“Nausea, a common and frequent side effect of chemotherapy, not only causes general discomfort for the patient but also results in unintended nutritional deficiency due to loss of appetite. Nabilone, a drug developed from cannabis, is a licensed and approved drug for severe nausea and sickness due to chemotherapy. It is not the first-line drug but is used when all other forms of therapy are usually considered useless due to the severity of nausea experienced. It can cause drowsiness and dizziness in some individuals, and the effects last a couple of days after stopping the drug intake”.
“Sativex or nabixmols are also cannabis-extracted drugs administered as oral sprays. They are used for relieving chronic pains in cancer patients and neuropathic pain, spasticity, and overactive bladders in multiple sclerosis patients. Research and studies concluded that patients using cannabis-based drugs required lesser pain medication than those not. It can be attributed to the property of cannabis to bind to receptors in the brain responsible for pain sensation”.
“Cannabis can be a great source to reduce the anxiety and depressive thoughts a cancer patient can encounter after a life-changing diagnosis”.
“Although cannabis-based drugs are used to alleviate associated symptoms with cancer, it has not yet shown any robust evidence as to be able to cure cancer effectively. It is because most scientific research has been carried out using cancer cells, mainly in labs and animals. Although this trial period is vital, for cannabis to be genuinely deemed an anticancer drug, it must be tested in human cells. In lab experiments, the best anticancer potential has been noted by highly purified strains of THC and CBD and also artificial cannabinoids such as JWH-133. The best results were seen in cancers such as; brain tumours, glioblastomas, prostate, pancreatic, and lung cancers. It was noted that cannabis showed different effects in different cancer cells, so it cannot be termed a universal treatment for all types”.
“High concentrations of THC and CBD, along with killing cancer cells, can potentially harm blood vessel cells. It was also noted that cannabinoids encouraged the division and growth of cancer cells under certain conditions. The number of cannabinoid receptors also determined the effects of cannabinoids on cancer cells”.
“To truly test and determine the anticancer potentials of cannabis, well-designed clinical trials with large numbers of control and test subjects are required. A clinical trial by the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) tested a highly purified Sativex strain containing THC and CBD. The study concluded that it could successfully treat recurring cases of glioblastoma multiform in combination with a chemotherapy drug, temozolomide.
A recent study in 2021 concluded the final results of phase one of the study that showed that patients that took Sativex (83%) had more significant numbers of individuals alive than the placebo group (44%). Although, this study was deemed inconclusive because it only had 27 patients, which was too small to prove any anticancer benefits of Sativex beyond a doubt. The trial is set to be extended into phase two in 15 NHS hospitals across the UK with almost 230 patients to test the anticancer potentials of cannabis”.
“Experiments show that mice given higher concentrations of purified THC were at a lower risk of developing cancer. It is also believed that the body’s natural endocannabinoids can play a role in suppressing tumour growth. These findings, however, are not enough solid evidence to suggest that cannabinoids or cannabis can prevent cancer cases”.
