The Sunday Mail
PHYSICIAN Dustin Sulak, a representative of benevolent organisation “Working to Reform Marijuana Laws”, has this to say and teach concerning the endocannabinoid system.
“As you read this review of the scientific literature regarding the therapeutic effects of cannabis and cannabinoids, one thing will quickly become evident: cannabis has a profound influence on the human body. This one herb and it’s variety of therapeutic compounds seem to affect every aspect of our bodies and mind. How is this possible?
“At our integrative medical clinics in Maine and Massachusetts, my colleagues and I treat over 18 000 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 these conditions have different causes, different physiologic 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 updating (February 2015), a PubMed search for scientific journal articles published in the last 20 years containing the word ‘cannabis’ revealed 8 637 results. Add the word ‘cannabinoid,’ and the results increase to 20 991 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 emphasise 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.
“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 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 tumour 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.
“The endocannabinoid system, with its complex actions in our immune system, central and peripheral 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 behaviour, often promoting sharing, humour, and creativity.
“By mediating neurogenesis, neuronal plasticity, cannabinoids may directly influence a person’s open-mindedness and ability to move beyond limiting patterns of thought and behaviour 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 the scientists to think about physiology and health in new ways.
“The following brief overview summarises 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.”
From here the citation becomes too scientific, diagrammatic and graphical. When Rastafarians insist cannabis is the tree of life and a healing of the nation as testified by the Bible, they are not intoxicated.
Now that we have provided legislators and keen with requisite material to legalise this miraculously healing (illicit dangerous drug) herb, we hope and pray they respond with haste and hence help exhume from embarrassment and imprisonment all innocent souls.
