Yeah, I don't know if it's true, but it won't surprise me if it is. A Canadian guy with a big head injury discovered that THC-rich medicinal hemp oil relieved his suffering, but then he also discovered that hemp oil kills cancerous brain cells while leaving the good cells unharmed. In fact, there's a video of the bad brain cells shriveling up into dead little balls after THC treatment.

SETH: Using the same tests used to judge new chemotherapies, the SETH team discovered that this herbal compound kills human brain tumor cells at a concentration that is nontoxic to normal brain cells. A computerized microscope captured images of the cells every 5 minutes to compile the time-lapse videos. After 20 hours of treatment, Δ⁹-THC kills all cancer cells but leaves normal brain cells alive. Cell death is evidenced by cells shrinking to inanimate whitespheres.

Here's the photos:SETH. Parallel experiments were performed testing the effect of Δ⁹-THC on human brain cancer cells (glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM) and also on normal brain cells. Putting this herbal compound through the same tests that a new chemotherapeutic agent would go through revealed a potent and remarkably specific anti-cancer effect. Both types of cells were treated with the same concentration of Δ⁹-THC but after 20 hours only the cancer cells died. Cell death is seen in the lower right panel as cells shrinking to inanimate white spheres. For more information about this project, click toLEARN MORE.

More here: The SETH Group: background:

The major active component of the medicinal plant cannabis, Δ⁹-THC, has been shown in experiments with rats to have therapeutic potential against brain tumors. SETH Group scientists Garret Yount, Ph.D. and Sean McAllister, Ph.D. designed experiments in a time-lapse microscope to test whether Δ⁹-THC can stop the growth of human glioblastoma multiforma (GBM) brain cancer cells. Using the same tests that are used to judge new chemotherapies, the team discovered that the herbal compound kills human GBM cells at a concentration that is nontoxic to normal brain cells. Click here to see Featured Experiment.

future development: Test whether a combination of active components of medicinal cannabis, as present in the plant, will act synergistically and prove to be a more effective treatment against the growth of brain cancer cells compared to Δ⁹-THC alone.

Implications: No chemotherapy can match this nontoxic anti-cancer action. The implication is that this plant compound could be a safe medicine against brain tumors, without the side effects of chemotherapy. These exciting results may be just the tip of the iceberg, however, because Δ⁹-THC is only one of many active compounds in medicinal cannabis. Other active constituents of the Cannabis plant (called cannabinoids) are also likely to have a nontoxic anti-cancer action.

******

Alright, well who is this Canadian guy? And is there a BitTorrentable documentary about it? Sure is!

TorrentBox.com - Torrent details for "Run From The Cure - The Rick Simpson Story". I'm downloading it right now!

And also, here is the guy's website: Cure Cancer with Hemp Oil - Phoenix Tears

A couple clips from that: Follow this link for CBC Journalist Wendy Mesley's documentary about the cancer industry unapologetically and unashamedly making billions of dollars through human misery. The programme was rerun on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 7pm on the main CBC network.

"I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked..." Hippocrates

Once in a rare while you come across a truly impressive conspiracy theory, one that rises above mere 'urban legend' status to give you the Creepy Crawlies and inspire a really sweet movie. Morgellons are that theory. The screenplay awaits.

Combine these two ideas: A) There were reports recently that laser printer toner generates nasty clouds of tiny nano-particles, worse even than street pollution. B) If you're a methamphetamine user, the noxious synthetic drug components can't break down and exit your system, so they come out in nasty lesions of drug goo. (when you go into jail, you get passed around for other people to lick the goo and get high). Combine these ideas and add a splash of AKIRA or the Cartman-Trapper Keeper episode:

Here's a quick Akira video. The part about 3:30 is what I'm talking about, where Kaneda becomes this super mega mechanized blob monster. I am REALLY sorry someone put this video to Linkin Park. Yikes.

The idea is that some people manifest mysterious fibers coming out of lesions in their body. Mysterious nano-fibers of unknown origin, growing out of wounds, transmitting radio and electromagnetic energy. Microscopic observation shows suffers' skin seething with fibrous materials under the skin. Tests show it's a non-biological material. It's not just lint on a sticky rash. But tests also show latent infections in many: for indeed, Lyme Disease, found in many Morgellon's sufferers, suggests a complex of infestations which erode immunity response.

Image showing striking autofluorescence of fibers from child's lip skin lesion.

Nothing was added to skin sample, except Gel/Mount mounting media and

coverslip. Image is an overlay of red and blue images. Imaging was done

using an Olympus Provis Microscope which employs standard wavelengths

for rhodamine (Excitation 550 nm/ Emission/565 nm ) and Fluoroscein/alexa

488 (Excitation 494 nm/Emission 519nm)

There is a long-familiar disease called delusional parasitosis, which is the 'bugs under your skin psychosis' thing. Here is what purports to be the only video of morgelons, really friggin fuzzy and weird:

Here is another better video which I couldn't embed and another one of Morgellons Disease "Alive and with Intelligence." The description material contains:

Please "Sign the Following Petition" to Congress regarding the Centers for Disease Control, that they would Investigate and Research Morgellons Disease: http://tinyurl.com/yu4tnb

"Alive and with Intelligence"

Fresh out of skin and muscle tissue, these sand like granules as they are sometimes referred to can contain the Fibers, just as the fatty tissues, or the cysts, or skin sample samples, which Fibers seem to move occasionally, as being "Alive"

These Fibers initially surrounded the granule, of which there was some movement, promting investigation. Upon pulling the Fibers off of the granulated center, this Fiber seemed to reach across towards the separated bundle.

Hello to everybody who are involved in the Dreaded and Disabling Disease called Morgellons, and "Welcome" to those of you who ought to be and soon will be.

My Website is "MorgellonsUSA.com".

In many of these Videos are seen Fresh Sample Tissues Showing the "Colored Fibers" Growing and are Produced Within the skin, the muscle and the fatty tissues. Sadly, this is only one aspect of the Disease, which is also very disabling, as it affects the brain and the neurological system also, among other things.

The many persons, Dermatologists and Physicians who fight this, and who say that it is only a phsychological Illness, have a hallucination and a delusion themselves. They don't wish to be

accountable for their great and major contributions in helping to spread this Illness, and for ruining the many peoples families, and lives of the persons who suffer from this. They

say that this Disease is Delusional, and call the patients who have this "DOP" or "Delusions of Parasitosis"

Many persons have been commited to Mental Institutions or given Anti-Phsychotic Drugs. Perhaps you know somebody or have a loved one who is going through this, and furthermore, the CDC has not done one single thing to Investigate or Fix this Problem. Are you next???

My email Address:

Admin@morgellonsusa.com

Also do please visit:

http://www.morgellons.org/

http://www.cherokeechas.com/

http://healthsciences.okstate.edu/morgellons/

On the other hand, Morgellons Watch is the obligatory debunking site, claiming that "morgellons" are a product of the enviroment, and the perceived disease is a combination of other stuff. And someone is out there saying that the aerial Chemtrails and government-engineered Lyme disease are at the root of it all.

Basically I thought this was a pretty wild tale, unexpectedly creepy-crawly and already full of peculiar medical paranoia, hazy videos and unknown factors. What If the Government has created special bioweapons to turn nanoparticle pollution into sinister fibers that will eventually integrate you into the Evil Biomatrix!?!!? Can the morgellons inter-communicate? Mwahaha!

This scientist Ettmuller made this drawing in 1682. The little bugs marked 'E' are typical scabies mites. Ettmuller found weird horrible itchy fibers in sickly little British children. Etc.

Like I said, the screenplay is waiting to be written.

Over the weekend I got a pretty rough (and intensely visual) migraine while I was finishing the Politics in Minnesota legislator profiles. I called up a friend of mine who has an interest in biochemistry, asking if they have figured out what the heck a migraine actually is. I certainly attribute this migraine to too much coffee and cigarettes, since when I moderate these substances I don't get the damn things. I rarely have cigs except when things are stressful.

Anyhow this led me to take a look at biochemical websites, and - gasp - the structures of illegal drugs. My friend told me that since migraines are somehow related to serotonin, the prescription migraine medication Imitrex (sumatriptan) is actually a somewhat altered psychedelic mushroom variant.

I went to go check this out. This Canadian website had a ton of useful biochem info for Imitrex (and everything else), including receptors, gene sequences and various genetic racial differences in affected alleles.

Indeed we can see that big Pharma wanted to use the weirder serotonin receptors activated by hallucinogens like mushrooms: Imitrex is the first image. The second two are the major components of magic mushrooms via Erowid, and finally serotonin:

Indeed, my very basic chemistry knowledge indicates that everything except the red sprong is the same between mushrooms and Imitrex. Actually i think the N-S-02 structure isn't even that different from psilocybin. (wikipedia notes that Imitrex can give you heart attacks because its main purpose is vasoconstriction of dilated arteries)

While it is certainly not well-understood why mushrooms generate hallucinations, it's believed they activate certain odd serotonin receptors - perhaps the same ones that thrash around when I get a migraine. The visual effects of a migraine - the "halos" of shimmering incongruence that made it impossible for me to read the computer screen for a full 36 hours - are perhaps not that different than the wobbly weird look of intense mushroom trips.

Only LSD has been isolated as an agonist for the 5-HT6 serotonin receptor, according to the Wiki. I found that LSD itself (lysergic acid diethylamide-25) was actually created by Dr. Hofmann and Sandoz while they were making variants of ergot to treat migraines:

In 1918, Arthur Stoll isolated ergotamine, which was introduced by Sandoz (now Novartis) under the trade name Gynergen in 1921 and marketed as a safer and more reliable form of the medieval midwife's nostrum. Controlled trials in the 1930s showed it to be effective in relieving migraine headache.

Also during the 1930s, two U.S. chemists succeeded in identifying the common nucleus of the ergot drugs, which they named lysergic acid. With this information, it became feasible to synthesize the ergot compounds, a project undertaken by Albert Hofmann in Stoll's laboratory at Sandoz, among others (2). In 1935, Sandoz chemists succeeded in synthesizing ergonovine, which was developed as methylergonovine (Methergine) and widely used to control postpartum hemorrhage. Further efforts to isolate the various alkaloids occurring naturally in ergot led to the development of a preparation of ergoloid mesylates (Hydergine) for treating dementia. In 1943, Hofmann synthesized dihydroergotamine (DHE), marketed for the treatment of blood pressure and later shown to be highly effective for migraine.

Migraine drugs

In the course of Hofmann's trial-and-error synthesis of lysergic acid derivatives, the 25th compound, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), failed to show any therapeutic promise in early testing on animals. In 1943, five years after it was first synthesized and tested, Hofmann decided to synthesize LSD-25 again for further testing. While completing the synthesis, he was overcome by strange sensations, which later developed into mild euphoria accompanied by pleasant visual hallucinations.

Surmising that he had somehow absorbed or ingested some of his newly synthesized compound, Hofmann proceeded to test the substance on himself by taking what he believed to be a minuscule dose--0.25 mg--and was rapidly plunged into what can only be described as a very bad trip. Like the natural ergot from which it was derived, LSD proved to be too potent, risky, and unpredictable to have a medical application.

In the course of exploring the ergot family, Sandoz chemists went on to discover yet another important antimigraine drug, methysergide (Sansert). Used for daily preventive therapy rather than abortive treatment of migraine, methysergide is a serotonin antagonist, whereas ergotamine is a serotonin agonist. Interestingly, "unworldly feelings" or hallucinations are among methysergide's possible side effects (3).

Likewise, it is interesting to survey and compare the chemical structures of amphetamine, methamphetamine and MDMA (ecstasy), morphine, heroin, ketamine, and all the other favorites. I thought it was kind of funny that esoteric drugs like salvia divinorum's active parts actually look really weird. So let's survey a few.

Salvia's parts:

We're drawing all this material from the valuable yet rebellious Erowid psychoactive chemistry index. There's even a nifty side-by-side comparison engine. For example, check out amphetamine VS methamphetamine, reflecting on that extra polyatomic ion's effect:

And here's MDMA - ecstasy - which essentially has a speed half (on the right) glued to a hallucinogen half.

DXM and Ketamine: dextromethorphan hydrobromide, a cough suppressant that provokes nasty hallucinations at high levels, and burns holes in your brain called Olney's Lesions. Ketamine is a more powerful (and apparently related) disassociative and anasthetic:

Nicotine: (S)-3-(1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)pyridin, industrial toxin/stimulant beloved by global capitalism.

LSD: 9,10-Didehydro-N,N-diethyl-6-methylergoline-8ß-carboxamide / D-lysergic acid diethylamide

Caffeine and alcohol

THC: Tetrahydrocannabinols / Tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol, which of course have many strange and therapeutic neurotransmitter effects that medical researchers aren't allowed to determine (thanks, schedule One):

Let's get into Opiates: (Please!) It's interesting that heroin was invented to let the painkiller part of the molecule slip through the lipid barrier. Lipids - ie fat membranes - slow down non-lipid-soluble drugs. First is codeine, then heroin.



Absinthe - Thujone - the green dragon:

Cocaine:

I don't write this to celebrate these substances, as of course many of them have destroyed many lives. Namely alcohol and tobacco, mostly. But we don't usually think about the chemistry of drugs, and even though it's hard to visualize, these materials really do work on the atomic level. It's funny how some carbon rings are more political than others, and of course it's funny that cutting-edge pharmacological research basically just recuts mushrooms to treat migraines.

Now that's what I call weird science. Somewhere, Dr. Hofmann is laughing. (late addition: Hofmann's research on Mexican and South American traditional magic drugs)

Fourteen years ago, when I was first introduced to the mind focusing chemical Methylphenidate, there wasn't a whole lot known about it's long term effects. It had been around for quite a while, but users tended to shift substances after an extended period of time. At age 7 my prescribed dose was 5mgs twice a day, which was and is not very much. Over the years my dose steadily increased until my maximum dose of 40mgs time-released at age 19. However, the reccomended introducion dose has risen to 18mgs time released for seven year old, with a maximum dose of 54mgs for the 6-12yr old range, and 72mgs maximum for the 13-17yrs old range. Twelve milligrams over the previous maximum dosage.

Rxlist.com
:"
There is no body of evidence available from controlled trials to indicate how long the patient with ADHD should be treated with CONCERTA®. It is generally agreed, however, that pharmacological treatment of ADHD may be needed for extended periods.