Marijuana ingredient may fight bacteria

International Herald Tribune
Marijuana ingredient may fight bacteria
By Henry Fountain
Sunday, September 7, 2008

Marijuana may be something of a wonder drug — though perhaps not in the way you might think.

Researchers in Italy and Britain have found that the main active ingredient in marijuana — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — and related compounds show promise as antibacterial agents, particularly against microbial strains that are already resistant to several classes of drugs.

It has been known for decades that Cannabis sativa has antibacterial properties. Experiments in the 1950s tested various marijuana preparations against skin and other infections, but researchers at the time had little understanding of marijuana's chemical makeup.

The current research, by Giovanni Appendino of the University of the Eastern Piedmont and colleagues and published in The Journal of Natural Products, looked at the antibacterial activity of the five most common cannabinoids. All were found effective against several common multi-resistant bacterial strains, although, perhaps understandably, the researchers suggested that the nonpsychotropic cannabinoids might prove more promising for eventual use.

The researchers say they don't know how the cannabinoids work, and whether they would be effective as systemic antibiotics would require much more research and trials. But the compounds may prove useful sooner as a topical agent against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, to prevent the microbes from colonizing on the skin.

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You may wonder, indeed, why a harmless and beneficial plant such as marijuana, or weed, as it is colloquially known, is illegal in the United States. It was made illegal for a number of reasons, some of which I will discuss here:

1. It's classified as a drug, but has never been responsible for someone's death due to overdose - nothing else classified as a "drug" can make that determination;

2. The DuPont companies and Hearst Publishing stood to lose millions by the advent of the decorticator, a device that would remove the pulp from hemp plants, making hemp paper production (and other products) cheaper than the process for removing wood pulp. They used Harry Anslinger to be their frontman for the demonization of hemp, and therefore, its bigger cousin, marijuana.

3. In an HBO documentary titled HOOKED, another aspect of the demonization of marijuana is provided - because of Prohibition, Blacks turned to marijuana. That, in turn, created a need to control marijuana in the minds of the legislature at the time.

4. There was a racist aspect to the demonization of marijuana, as well - it was reported that "White women" were falling to the charms of "Black men" through the usage of marijuana - this campaign seemed to be the one that worked.

Okay...so I've discussed some reasons as to why marijuana was made illegal, but nothing that explains WHY, if the benefits discussed in the article have been verified.

"Western medicine" does not involve actual remedies to maladies; rather, they deal with the symptoms of maladies. The is a huge market on pain relievers, but nothing to actually address why those pains exist in the first place.

The cancer methodology would prove to be a huge story in and of itself - it seems that long ago, scientists have discovered that hydrazine sulfate will attack cancerous cells. The problem here is two-fold: HS can be produced easily and inexpensively, but this contrasts with the exponentially expensive chemotherapy/radiation treatments advocated by many health care professionals today. And, after undergoing such radical treatment, the body is under tremendous pressure just to stay alive from the treatments, much less a remission of cancer.

I wish to get back to a point made in the first reason marijuana is illegal. I was listening to the Alex Jones radio show on GCN, and one of his guests once again brought up the eugenics movement afoot to eradicate 90% of Earth's population.

Why 90%? The world seems to not be overcrowded to the point of unsustainability.

Who gets to decide who lives and who dies? The rich? Why would money be a factor? If were talking about pure survival, money is not a factor.

What will change so that the population left over doesn't simply repeat the mistakes of the past which brought them to this point? That I have not heard at all from any eugenicist.

Will we make extinct entire genotypes? Will there be a caste systems among the survivors?

Let's talk about today, September 11th, 2008, seven years after the event to which this date occurs.

Our candidates for the office of the President of the United States, Senators John Sidney McCain and Barack Hussein Obama, are right now performing their dog-and-pony show at Columbia University, after squeezing the corpse of 9/11 for all its worth for their respective campaigns.

1010WINS still mentions the implausible events that were "documented" in the USA movie Flight 93, even though it has not been proven that anyone actually on the planes made the calls to the family members.

The RNC does a video collage of the events in question, now stating that the "hijackers" came from IRAN...!

Keith Olbermann takes issue with the tawdry whoring-out of the event in question by the GOP, which seems to have cost him and Chris Matthews their anchorships on MSNBC.

Be sure that I won't be tuning in to Scarborough Country.

Speaking of Joe Scarborough...how was it that his intern Lori Klausutis died in his presence, and yet, Gary Condit was a household name, when Chandra Levy disappeared?

Wasn't this much of the same event? How did Scarborough rate a "move on, nothing to see here" response, and given a talk show, while Condit was ridden out of town on a rail?

Just one of the many questions I can't seem to find an answer to...but I'm young yet.

So...any mention of Osama bin Laden lately? How about Tim Osman? How about being a CIA asset? How about his not being any bloody devout Muslim?

There seems to be a movement about to instill the idea that there was no plane at the Pentagon. I am of two minds about this; allow me to explain.

Well, I've done my own research into this for the last seven years, starting from this day, as to what actually occurred at the Pentagon, the nerve center for America's defense. Here's what we can determine:

1. There was a hole in the wall of the Pentagon after the impact; the wall was later knocked down.

2. Donald Rumsfeld knew of the oncoming attack, but made no efforts to stop it (according to Norman Mineta's report).

3. The "object in question" hit the only newly-reinforced wall on the Pentagon; coincidentally, this wall was also the location of the offices denoted to examine the just-announced disappearance of $2.3 trillion dollars by the Pentagon.

4. The FBI confiscated all video feeds and tapes covering the impact at the Pentagon.

Okay...I don't believe I need to go any farther than those points at this time...what I am trying to establish is that there were some very suspect goings-on at the Pentagon, and that without viewing these tapes, no one can make a real determination about what truly occurred at the Pentagon. It is clear, however, that the truth is being hidden.

Let us see what the next year's efforts will produce.