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]
