Medical Marijuana Yet Another Use

Lately, a fairly common occurrence is the discovery that marijuana may be effective in the treatment of yet another illness. Recently, scientists at National Centre for Scientific Research in Valbonne, France found that an element in marijuana could prevent the development of prion diseases, The most famous of this class of malady is bovine spongiforme enzephalopathy commonly known as mad cow disease, which when transmitted to humans is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The BBC tells us that, “French researchers reported that the non- psychoactive cannabis constituent CBD inhibited the accumulation of prion proteins in both mouse and sheep prion- infected cells, whereas other cannabinoids were either weak or not effective. Moreover, after infection with mouse scrapie, a prion disease, CBD limited accumulation of the prion protein in the brain and significantly increased the survival time of infected mice. CBD inhibited the nerve damaging effects of prions in a concentration-dependent manner.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report