Brave Mykayla Comstock was diagnosed with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in 2012, when she was only 7. Chemotherapy didn’t work like it was supposed to, so her parents turned to Cannabis Oil. Image Source.

by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News

There has been a bit of a stir recently over mainstream medical analysis that supports cannabis for treating leukemia. Unfortunately, most of it involves cannabis as an adjunct or supporting treatment for chemotherapy, while the rest supports synthetic THC for leukemia.

An example of this is a 2016 study referenced in a June 2017 issue of Herb in the article “Is Cannabis Effective Against Leukemia,” which surprisingly cautiously skirted the issue of curing leukemia with cannabis.

The study referenced, Dronabinol has preferential antileukemic activity in acute lymphoblastic and myeloid leukemia with lymphoid differentiation patterns, which basically examined the efficacy of a pharmaceutical drug called dronabinol, the active synthetic THC compound of Marinol.

The study was very favorable, concluding:

Our study provides rigorous data to support clinical evaluation of THC as a low-toxic therapy option in a well defined subset of acute leukemia patients. (Source)

So this synthetic THC drug dronabinol is okay with the FDA, and the DEA has it listed as a Schedule III controlled substance. Yet the whole plant cannabis commonly known as marijuana with its balanced assortment of 80 or so cannabinoids and terpenes and flavonoids that contribute to a safe synergistic entourage effect of healing is still listed as Schedule I, dangerous, addictive, and without medical merit.

Empirical Evidence of Cannabis for Leukemia

Reported cancer remissions and complete resolution testimonials using cannabis oils are abundant. But they are labeled anecdotal. Promoting or using cannabis based on these reports is considered anti-science or science denial.

Instead of anecdotal, empirically proven is more appropriate. Empirical describes events proven by actually experiencing or observing it. Here’s an example of empirical proof that cannabis works for leukemia.

Holistic doctor Jeffrey Dach, M.D., and author of Natural Medicine 101, (How to Win the Medical Information War and Take Control of Your Health), presented the video provided below from his website’s four part cannabis healing series.

He went on to discuss an official case study of a 14 year old girl with an acute aggressive form of leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who had undergone an aggressive series of mainstream oncology treatments that included chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and a bone marrow transplant.

The girl underwent all those treatments yet after 34 months, her leukemia returned full strength again. The doctors gave up on continuing treatments, mostly because her condition had debilitated so much from their aggressive toxic treatments there was no way she could survive further conventional treatments.

She was sent home to die. But her parents did not give up. They researched alternative cures and came upon cannabis as a solution. A Rick Simpson online group they contacted got them the information they needed about RSO or Rick Simpson Oil. Canadian Rick Simpson rediscovered how to make cannabis oil, a highly concentrated decoction, a result of boiling down a solution with herbs to a concentrated thicker fluid.

This teenage girl’s life and death drama occurred in Toronto, Canada. After her release from oncology treatments at the Hospital for Sick Children aka SickKids, her cannabis treatment from her parents was monitored in Toronto. The teenage girl also needed ongoing blood transfusions due to her constantly rising blood “blasts,” or lymphoblasts.

Because of her destroyed immune system from toxic oncology treatments, she came down with infectious diseases and had to be put on a heavy antibiotic regimen. But during all this, the authors of this case study were graphing the decline of high blast blood levels with that administration of cannabis oil and observed a very significant drop of her blast levels. (Source)

In other words, regardless of her extreme illness, her leukemia was in remission.

They concluded that her remission was from cannabis oil, evidenced from the dose dependent effects of lowering her blast levels and the fact that she was on palliative care for all her other debilitating illnesses. Therefore she did not have a spontaneous remission.

The remission was caused by the cannabis. This case study was published in Case Reports on Oncology in 2013, and the abstract and full text is available here.

She did pass on from all her other health complications, created (at least mostly) by the toxic and aggressive standard of care mainstream medical treatments she had endured. This is more typical than most know.

Dr. Gary Glum, who authored Calling of an Angel to promote Rene Caisse’s herbal Essiac tea for cancer, told of how he helped the family of a young boy whose aggressive chemo treatments failed to curb his leukemia.

The young boy was given Essiac tea often enough to cause a remission of his leukemia, but he died anyway. An autopsy was performed and it determined the actual cause of death was heart failure due to heart muscles weakened from chemo drug toxins.

Cannabis is likely a more potent herb against cancer than the herbs involved with Essiac tea, which cured many over the course of several years until Rene Caisse passed away. And it is just as safe.

Politics Disrupts Cannabis Medical Progress

It’s been a few weeks since Health Impact News reported on the saber rattlings of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ letter to Congress urging them to disallow inclusion of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment in the next passage of the federal spending bill.

This amendment has served as a buffer protecting marijuana legal states from the DEA’s use of force to harass cannabis users, dispensaries, and producers as long as they are within that state’s laws and guidelines. It does this by not allowing funds authorized for the Justice Department to be used for any legal interventions in medical marijuana legal states.

Not including this short amendment in the omnibus federal spending bill or Consolidated Appropriations Act that’s haggled over and passed annually would allow Sessions to execute the crackdown on cannabis that he desires. (Source)

Update: The Senate committee disagreed with Sessions and included it in their version of the spending bill last July 2017. After a couple of House Committee obstacles this past month, the situation has been patched up temporarily. It remains in the House version until December 8, 2017. The 2018 omnibus spending bill will hopefully end the suspense on a positive note.

An even more positive note would be at least having a proper discussion on the latest marijuana friendly proposal, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017, introduced into the House in March 2017 for discussion toward voting for legislation. That could be the sanest approach to the nonsense surrounding medical marijuana.

A Less Localized Harmonic of Legal Marijuana Issues in Los Angeles

Los Angeles is the largest city in the state that started the whole medical marijuana movement, California, which is on the verge of expanding from very liberal medical cannabis regulations to allowing pot for adult recreational use.

With that eventuality coming to pass, many cannabis entrepreneurs were ready to expand their businesses. But within the new local legislation for 2018, Los Angeles cannabis operations would have to shut down until new city business licenses are issued.

This is a process that takes time and would adversely affect an estimated 80 percent of existing cannabis operations that are operating within state law guidelines. It is hoped that a win-win agreement could be forged soon, such as grandfathering existing dispensaries and providers while license applications go through their processes. (Source)

Despite these obstacles, cannabis continues to prove itself medically. But getting it changed from a Schedule I controlled substance (dangerous, addictive, and without medical merit) to Schedule II or III (useful under medical supervision) has been long overdue since 1988.

Here’s a surprising comment from DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, ruling in the matter of a Marijuana Rescheduling Petition, September 6, 1988:

Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care. … It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.

Of course Judge Young’s advice was ignored. All 69 pages of his commentary and ruling can be accessed here.