cocaine and heroin has plummeted in the past two decades...

"[Morales] denounced 'the colonization of the Andean peoples' by imperialists intent on criminalizing coca. 'It has been demonstrated that the coca leaf does no harm to human health,' he said, a statement that's much closer to the truth than Washington's take on these leaves. The white powder sold on the streets of America is dangerous because it's such a concentrated form of cocaine, but just about any substance can be perilous at a high enough dose.

"South Americans routinely drink coca tea and chew coca leaves. The tiny amount of cocaine in the leaves is a mild stimulant and appetite suppressant that isn't more frightening than coffee or colas - in fact, it might be less addictive than caffeine, and on balance it might even be good for you. When the World Health Organization asked scientists to investigate coca in the 1990's, they said it didn't seem to cause health problems and might yield health benefits.

"But American officials fought against the publication of the report and against the loosening of restrictions on coca products, just as they've resisted proposals to let Afghan farmers sell opium to pharmaceutical companies instead of to narco-traffickers allied with the Taliban. The American policy is to keep attacking the crops, even if that impoverishes peasants - or, more typically, turns them into criminals."

Tierney acknowledges that Morales

"is right to complain about American imperialists criminalizing a substance that has been used for centuries in the Andes. If gringos are abusing a product made from coca leaves, that's a problem for America to deal with at home. The most cost-effective way is through drug treatment programs, not through futile efforts to cut off the supply.

"America makes plenty of things that are bad for foreigners' health - fatty Big Macs, sugary Cokes, deadly Marlboros - but we'd never let foreigners tell us what to make and not make. The Saudis can fight alcoholism by forbidding the sale of Jack Daniels, but we'd think they were crazy if they ordered us to eradicate fields of barley in Tennessee. They'd be even crazier if they tried to wipe out every field of barley in the world, but that's what our drug policy has come to."

Tierney ends as he began, insulting Morales:

"We think we can solve our cocaine problem by getting rid of coca leaves, but all we're doing is empowering demagogues like Evo Morales. Our drug warriors put him in power. Now he gets to perform show and tell for the world."

U.S. drug warriors did not put Evo Morales in power, the people of Bolivia did--mainly his fellow Indians.

The day before Tierney decried prohibition in the Times, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, another capitalist cheerleader, did so in the Wall St. Journal. She, too, takes shots at Hugo Chavez, she calls him "the kook from Caracas." (It's embarassing to type her words.) O'Grady writes that Morales "dreams of an indigenous collectivist Bolivian economy." How can this nightmare be prevented? "One thing the U.S. could do to weaken Evo is end insistence on coca eradication, which while failing to reduce drug use has alienated peasants."

What goes unsaid as rightwing strategists question the wisdom of drug eradication is that they no longer need it as their rationale for military penetration of foreign countries -they have "terrorism."

 

I was first dx when I was in high (get it) school. I never really had ill effects until my early 20s when I gave up pot.

I am now faced with living with this condition which gives me no life at all or having a Laby and starting all over.

This State that I live in will never legalized pot. But if it does and it indeed does eliminate the symptoms of this beast and I already had a laby. I am going to be really pissed off.