“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke
It is an unfortunate truth, that many in this country know the feeling of hopelessness one gains from hearing the term “inoperable” or simply the word cancer. It has become a dark cloud looming over every choice made and every corner turned. The sad fact is that current data shows more than 44% of people who died in 2009 in the U.S. had been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life and these figures are rapidly increasing. Every year, around 1,660,290 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed and about 580,350 Americans are projected to die of cancer, almost 1,600 people a day. This is nearly 1 of every 4 deaths in the United States. With the current go-to procedure of chemotherapy collectively having the shockingly low success rate of only 3%, Americans currently have the sixth highest cancer rate in the world. To put things in perspective, here are a few of the countries with lower rates: Korea (8th), Slovenia (11th), Serbia (25th) and Kazakhstan (42nd).
Cancer is a sad thing indeed, and no country in the world is exempt from its deadly grasp. There are however some who chose to seek out whatever means possible to fight this dangerous disease and stop at nothing to provide such means to the public. The United States is not one of those places. The DEA currently has cannabis listed as a Schedule I controlled substance, which implies it has no accepted medical value and a high potential for abuse. It would interest many to hear that the Federal government currently holds the only medical patent for cannabis. Patent No. 6630507, held by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, covers the use of cannabinoids for treating a wide range of diseases. Holding this patent, while unequivocally claiming that cannabis has no medical value, and even locking people up for attempting to use cannabis for the very medical purposes outlined in this Federal patent … is a perfect example of US hypocrisy, of which there are many.
“The U.S. holds a patent [on marijuana] on one hand, and on the other hand, the same government says it has no medical applications, Journalists are trained to hate hypocrisy. This is hypocrisy. I’ve never seen it quite like this.” DR. Sanjay Gupta
Cannabis has been shown by many studies to successfully treat if not completely cure cancer. The patent held by the United States government affirms, at the very least, the medical efficacy of the plant. The lack of action on the part of the government, in utilizing a medicine proven to effectively treat the threat of cancer that now effects more than half of the nation, is an unforgivable act of willful negligence which has had devastating effects on many American families that wrongly chose to trust that its leaders had their best interest at heart.
A young girl named Brittany Maynard made the reluctantly sad decision to end her own life at 29, in accordance with Oregon state’s “death with dignity” law. She was diagnosed with grade 2 astrocytoma, a form of brain cancer, and later, her diagnosis was elevated to grade 4 astrocytoma, also known as glioblastoma, with a prognosis of six months to live. She chose to end her own life because she was told there were no options left to her. The regrettable fact is that there have been cases of the very same type of cancer being slowed, stopped and even reversed with the use of cannabis oils. CBD had been shown to inhibit proliferation of human glioblastoma multiforme cells and overcome resistance to the chemotherapy agent carmustine. Which means at the very least CBD can help in ways other current medical avenues cannot. It is not a certainty that CBD could have saved this young lady’s life, but it should have at least been made aware to her, and not overlooked for purely political reasons when her very life was at stake. If this compound could have potentially prolonged her life without the terrible side effects of chemotherapy, it should have been brought to the table. However, doctors are currently terrified to recommend cannabis due to the totalitarian hold the government has on this miracle plant, so this family lost all hope. This proverbial blood is on the hands of the Federal Government. Luckily, others were shown the possibilities of cannabis before it was too late.
A young girl by the name of Alysa Erwin was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at the age of 14. She had Grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma, an inoperable cancer with a near-zero survival rate, according to modern western medicine. This was the very same brain cancer the late Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with. Alysa was told by her doctor that “all she could do was have hope” but this family had other plans. Alysa’s father David, heard about Rick Simpson’s Phoenix Tears Foundation and the use of cannabis oils to treat and cure cancer. The family decided, as many are today, not to trust their Federal government and turned to cannabis. Thirty minutes after she took her first half-teaspoon mix of concentrate and peanut butter, Alysa was laughing again. She was eating. Her pain vanished and she could hold down food. “She was like a regular teenager,” her mother said.
After the first three months of oil dosing, MRI scans showed the cancer stopped growing. After six months, the Erwins’ doctor told them, “I can’t believe she’s walking.” Alysa’s tumors were shrinking and follow-up exams confirmed the cancer’s recession. Since cannabis is not officially recognized as a cancer treatment in the U.S., the doctor cautioned them about its use, but she never dissuaded the family from their course. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it,” the doctor told them. This was a very brave doctor to even allow such an action with today’s medical cabal and its stranglehold on what a doctor is and is not allowed to prescribe or even discuss with their patients.
The government continues to drag its feet on the issue of cannabis, and for those paying attention, it should no longer be a surprise as to why. One of the most recognizable reasons that the government ignores the reality of this medical wonder, is the billions of dollars of profit that it stands to lose with the rise of cannabis, on a medical, as well as an industrial level. A clear example of both profiteering and hypocrisy is the new FDA approved super-Vicodin type drug called Zohydro. This drug contains up to five times the amount of hydrocodone and does not have time-release protection, so it can be easily crushed up and snorted or injected by those who would abuse it. This drug was approved after only one twelve-week trial in which five of the people involved died as a result. Yet cannabis, which has been widely used in all facets of American life for centuries (until the last hundred years) with zero deaths, is dangerous and unlawful in the eyes of the Federal government.
“When you talk to pain specialists in our field, they will all tell you one indisputable fact: opiates are lousy drugs to treat chronic pain” said one FDA committee member who voted against Zohydro approval.
So why do these drugs — that specialists agree are ineffective in pain treatment — continue to be made and quickly released? While profit is always a driving factor in any governmental endeavor, there are also much more sinister agendas at play, that many today simply chalk up to some “wild conspiracy,” yet have been openly discussed and even proposed by many leading figures today, such as Bill Gates himself. This is of course the topic of eugenics, which is described as:
The science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis.
Or more to the point, it is the collective belief of those who favor this line of thinking, that lest the human population cull its numbers post-haste — by any means necessary — the entirety of humanity will suffer in the near future due to resource scarcity and other related issues of drastic over population. Now while that is a genuine concern, no one has the right to decide whether or not another human being should be sacrificed to save those currently in control. No one wants to believe that their government, or the group controlling that government, would intentionally poison their population, regardless of the potential future threats. Yet, how else can one explain the suppression of one of the most medically efficacious substances on the planet, the intentional ignorance of the most highly prescribed pharmaceutical drug’s lack of effectiveness, and ignoring the terrifyingly fast rising opiate epidemic which is a direct byproduct of the negligent pushing of those inadequate medications? Profit just does not seem to fit the bill by itself, but one thing is for certain, the America people are being lied to and placated, while, intentionally or not, people are dying as a result.
It is time for this to end. The American people cannot continue to allow its government to blatantly contradict itself to maintain personal profits and control, while releasing highly addictive drugs known to kill people on to the streets. There are people dying everyday that could be successfully treated or even cured, but instead, are given drugs that are no better than heroine with just as little medical value, to assist in a slow death. The sad truth is that there is more money in treating an illness than curing one. An illness cured, is one less patient to treat, or rather, one less customer. This is the mission statement of those who conspire to keep things like cannabis out of the capable hands of the American public.
The idea of growing one’s own medicine scares Big Pharma enough to launch the kind of “Reefer Madness” revival that has been seen in the last year. The actions taken by these companies have shown that their profits outweigh the best interest of the people. The only action capable of enacting change on a grand scale is that of the collective. The Last American Vagabond asks all with a desire for change to take action. Stand and remind those in the positions of government that the people demand morality, forbearance and the initiation of the majority will. Nothing else is worthy of the American nation. Let those that put profit above the value of human life be cast aside and exiled from the future greatness of this country, or the potential greatness that may only resides within the hearts of America’s true patriots.
Alysa Erwin actually had her cancer return due to not using a maintenance dose of oil to keep it at bay. Again, doctors gave her zero chance of survival, and again, using cannabis oil, she beat back the cancer. Twice she has healed herself of the very same cancer that caused a young woman to take her own life, due to lack of concern and compassion by a government set on maintaining an industry of treatment as opposed to cures.
