Media Ignored Expert’s Shocking Findings That Marijuana Helps Prevent Lung Cancer: Now It’s Med-School Material

See also:

Study finds no cancer-marijuana connection (Washington Post 2006)

Large Study Finds No Link between Marijuana and Lung Cancer (Scientific American 2006)

From Alternet October 2012

You’d think it would have been very big news in the spring of 2005 when Donald Tashkin, a professor of pulmonology at UCLA’s David Geffin School of Medicine, revealed at a conference that components of marijuana smoke, although they damage cells in respiratory tissue, somehow prevent them from becoming malignant. But headlines announcing “Pot Doesn’t Cause Cancer” did not ensue.

Tashkin will review his findings and discuss current research this Thursday in Santa Monica, California as part of a course for doctors accredited by the University of California San Francisco. (It is open to the public; pre-registration is $95.)

Tashkin has special credibility. He was the lead investigator on studies dating back to the 1970s that identified the compounds in marijuana smoke that are toxic. It was Tashkin who published photomicrographs showing that marijuana smoke damages cells lining the upper airways. It was the Tashkin lab reporting that benzpyrene — a component of tobacco smoke that plays a role in most lung cancers — is especially prevalent in marijuana smoke. It was Tashkin’s data documenting that marijuana smokers are more likely than non-smokers to cough, wheeze and produce sputum.

How Hemp Threatens the Corporatocracy

Hemplands (documentary)

From its introduction into our nation’s Colonial cornucopia, to its sinister criminalization in more recent times, this two part series tells the shocking story of the most amazing and maligned member of the plant kingdom, Cannabis sativa.

This series features a rich archive of rare historic images and insightful observations by Ken Kesey, Dr. Thomas Clark, Gatewood Galbraith, Jack Herer, Woody Harrelson, Bill Maher and many others who follow the warp and weave of this fascinating, true story of how a simple green plant went from important cash crop to sinister outlaw, to subsidized war hero, to counterculture dropout and may yet return as an environmentally friendly economic force once again.

Includes two spellbinding full-length programs, rare photos, film and video, along with an unprecedented collection of interviews and appearances with the best-known, most credible Hemp and agriculture authorities in the world today. Includes two feature length programs: Hemplands and The Hempire Strikes Back.

Best Marijuana Documentary EVER! (The Union)

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What if God smoked Cannabis?

The Flower – a meditation on marijuana prohibition

“The Flower” contrasts a utopian society that freely farms and consumes a pleasure giving flower with a society where the same flower is illegal and its consumption is prohibited. The animation is a meditation on the social and economic costs of marijuana prohibition.

Sometimes a cartoon can be worth a thousand words. … or even more than 100,000. Haik Hoisington’s ‘Flower’ video has hit a nerve and has gone viral on the internet. The Flower was released by the online news service AlterNet on July 29 – and in just five days has been viewed more than 175,000 times.

This fall Californians will go the polls with a chance to make history. They will be able to cast a vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. California’s Proposition 19 is one of many similar initiatives cropping up on state ballots across the country.

Whether it’s calls for decriminalization or medical marijuana the end of cannabis prohibition has never seemed closer. In this short animated parable, “The Flower,” award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed.

How Weed Won the West (documentary)

Via Info Wars In the follow-up to his ground-breaking documentary ‘American Drug War,’ filmmaker Kevin Booth traces the fight against Federal drug regulation in the State of California. A public majority has spoken and said yes to states rights, allowing for the use of medicinal marijuana and opening up a new front in controversial medicinal ‘dispensaries.’