some weekend reading ..
presented to the AARP at their annual meeting:
Aging and Medical Marijuana
safeaccessnow.org
A small snip:
CANNABIS AND AGING
Cannabis has been found to help many patients suffering from conditions that afflict older patients, including arthritis, chronic pain, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and spasticity associated with such diseases as Parkinson's.
Cannabis and Arthritis
More than 31 million Americans suffer from arthritis. There are two common types of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, but both affect the joints, causing pain and swelling, and limiting movement. Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by a malfunction of the immune system. Instead of fighting off intruders such as bacteria or viruses, the body attacks the synovial membranes, which facilitate the movement of joints, eventually destroying cartilage and eroding bones. Rheumatoid arthritis is most common among the aged, whose immune systems are no longer as robust or efficient. Osteoarthritis, or arthritis of the bones, is also found primarily among the elderly, whose cartilage has been worn away through use. Arthritis may also manifest as chronic inflammation of the joints as the result of injuries.
Recent research is accumulating evidence that cannabis therapies are effective for arthritis and the other rheumatic and degenerative hip, joint and connective tissue disorders. Since these are frequently extremely painful conditions, the ability of cannabis to combat chronic pain makes it useful for that aspect, both on its own and as an adjunct therapy that enhances the efficacy of opiod painkillers. The use of cannabis as a treatment for musclo-skeletal pain in western medicine dates to the 1700s.[12-13]
But cannabis has also been shown to have powerful immune-modulation and anti-inflammatory properties, [14-17] indicating it may treat chronic inflammatory diseases directly. In fact one of the earliest records of medical use of cannabis—a Chinese text dating from ca. 2000 BC—notes that cannabis is effective in treating rheumatism, suggesting that ancient societies long ago recognized its anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties.[18] |
