Dr. Donald Abrams Has High Hopes For the Future of Cannabis Therapeutics

Dr. Donald Abrams Has High Hopes For the Future of Cannabis Therapeutics

“It’s hard to beat nature.”

VIDEO from MedicalMarijuana411.com: Donald Abrams, M.D. talks about Cannabis Science and some of the positive effects of medical marijuana from the doctor’s perspective.

Transcript of the video: Cannabis science is a huge field. I think that we have had somewhat of a moratorium on doing research on smoked marijuana as a medicine.

There is this explosion in cannibiniod receptor, agonist, antagonist, endocannabinoids, manipulating the endocannabinoid system. But I think its very exciting, you know to think about all the potential therapeutics to come.

As I have mentioned, I have sort of become a student of plants as medicine.

I’m in favor of cannabis as a medicine. I’m a cancer doctor. Not a day goes by that I don’t have to talk to a patient about medicine to increase their appetite, decrease their nausea, decrease their pain, help their sleep, and decrease their depression.

Now, instead of writing prescriptions for 5 different medicines that all have potential side effects, I can tell a patient you can take one medicine. In fact you can grow it yourself.

For patients with cancer who fear that their life is coming to an end, working in a garden is a very productive, very stress reducing, and very empowering thing to do.

So, you know I think the whole plant is pretty good medicine. Its hard to beat nature.

Dr. Donald Abrams is the Chief of Hematology-Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital, as well as Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

[Note: This was originally posted on May 5, 2010 and has been updated on October 27, 2010]