The Urgent Need for Cannabis as a Cancer Treatment
While there are many plants which possess compounds that inhibit cancer cells, the scope and quality of the evidence surrounding cannabis is truly extraordinary.
Justin Kander | Founder, Cannabis Declaration
Many innovative treatments for cancer have been developed in the last half-century. Despite advancements in medical technology, prognoses are still poor for patients diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, and even survival times for patients diagnosed with some early-stage cancers are low. For example, 56% of patients diagnosed with an early-stage lung cancer live for at least five years after diagnosis, which means that for patients who catch the cancer early, 44% still die in the near-term. The five-year survival rate for metastatic lung cancer is only 5%.
Cancer cases are expected to increase all across the world over the next decade, most starkly in low-income countries. As the World Health Organization notes, “Between 2008 and 2030, the number of new cancer cases is expected to increase more than 80% in low-income countries, which is double the rate expected in high-income countries (40%).” Global cancer deaths are also projected to increase substantially. In 2008, 7.6 million people died from cancer; in 2030, that number is expected to be 13 million. The traditional route of focusing exclusively on chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and even immunotherapy clearly is not enough. Society must contemplate the potential of plants to help significantly reduce the cancer death burden.
One plant in particular holds immense promise as a cancer treatment — cannabis.
While there are many plants which possess compounds that inhibit cancer cells, the scope and quality of the evidence surrounding cannabis is truly extraordinary.
To start, the primary unique phytocannabinoids in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), have been shown in preclinical studies (using cell cultures and animals) to exert a wide variety of anticancer effects against virtually every major type of cancer. Forms of brain, breast, colon, liver, lung, prostate, pancreatic, and skin cancers, as well as leukemia and lymphoma, are susceptible to phytocannabinoids. Both THC and CBD cause cancer cells to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis; the cells neatly break down into small parcels to be cleared by the immune system or neighbouring cells.
Phytocannabinoids also slow the reproduction of cancer cells, prevent their migration to distant tissues, and interfere with the development of blood vessels to solid tumours. Importantly, these inhibitory effects are almost always selective for cancer cells, and phytocannabinoids are generally shown to be inert against or protective of regular, healthy cells. This property contributes to the safety of using high doses of phytocannabinoids. Photographic documentation from a preclinical study is included below.
Animal Study of Breast Cancer Shrinking in Response to THC or a Synthetic Cannabinoid
There is more reason to believe that plant-derived phytocannabinoids would inhibit cancers in humans because of research into our own self-made endogenous cannabinoids, called endocannabinoids. The primary ways that THC and CBD work against cancer cells is through activation of CB1, CB2, and TRPV1 receptors on the surface of the cells. Likewise, our primary endocannabinoids anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) exhibit anticancer effects via the same receptors. For example, 2-AG mitigates prostate cancer cell invasion via CB1 receptor activation, and along with anandamide it inhibits proliferation of breast cancer cells. In addition, anandamide induces apoptosis in cervical cancer cells via TRPV1 receptors.
Since both phytocannabinoids and endocannabinoids inhibit cancer growth through similar mechanisms, it is not surprising there are so many successful reports of humans experiencing anticancer effects after using cannabis. It is worth noting that beyond THC and CBD, other phytocannabinoids like cannabichromene (CBC) and cannabigerol (CBG) also possess anticancer properties. To this effect, what is urgently needed is informative, large scale clinical trials, which can inform future research and aide clinical decision making. In the face of such suggestive preclinical data until these trials are published human reports of effectiveness are unlikely to shift the dial enough to change medical practice and opinion.