Pot Versus 'The Superbug'

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, colloquially known as MRSA or 'the superbug,' is now responsible for more annual US deaths than AIDS. Yet despite this sobering statistic, it's unlikely that either JAMA or anyone in the mainstream US media will report on the findings of a just published Italian study -- you didn't actually think I was going to say that this took place in America did you? -- demonstrating that compounds in cannabis possess "exceptional antibacterial activity" against multi-drug resistant pathogens, including MRSA.

"Although the use of cannabinoids as systemic antibacterial agents awaits rigorous clinical trials, ... their topical application to reduce skin colonization by MRSA seems promising," the study's authors write. "Cannabis sativa ... represents an interesting source of antibacterial agents to address the problem of multidrug resistance in MRSA and other pathogenic bacteria."

(An abstract of the study, entitled "Antibacterial Cannabinoids from Cannabis Sativa: A Structure−Activity Study," appears online here.)

Ironically, the study's investigators note that preparations from cannabis were "investigated extensively in the 1950s as highly active topical antiseptic agents." Predictably -- in yet another 'victory' for pot prohibition -- authors declare that little, if any, research into this potential clinical application has taken place since.

Several years ago, when I first began writing the booklet Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids, I mused about what sort of advancements in the treatment of disease may have been achieved over the past 70+ years had U.S. government chosen to advance -- rather than stifle -- clinical research into the therapeutic effects of cannabis.

Now, more than ever, this is a question that our elected officials -- both Republican and Democrat -- must be forced to answer.

Comments

[Armentano]

It's ironic, yet telling to see the MSM ignore this story. Just imagine if the results of this study showed the opposite. Then it would be front page news.

[Brinna]

Man! is there anything this amazing plant can't do?

70 years of squelched research into the beneficial and healing qualities of cannabis is nothing short of criminal. Personally, now that we know that cannabis has the potential to be an effective treatment in cancer and now MSRA --- well, I think everyone who has had cancer, or lost a loved one to that disease, or suffered from, or lost someone to MSRA, could join in a class action suit against the United States Government for putting politics over consistently over science, and causing irreversible harm to its citizens.

And this research was done it Italy, you say? Well then, all the American researchers who have been trumped by their foreign competitors, or lost out on the opportunity to patent medicines and processes based on cannabis, due to our governments fool-headed restrictions certainly have a basis for a suit as well.