# Is this the cure for cancer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 16, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615 "2009-05-16T04:35:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tgan3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ea924/32.png) [@tgan3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tgan3)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/1 "2009-05-16T04:35:53Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/-PwMmSxZANE/hqdefault.jpg "Part 1 - Rick Simpson's CRUSH CANCER WITH HEMP AND TRUTH - Free Internet Seminar") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PwMmSxZANE) This guy claims that hemp oil can cure cancer. An article about him: [http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Cure-For-Cancer---Hemp-Oil&id=2216524](http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Cure-For-Cancer---Hemp-Oil&id=2216524) ---
**Author:** ![Discipline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Discipline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Discipline)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/2 "2009-05-16T05:05:51Z")
No, probably not. Listen to your doctor. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/3 "2009-05-16T05:17:46Z")
“Cancer” isn’t a single disease. So, the chances of a “magic bullet” is pretty slim. ---
**Author:** ![tgan3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ea924/32.png) [@tgan3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tgan3)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/4 "2009-05-16T05:20:28Z")
> [@Discipline](#): > > No, probably not. Listen to your doctor. Look ![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/9YxaGWqsEWY/maxresdefault.jpg)https://www.youtube.com/embed/9YxaGWqsEWY?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque you’re the one thats not informed. ---
**Author:** ![tgan3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ea924/32.png) [@tgan3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tgan3)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/5 "2009-05-16T05:34:28Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > “Cancer” isn’t a single disease. So, the chances of a “magic bullet” is pretty slim. Hemp oil works for any condition involving mutating cells. Cancer is due to mutating cells. Also, hemp oil was widely used around the world 85 years ago. It is a from a plant not a drug thus it cant be patent. Drug companies cant profit from it. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/6 "2009-05-16T05:38:19Z")
The article you cite rings just about every bell for bogus there is, set out paragraph by paragraph. It is truly a masterpiece of the genre. I will only quote the first: > [@](#): > > Nearly the entire world wants a cure for cancer, and it just so happens that such a cure exists. Unfortunately, because of the source of the cure, there has been widespread opposition and disbelief. Once the world comes to accept this medicine, humanity will enter a new age of peace and prosperity. HUGE benefit promised. Conspiratorial claims explaining why only Initiates to the Secret know about it. And “a new age of peace and prosperity”? With the moon in the 7th house and Jupiter aligned with Mars? Standard stoner boilerplate. Really. Naivete does not come more touching than this. The rest of the article is in much the same vein. Lone amateur makes brilliant discovery from personal adversity. (See, this proves how genuine and honest he is!) Evil corporate/medical culture refuses to accept The Truth out of grubby financial self-interest. Discoverer motivated only by selfless concern to the point where he used to give the product (hemp-oil) away free to friends (hmmm…) Note how impressed the author is by purely anecdotal evidence? (We don’t need no steeenking controlled double blind trials…) Then there is the claim that there is nothing hemp oil _cannot_ cure - diabetes, MS, mental disorders, etc. As the rule of thumb goes, the more things a medical product claims to be able to do, the less likely it is that it does any of them. There’s even the pitch that acknowledges how all the other cancer cures are frauds (so the reader is supposed to be impressed by the frankness of the writer), but that this one is the real deal. And there’s the claims of “huge amounts of support” without any _actual_ proof of said support, even from “cannabis activists”. This is just hilarious. Thank you, **tgan3** for drawing it to my attention. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/7 "2009-05-16T05:47:54Z")
> [@tgan3](#): > > It is a from a plant not a drug thus it cant be patent. Drug companies cant profit from it. Go figure. This is the second time somebody has posted this in the last week. _It is pure bullshit._ Plants, and chemicals made from plants, get patented. To name a few drugs I’m familiar with, etoposide is derived from a compound in mayapples, and several other chemotherapy drugs are derived from mustard-related compounds. ---
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/8 "2009-05-16T05:49:02Z")
> [@tgan3](#): > > It is a from a plant not a drug thus it cant be patent. Drug companies cant profit from it. Go figure. [Paclitaxel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paclitaxel). > [@](#): > > - > > Paclitaxel is a mitotic inhibitor used in cancer chemotherapy. It was discovered in a National Cancer Institute program at the Research Triangle Institute in 1967 when Monroe E. Wall and Mansukh C. Wani **isolated it from the bark of the Pacific yew tree** , Taxus brevifolia and named it ‘taxol’. When it was developed commercially by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) the generic name was changed to ‘paclitaxel’ and the BMS compound is sold under the trademark ‘TAXOL’. In this formulation, paclitaxel is dissolved in Cremophor EL and ethanol, as a delivery agent. A newer formulation, in which paclitaxel is bound to albumin, is sold under the trademark Abraxane. > > Paclitaxel is now used to treat patients with lung, ovarian, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, and advanced forms of Kaposi’s sarcoma. Paclitaxel is also used for the prevention of restenosis.\* Plenty of drugs are made from Plants. The key is not to patent it but to mass market it and make a profit. To get around a patent, all you have to do is add an extra ingredient, and you can get around it to market the drug under a new name. (see \*Abraxane \*example above). Here are some more [drugs from plants](http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa061403a.htm). Try Again? ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/9 "2009-05-16T05:57:15Z")
Yes. Just yes. Btw, isn’t hemp oil just purified weed? Then definitely. It will cure everything. “I was gonna go to chemo, but then I got high… Trala lala la” Of course, THC strongly affects the glucocorticoid system, and that has all sort of control over inflammation and the immune system. But let that be neither for nor against any wild-assed claim. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/10 "2009-05-16T06:33:40Z")
> [@Noel Prosequi](#): > > The article you cite rings just about every bell for bogus there is, set out paragraph by paragraph. It is truly a masterpiece of the genre. > > I will only quote the first: > > > [@](#): > > > > Nearly the entire world wants a cure for cancer, and it just so happens that such a cure exists. Unfortunately, because of the source of the cure, there has been widespread opposition and disbelief. Once the world comes to accept this medicine, humanity will enter a new age of peace and prosperity. Heck, you only have to read the first phrase to see a falsehood! Cancer is mainly a disease of the developed world. The rest of the world, and the majority of the worlds population, is pretty unconcerned with cancer; they are far too concerned with dying from such more basic diseases as dysentery, malaria, tuberculosis, and just plain starvation to worry about cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Oukile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@Oukile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oukile)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/11 "2009-05-16T09:24:29Z")
> [@tgan3](#): > > Look > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YxaGWqsEWY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YxaGWqsEWY) > > you’re the one thats not informed. Medical archievements get published on pubmed, not on youtube. From the link in the first post: [QUOTE=[http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Cure-For-Cancer---Hemp-Oil&id=2216524](http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Cure-For-Cancer---Hemp-Oil&id=2216524)] Since 1974, there have been dozens of studies showing that THC and other cannabinoids are effective in killing cancer cells and alleviating dozens of other conditions (and hemp oil has all these cannabinoids, but in concentrated form). [/QUOTE] So you mean that everyone in the biomedical research _knows_ that it works and that no one seems to care ? This is absolutely ridiculous. Have you ever met people who work on cancer or cell biology ? There are tenths of thousands of them. Doesn’t it occur to you that they are moslty normal people ? How do you think that they would be forced to silence ? And this patenting issue… as mentioned above, you can patent a drug derived from plants. Anyway, only a small fraction of cancer researchers is payed by pharmaceutical compagnies and, and so most of them don’t give a damn about patenting ! ---
**Author:** ![Iamametalrobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@Iamametalrobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamametalrobot)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/12 "2009-05-16T10:13:09Z")
And going from the conspiracy angle, there is a group of large, influential corporations that have a strong fiscal reason to look for cheap cures for chronic diseases - the health insurance companies. Long, drawn out diseases are hard to estimate the cost of; if there was a relatively simple & cheap cure for cancer, it would make the health insurance companies job much easier, allowing them to make a lot more money. Then there are all the large corporations not in the medical field, but still shell out large amounts of money to insure their employees. Don’t Exxon Mobil, Wal-Mart or Microsoft have a least as much influence as the pharmaceutical companies? I bet Wal-Mart would love to sell hemp-oil derived cancer cures for $4 per months supply. And then there are foreign governments where the large pharmaceutical companies have little or no influence. If hemp-oil cures cancer, then why do people in Cuba still die from cancer? Or for that matter, there are plenty of first-world countries whose socialized medical systems have no problem fixing the prices of the drugs pharmaceutical companies already sell. So why would they be afraid to use medicines the big pharm companies don’t sell? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/13 "2009-05-16T10:53:09Z")
> [@Oukile](#): > > Have you ever met people who work on cancer or cell biology ? There are tenths of thousands of them. So there are hundreds of them? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/14 "2009-05-16T12:21:49Z")
> [@tgan3](#): > > Hemp oil works for any condition involving mutating cells. Cancer is due to mutating cells. How? What markers are recognized? What is the method of action? How does oil induce cancerous cells to apoptose? Does it interfere with angiogenesis? Does it work through the immune system? How does it manage to be effective against all the hundreds of different cancers out there? What about metastasized tumors? What’s the most efficacious dosage? Don’t you think some of these questions should be addressed before it’s announced as a cure? ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/15 "2009-05-16T12:47:47Z")
> [@tgan3](#): > > Hemp oil works for any condition involving mutating cells. Cancer is due to mutating cells. Also, hemp oil was widely used around the world 85 years ago. It is a from a plant not a drug thus it cant be patent. Drug companies cant profit from it. Go figure. I don’t buy this argument. Many plant products are ingredients in patented products. Hence, if this really worked, it could be enveloped in a mix of inert ingredients (probably needed to make ingesting more palletable) and voila! Besides, the patent attorneys of the major drug cos know how to get over the patenting hurtles. Now, could such a secret be drug be saving millions of medical jobs and university research grants? That is a different matter… :dubious: Hey, industry couldn’t bury those long-live lightbulbs forever, ya know! Just some food for thought that some conspiracy theories are on-target. - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/16 "2009-05-16T15:44:31Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Btw, isn’t hemp oil just purified weed? Then definitely. It will cure everything. “I was gonna go to chemo, but then I got high… Trala lala la” > > Of course, THC strongly affects the glucocorticoid system, and that has all sort of control over inflammation and the immune system. But let that be neither for nor against any wild-assed claim. There is essentially no THC in hemp oil; it’s on the order of .01% or less. The active substance in question, as far as I can tell, is cannabidiol. > [@Oukile](#): > > So you mean that everyone in the biomedical research knows that it works and that no one seems to care ? This is absolutely ridiculous. Have you ever met people who work on cancer or cell biology ? There are tenths of thousands of them. Doesn’t it occur to you that they are moslty normal people ? How do you think that they would be forced to silence ? I don’t know about the other guy, but I’ve met many cancer researchers. There is no mass conspiracy, but the overwhelming majority of researchers in any field are at the mercy of their PI and have little to no say in what they investigate. > [@Oukile](#): > > Medical archievements get published on pubmed, not on youtube. Like [this](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025276?ordinalpos=23&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum). Or [this](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/115806131/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0) Hemp oil is not a magic bullet and it’s not going to cure cancer, but there appear to be quantifiable benefits for people suffering from a variety of ailments. ---
**Author:** ![Oukile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@Oukile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oukile)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/17 "2009-05-16T15:59:51Z")
[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:13, topic:496615”] So there are hundreds of them? [/QUOTE] Ha ha ha. Ok, fine, we French people don’t know how to write English correctly. But at least we have a socialized health care system and public research system, both of which make us immune to such pharmaceutical lobby conspiration theories. 😛 > [@Crawlspace](#): > > Like [this](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025276?ordinalpos=23&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum). > Or [this](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/115806131/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0) > > Hemp oil is not a magic bullet and it’s not going to cure cancer, but there appear to be quantifiable benefits for people suffering from a variety of ailments. Well, this are indeed acceptable sources and a reasonnable statement about the potential of cannabinol. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/18 "2009-05-16T16:17:50Z")
(keeping on the topic of legitimate research, y’know, with data and peer review and all that) Of course, like just about everything in cancer research, there’s a lot of contradictory evidence: [There is evidence for cannabinoids having anti-cancer properties, in some cases, for some cancers, in some models](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19442435?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum). [However, THC enhances growth of at least one kind of breast cancer](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18249480?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum). The best anyone can say is that perhaps cannabinoids might be useful for treating some subset of cancers in some people, but it might make other cancers worse. Far more promising treatments have turned out to be completely useless once human trials have started. ---
**Author:** ![Vlad\_Igor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Vlad\_Igor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_Igor)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/19 "2009-05-16T17:40:09Z")
Having done a thesis on another plant-derived compound (digoxin) and lung cancer, I can tell you that what happens in carefully controlled cells in a lab shows proof of principle only. Success in the lab is no guarantee that the same effects will be seen in a patient trial. I saw a modest increase in lung cancer cell death when they were exposed to digoxin in my experiments. Preliminary results from a patient trial where digoxin is part of lung cancer chemotherapy indicates that digoxin has little or no beneficial effect. The hemp oil video is a slick snake oil pitch that relies on emotional reaction to judge the veracity of the claims rather than scientific evidence. When the OP has the desire to actually learn about how normal cells mutate into cancer cells, and perhaps gains some hands-on experience, then we might have something to discuss. Otherwise, I don’t give any time or credence to survivor stories as proof of anything beyond being bait for a hucksters sharp hooks. Vlad/Igor ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615/20 "2009-05-17T04:36:44Z")
> [@Crawlspace](#): > > There is essentially no THC in hemp oil; it’s on the order of .01% or less. The active substance in question, as far as I can tell, is cannabidiol. You’re mistaken. Cannabidiol (CBD) has been bred out of modern plants to make the intoxication more punchy. [Need a High CBD low THC strain, any suggestions? | International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums](https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=120718) EDIT: Actually, you may be correct that “hemp” oil would primarily contain CBD if it were made from hemp, although it would be uneconomical to do this vs making it from marijuana. I would be surprised if anyone does it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-cure-for-cancer/496615.md?page=2)