Yes and so might this:

Is the US Playing Politics with Pot Research?
For three decades, politicians and bureaucrats have ignored research
on marijuana's role in cancer prevention
By Paul Armentano
Special to Betterhumans
10/6/2004 3:10 PM

Credit: Paul Armentano
Cannabis cover-up: Since 1974, says NORML Foundation analyst Paul
Armentano, the US government has turned a blind eye to research on
marijuana's anticancer properties
Clinical research published recently in the journals Cancer Research
and BMC Medicine touting the ability of cannabis to stave the spread
of certain cancers is the latest in a three-decade long line of
studies demonstrating pot's potential as an anticancer agent.

Not familiar with this research? You're not alone.

For more than 30 years, US politicians and bureaucrats have turned a
blind eye to any and all science indicating that marijuana may play a
role in cancer prevention, a finding that was first documented as
early as 1974. That year, a research team at the Medical College of
Virginia (acting at the behest of the federal government, which must
preapprove all US research on marijuana) discovered that cannabis
inhibited malignant tumor cell growth in culture and in mice.
According to the study's results, reported nationally in an August 18,
1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, marijuana's psychoactive
component THC, "slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and
a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives
by as much as 36 percent."

Despite these favorable preliminary findings, US government officials
dismissed the study (which was eventually published in the Journal of
the National Cancer Institute in 1975), and refused to fund any
follow-up research until conducting a similar—though secret—clinical
trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the US National
Toxicology Program to the tune of two million dollars, concluded that
mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods had
greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.

Rather than publicize their findings, government researchers once
again shelved the results, which only came to light after a draft copy
of the findings were leaked in 1997 to a medical journal which in turn
forwarded the story to the national media.

Nevertheless, in the eight years since the completion of the National
Toxicology trial, the US government has yet to encourage or fund
additional, follow-up studies examining the drug's potential to
protect against the spread of cancerous tumors.

Foreign findings

Fortunately, scientists overseas have generously picked up where US
researchers so abruptly left off. In 1998, a research team at Madrid's
Complutense University discovered that THC can selectively induce
programmed cell death in brain tumor cells without negatively
impacting surrounding healthy cells. Then in 2000, they reported in
the journal Nature Medicine that injections of synthetic THC
eradicated malignant gliomas (brain tumors) in one-third of treated
rats, and prolonged life in another third by six weeks.

Last year, researchers at the University of Milan in Naples, Italy,
reported in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
that non-psychoactive compounds in marijuana inhibited the growth of
glioma cells in a dose-dependent manner, and selectively targeted and
killed malignant cells through a process known as apoptosis.

More recently, researchers reported in the August 15, 2004 issue of
Cancer Research, the journal of the American Association for Cancer
Research, that marijuana's constituents inhibited the spread of brain
cancer in human tumor biopsies. In a related development, a research
team from the University of South Florida further noted that THC can
also selectively inhibit the activation and replication of gamma
herpes viruses. The viruses, which can lie dormant for years within
white blood cells before becoming active and spreading to other cells,
are thought to increase one's chances of developing cancers such as
Kaposi's Sarcoma, Burkitt's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease.

Regrettably, US politicians have been little swayed by these results,
and remain steadfastly opposed to the notion of sponsoring—or even
acknowledging—this growing body of clinical research. Their stubborn
refusal to do so is a disservice not only to the scientific process,
but also to the health and well being of America's citizenry.

Nonetheless, it appears that their silence will be unable to put this
genie back in the bottle, as overseas research continues to move
forward at a staggering pace. Writing this month in the journal of the
American Society of Hematology, researchers at Saint Bartholomew's
Hospital in London reported that THC induces cell death (apoptosis) in
three leukemic cell lines. Authors further noted that the cannabinoid
appears to function in manner different than standard chemotherapeutic
agents such as cisplatin, and begins taking effect within mere hours
after administration.

Swiss researchers are also weighing in on the use of cannabinoids'
anticancer properties, reporting in a recent study published in the
Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology that endogenous
cannabinoids (naturally occurring compounds in the body that bind to
the same receptors as the cannabinoids in marijuana) induced apoptosis
in long-term and recently established glioma cell lines. Even more
notably, a review article published last month in the journal
Neuropharmacology concluded that cannabinoids' ability to selectively
target and kill malignant cells set the basis for their potential use
in the management of various types of cancers.

Unfortunately, as long as US politicians continue putting pot politics
before patients' lives, it appears that any potential breakthroughs
regarding the potentially curative powers of cannabis will only emerge
in a land far from America's shores and beyond the reach of
close-minded Washington bureaucrats.

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation
in Washington, DC. He may be contacted via email at paul@norml.org.