Cannabis as a broad-spectrum, multi-function anti-inflammatory

The information in the following video, presented in calm, clinical precision, "makes sense" and is also maddening. Because a plant can be used foolishly, therefore our government (and, apparently, many (?? most?? all??) national governments worldwide) has banned the use of cannabis pretty much across-the-board.

Except . . . Wait a second!

Donald I Abrams, MD, Chief of Hematology and Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco (0:47): "If cannabis were discovered in an Amazon rain forest today, people would be clamoring to make as much use as they could of all of the potential benefits of the plant."

Says Dr. William L. Courtney, MD, a dietary raw cannabis specialist (1:20): "Cannabis is a vegetable. It's not psychoactive until humans alter it chemically." (1:43) "It's a dietary essential that helps all 210 cell types function more effectively. And so I don't even refer to it as medicine anymore. It's strictly as a dietary essential. . . . In its best form, it's a preventative. Preventing diabetes is a lot better than treating it. Preventing cancer is a lot better than trying to treat it."

Back to Abrams (2:16): "I think cannabis is a medicine. It is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and probably has some direct activity against cancer cells."

The United States Department of Health and Human Services, itself, has acquired a patent on "Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants." (See the document at visible/readable size at 2:23.)

Dr. Courtney comments (11:26): "Clearly, we can't have a patent on its utility and say it has no utility. . . . [Such a claim is] patently absurd." --And yet that is exactly what our government wants to claim so as to paint any promoters of cannabis as "beyond the pale."

I don't want to quote the entire video. Dr. Courtney makes a tremendous case of appropriate use of the plant (2:42): "The majority of my patients don't want to get high at 8 o'clock in the morning and be high all day long. But a lot of them do have arthritis, car accidents, autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid, and they start out their day in pain and they're in pain most of the day. And so they're looking for relief but clarity." --I thought: "What a perfect summary! 'Relief but clarity.'"

So how does Courtney recommend one achieve this goal? "Eating the plant raw." (3:02) Or, actually, juicing it. --And there is an amazing discussion and on-screen "demonstration" of exactly how that is done . . . and how not to do it.

Perhaps the most astonishing segments of the video are those of Kristen Peskuski, a young woman who suffered (or, without cannabis, still suffers) what I am beginning to recognize as the "standard" range of autoimmune diseases: lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (since the age of 16), hypothyroidism, chronic infections, and asthma. Not to mention interstitial cystitis, endometriosis, cervical cancer . . . (Her list of ailments goes on. But you get the idea.)

She was bed-ridden, on over 40 medications (including such wonders as Prednisone and Methotrexate), told she was sterile and would never be able to have children . . . And now, she says, she is healthy, happy, has a baby daughter (and, apparently, at least one other child; she speaks directly of her daughter, the result of "being pregnant for the first time"), is off of all the drugs . . .

And the source of all of these miracles?

Cannabis, she says. Juiced.

Be skeptical. But watch--or listen--to her testimony. What is it about how she presents her story that, somehow, overcomes my doubts and says, "No. She is telling the truth . . . and I believe her evaluation of the source of her healing is accurate . . . even if her 'one story' isn't clinical proof"?

Unbelievable! . . . Or, actually, very believable. Check it out for yourself: