Marijuana Policy Project

Monday through Thursday I challenge my patience by forcing myself to sit through a two and a half hour lecture and lab combination. It is unbearable, and I am ecstatic I will never have to endure such a waste of time again.

But I digress. While my ranting seems unwarranted, it serves a purpose of alluding to something far more interesting than listening to me complain about getting a solid education.

One afternoon I happened to ease drop on a few classmates discussing their views on-what else-marijuana. One student claimed such a drug could do no harm, while the others bashed, maimed, and tore apart the one thing that seemed to make more sense than the class I was sitting in at the time.

Their views were, of course, one-sided, rehearsed and simply boring.

"Pot is bad," exclaimed one student while others thought up a scenario where pot and candy could be sold in the same store, giving the easy access of drugs to children. As if children have far worse things ahead of them than a little pot.

Being the enthusiast that I am, I decided to do a little research of my own and found a few pieces of information that may change the views of my narrow-minded classmates.

An upcoming edition of American Journal on Addictions found that herb, simply known as pot, could be beneficial in treating opiate addicts. Yes, your eyes didn't deceive you. When taken in conjunction with naltrexone, any junkie has a fighting chance to kick their heroin, Oxycontin or other opiate-esque addiction.

Previous naltrexone treatment has been mediocre at best, researchers say, because of " poor adherence" to the drug. The study found patients with "intermittent" use, 1 to 79 percent positive urine tests for marijuana, remained compliant with treatment almost four times as long as patients who refrained from smoking.

Researchers noted that early use of marijuana during treatment revealed that patients chose to stay in treatment longer. They also discovered the patients tended to maintain or increase their marijuana use, which they described as "a process of self-medication."

Researchers were most interested in these findings because it suggested moderate use could make naltrexone more tolerable with early induction to treatment.

If that information doesn't satisfy the naysayer, other research may cause a change of heart.

Guillermo Velasco and colleagues at Complutense University in Spain tested the effects of THC on brain tumors in both mice, designed to carry human brain cancer cells, and humans. The findings were included in the April 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Velasco and his team discovered the mice tumors shrank when THC was administered. Two human patients with highly aggressive tumors were also enrolled in the study and given a direct dose of THC to their brains. Before and after comparisons of their biopsies showed a decrease in cancer cell multiplication.

To all the pessimists: put that in your pipe and smoke it, cure cancer and help heroine addicts gain a better lease on life.