Monday, March 19, 2012

Epilepsy Treatment with Medical Cannabis

Medical Cannabis for Epilepsy Treatment

Cannabis is becoming increasingly popular for medical and other purposes. Medical Cannabis has even been called by Somet researchers as the "21st Centuries miracle drug." There are many reasons why people prefer to use medical cannabis instead of prescription drugs for seizures, including cost, side effects and better results.
Medical cannabis has been found to be helpful for providing relief in the following conditions, especially those noted below and many more such as: arthritis, depression, joint pain, anxiety, osteoarthritis, insomnia, stress, drug addiction, cancer pain, glaucoma, diabetic neuropathy, manic depression, post trauma pain, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, HIV and Aids, add and Adhd, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, degenerative disk disease, nausea, shingles, post-herpetic neuralgia, senile dementia, irritable bowel syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer treatment side effects, anorexia, most persistent and chronic pains including spasms during seizures secondary to multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and many more.
Medical cannabis has been proven time and again that it is very good for medical use, particularly those suffering from epilepsy. Epilepsy is a disease in which brain cells causes failure of cell stimulation, and then occupation. If you have epilepsy, a seizure can occur spontaneously at some point. The ability to drive or even work may be limited. Some researchers believe that the bright lights or flashes can trigger an episode of epilepsy, while others state that seizures are temporal lobe damage. In all cases of epilepsy can be a serious and almost always requires treatment.
Medical Marijuana for Epilepsy
Until recently, medical cannabis doctors usually treated with prescription drugs for epilepsy. These medications include Tegretol, Dilantin, Klonopin, and Zarontin Mysoline. The side effects of prescription drugs, people are absolutely horrible. Side effects include anemia, headaches, hair loss, depression, psychosis, swollen gums, impotence, and even loss of libido. Of course, you have found to treat seizures, but these drugs are simply trading one problem another one. This is the reason that patients and researchers are looking more to the idea of medical cannabis as a safe medical practice.
The idea of medical cannabis is dated back to the early 19th century. The fact that this drug has medicinal properties, incredible been avoided until recently. Drugs are still appreciated today, but its use is considered to be beneficial medical cannabis is a bit more popular among 420 doctors and patients.
The researchers found that patients with epilepsy who have used medical cannabis saw the great benefits of using drugs. Medical cannabis helps patients complain of headaches a lot less, and seizures or less. Many medical researchers also found that the use of medical cannabis on prescription barbiturates could completely control epilepsy, without symptoms.
To experience the great benefits of medical cannabis, many people with epilepsy to go so far as to obtain medical cannabis illegally. If you are lucky to live in one of the medical cannabis states and Cities, feel free to contact us and speak to one of our skilled members, Doctors, Attorneys and get information about medical marijuana dispensaries or to make an assessment depending on the state in which you are.
Source :http://www.thcsupport.com

Sunday, March 18, 2012

NSW POLICE SEIZE MEDICINE

PRESS RELEASE

The NSW Police have hit a new low by descending in an expensive tax-payer-funded operation with a police chopper and confiscated the medical cannabis crop needed to make Mullaways Medical Cannabis Tincture. The medical cannabis crop was a strain of cannabis specifically bred by Mullaways Medical Cannabis Pty Ltd to be extracted into a medical tincture. Each medical cannabis plant was labelled for specific patients. Through the confiscation of this medical cannabis crop, the NSW Police have deprived many Australians their medicine. It is a form of discrimination against sufferers of chronic illness and pain whom need this medicine – Medical Cannabis.

300 plus chronically ill and dying patients will now be deprived of this indispensible medicine used for the relief of pain and suffering

Many of the patients have been using Mullaways Medical Cannabis Tincture for years and have letters of support from their doctors to use the tincture. Mullaways is the only company in Australia providing medical cannabis. The only other avenue for patients to access medical cannabis is through the Commonwealth Government's Special Access Scheme. This is a long and expensive process as this product is required to be imported from an overseas medical cannabis company and many patients are unable to afford it as it is unavailable on the PBS.

Tony Bower, Managing Director of Mullaways Medical Cannabis Pty Ltd, says he has maintained clear accountability and transparency in his business. Both State and Federal Governments have been well fully aware of Mullaways Medical Cannabis operations for years.

Mullaways Medical Cannabis Pty Ltd has been open and forthright with all parties, especially the Government. Tony has complied with all government requirements for the past three years to get his company up and running and to get this medicine to the dying and chronically ill people who need it free of charge. Federally approved, where is the Federal intervention?

Director of Mullaways Mr Tony Bower says, “My culture does not allow me to refuse help to people who ask for it and where I know I can help, as it is, and surely should be, in any civilised culture. I could not have been any more honest and open about what I am doing. I know that I can help and even heal people with my medicine, a medicine that doesn't get people stoned. Almost half of Americans now have access to legal medical cannabis now. We need to urgently address the issue here in Australia.”

Tony Bower said “I have worked tirelessly to try to please people in government but continue to be treated with disrespect. The patients need their medicine daily. Does the NSW Department of Health have a plan for the dying and chronically ill medical cannabis patients in this part of country?”

Source : http://www.mullawaysmedicalcannabis.com.au


Thursday, March 1, 2012

Introduction to the Endocannabinoid System

Dustin Sulak, DO
Maine Integrative Healthcare

As you read this review of the scientific literature regarding the therapeutic effects of cannabis and cannabinoids, one thing will become quickly evident: cannabis has a profound influence on the human body. This one herb and its variety of therapeutic compounds seem to affect every aspect of our bodies and minds. How is this possible?
In my integrative medicine clinic in central Maine, we treat over a thousand patients with a huge diversity of diseases and symptoms. In one day I might see cancer, Crohn's disease, epilepsy, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, insomnia, Tourette's syndrome and eczema, just to name a few. All of these conditions have different causes, different physiologic states, and vastly different symptoms. The patients are old and young. Some are undergoing conventional therapy. Others are on a decidedly alternative path. Yet despite their differences, almost all of my patients would agree on one point: cannabis helps their condition.
As a physician, I am naturally wary of any medicine that purports to cure-all. Panaceas, snake-oil remedies, and expensive fads often come and go, with big claims but little scientific or clinical evidence to support their efficacy. As I explore the therapeutic potential of cannabis, however, I find no lack of evidence. In fact, I find an explosion of scientific research on the therapeutic potential of cannabis, more evidence than one can find on some of the most widely used therapies of conventional medicine.
At the time of writing, a PubMed search for scientific journal articles published in the last 20 years containing the word "cannabis" revealed 7,704 results. Add the word "cannabinoid," and the results increase to 15,899 articles. That's an average of more than two scientific publications per day over the last 20 years! These numbers not only illustrate the present scientific interest and financial investment in understanding more about cannabis and its components, but they also emphasize the need for high quality reviews and summaries such as the document you are about to read.
How can one herb help so many different conditions? How can it provide both palliative and curative actions? How can it be so safe while offering such powerful effects? The search to answer these questions has led scientists to the discovery of a previously unknown physiologic system, a central component of the health and healing of every human and almost every animal: the endocannabinoid system.

What Is The Endocannabinoid System?

The endogenous cannabinoid system, named after the plant that led to its discovery, is perhaps the most important physiologic system involved in establishing and maintaining human health. Endocannabinoids and their receptors are found throughout the body: in the brain, organs, connective tissues, glands, and immune cells. In each tissue, the cannabinoid system performs different tasks, but the goal is always the same: homeostasis, the maintenance of a stable internal environment despite fluctuations in the external environment.
Cannabinoids promote homeostasis at every level of biological life, from the sub-cellular, to the organism, and perhaps to the community and beyond. Here's one example: autophagy, a process in which a cell sequesters part of its contents to be self-digested and recycled, is mediated by the cannabinoid system. While this process keeps normal cells alive, allowing them to maintain a balance between the synthesis, degradation, and subsequent recycling of cellular products, it has a deadly effect on malignant tumor cells, causing them to consume themselves in a programmed cellular suicide. The death of cancer cells, of course, promotes homeostasis and survival at the level of the entire organism.
Endocannabinoids and cannabinoids are also found at the intersection of the body's various systems, allowing communication and coordination between different cell types. At the site of an injury, for example, cannabinoids can be found decreasing the release of activators and sensitizers from the injured tissue, stabilizing the nerve cell to prevent excessive firing, and calming nearby immune cells to prevent release of pro-inflammatory substances. Three different mechanisms of action on three different cell types for a single purpose: minimize the pain and damage caused by the injury.
The endocannabinoid system, with its complex actions in our immune system, nervous system, and all of the body's organs, is literally a bridge between body and mind. By understanding this system we begin to see a mechanism that explains how states of consciousness can promote health or disease.
In addition to regulating our internal and cellular homeostasis, cannabinoids influence a person's relationship with the external environment. Socially, the administration of cannabinoids clearly alters human behavior, often promoting sharing, humor, and creativity. By mediating neurogenesis, neuronal plasticity, and learning, cannabinoids may directly influence a person's open-mindedness and ability to move beyond limiting patterns of thought and behavior from past situations. Reformatting these old patterns is an essential part of health in our quickly changing environment.

What Are Cannabinoid Receptors?

Sea squirts, tiny nematodes, and all vertebrate species share the endocannabinoid system as an essential part of life and adaptation to environmental changes. By comparing the genetics of cannabinoid receptors in different species, scientists estimate that the endocannabinoid system evolved in primitive animals over 600 million years ago.
While it may seem we know a lot about cannabinoids, the estimated twenty thousand scientific articles have just begun to shed light on the subject. Large gaps likely exist in our current understanding, and the complexity of interactions between various cannabinoids, cell types, systems and individual organisms challenges scientists to think about physiology and health in new ways. The following brief overview summarizes what we do know.
Cannabinoid receptors are present throughout the body, embedded in cell membranes, and are believed to be more numerous than any other receptor system. When cannabinoid receptors are stimulated, a variety of physiologic processes ensue. Researchers have identified two cannabinoid receptors: CB1, predominantly present in the nervous system, connective tissues, gonads, glands, and organs; and CB2, predominantly found in the immune system and its associated structures. Many tissues contain both CB1 and CB2 receptors, each linked to a different action. Researchers speculate there may be a third cannabinoid receptor waiting to be discovered.
Endocannabinoids are the substances our bodies naturally make to stimulate these receptors. The two most well understood of these molecules are called anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). They are synthesized on-demand from cell membrane arachidonic acid derivatives, have a local effect and short half-life before being degraded by the enzymes fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) and monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL).
Phytocannabinoids are plant substances that stimulate cannabinoid receptors. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the most psychoactive and certainly the most famous of these substances, but other cannabinoids such as cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN) are gaining the interest of researchers due to a variety of healing properties. Most phytocannabinoids have been isolated from cannabis sativa, but other medical herbs, such as echinacea purpura, have been found to contain non-psychoactive cannabinoids as well.
Interestingly, the marijuana plant also uses THC and other cannabinoids to promote its own health and prevent disease. Cannabinoids have antioxidant properties that protect the leaves and flowering structures from ultraviolet radiation - cannabinoids neutralize the harmful free radicals generated by UV rays, protecting the cells. In humans, free radicals cause aging, cancer, and impaired healing. Antioxidants found in plants have long been promoted as natural supplements to prevent free radical harm.
Laboratories can also produce cannabinoids. Synthetic THC, marketed as dronabinol (Marinol), and nabilone (Cesamet), a THC analog, are both FDA approved drugs for the treatment of severe nausea and wasting syndrome. Some clinicians have found them helpful in the off-label treatment of chronic pain, migraine, and other serious conditions. Many other synthetic cannabinoids are used in animal research, and some have potency up to 600 times that of THC.

Cannabis, The Endocannabinoid System, And Good Health

As we continue to sort through the emerging science of cannabis and cannabinoids, one thing remains clear: a functional cannabinoid system is essential for health. From embryonic implantation on the wall of our mother's uterus, to nursing and growth, to responding to injuries, endocannabinoids help us survive in a quickly changing and increasingly hostile environment. As I realized this, I began to wonder: can an individual enhance his/her cannabinoid system by taking supplemental cannabis? Beyond treating symptoms, beyond even curing disease, can cannabis help us prevent disease and promote health by stimulating an ancient system that is hard-wired into all of us?
I now believe the answer is yes. Research has shown that small doses of cannabinoids from marijuana can signal the body to make more endocannabinoids and build more cannabinoid receptors. This is why many first-time marijuana users don't feel an effect, but by their second or third time using the herb they have built more cannabinoid receptors and are ready to respond. More receptors increase a person's sensitivity to cannabinoids; smaller doses have larger effects, and the individual has an enhanced baseline of endocannabinoid activity. I believe that small, regular doses of marijuana might act as a tonic to our most central physiologic healing system.
Many physicians cringe at the thought of recommending a botanical substance, and are outright mortified by the idea of smoking a medicine. Our medical system is more comfortable with single, isolated substances that can be swallowed or injected. Unfortunately, this model significantly limits the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids.
Unlike synthetic derivatives, herbal marijuana may contain over one hundred different cannabinoids, including THC, which all work synergistically to produce better medical effects and less side effects than THC alone. While marijuana is safe and works well when smoked, many patients prefer to use a vaporizer or cannabis tincture. Scientific inquiry and patient testimonials both indicate that herbal marijuana has superior medical qualities to synthetic cannabinoids.
In 1902 Thomas Edison said, "There were never so many able, active minds at work on the problems of disease as now, and all their discoveries are tending toward the simple truth that you can't improve on nature." Cannabinoid research has proven this statement is still valid.
So, is it possible that medical marijuana could be the most useful remedy to treat the widest variety of human diseases and conditions, a component of preventative healthcare, and an adaptive support in our increasingly toxic, carcinogenic environment? Yes. This was well known to the indigenous medical systems of ancient India, China, and Tibet, and as you will find in this report, is becoming increasingly well known by Western science. Of course, we need more human-based research studying the effectiveness of marijuana, but the evidence base is already large and growing constantly, despite the DEA's best efforts to discourage cannabis-related research.
Does your doctor understand the benefit of medical cannabis? Can he or she advise you in the proper indications, dosage, and route of administration? Likely not. Despite the two largest physician associations (American Medical Association and American College of Physicians) calling for more research, the Obama administration promising not to arrest patients protected under state medical cannabis laws, a 5,000 year history of safe therapeutic use, and a huge amount of published research, most doctors know little or nothing about medical cannabis.
This is changing, in part because the public is demanding it. People want safe, natural and inexpensive treatments that stimulate our bodies' ability to self-heal and help our population improve its quality of life. Medical cannabis is one such solution. This summary is an excellent tool for spreading the knowledge and helping to educate patients and healthcare providers on the scientific evidence behind the medical use of cannabis and cannabinoids.
Source: http://www.norml.org
More info at:  
 THE ENDOCANNABINOID SYSTEM: PHYSIOLOGY AND PHARMACOLOGY
and  Cannabinoids and the Endocannabinoid System


Inspired by Greg