Uruguay Parliament Votes To Create World’s First Legal Marijuana Market

Uruguay’s plan to create a legal marijuana market has recently taken a giant step forward. 50 members of the ruling left wing coalition approved the proposal last week by a narrow majority.

 Votes were cast after a 13 hour debate on the subject. The vote was passed in the lower house of congress, the measure now goes to the Senate where a passing of the bill is expected to make Uruguay the very first country in the world to licence and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana. Many members of congress believe that displacing illegal dealers through licensed marijuana sales could save money as well as lives. Marijuana has been legal to use in Uruguay for quite sometime, however it’s illegal to sell it, buy it or produce it. But that is looking like it will all be a thing of the past.

Under the new legislation, Uruguay’s government would license growers, consumers and sellers as well as keep an updated registry to ensure people do not buy more than 40 grams a month. Licensed consumers will be allowed to grow up to six plants at a time in their home and regulations will be set to allow large scale farming of the plant. There are even talks of an institute for regulation and control of cannabis. This body would be given the authority to grant licenses for all aspects of a legal industry to produce marijuana for recreational, medicinal or industrial use.

Opponents of the proposal argued that marijuana use leads to harder drugs and bad habits. The only problem with this claim is that there is no evidence to support it. In fact, there are a number of studies that show how active ingredients within marijuana could in fact be beneficial to human health. Not to long ago, a study was published that illustrated how cannabinoids improve the efficiency of mitochondria and remove damaged brain cells. The study was published in Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B.  A multitude of studies have been published about the potential benefits of Cannabinoids.

If you were unaware of these studies, hopefully it inspires you to investigate the available evidence to support the health benefits of cannabinoids. Many would be surprised to find out that many of the benefits come when eating the plant raw and not from smoking it.
Marijuana is known to have many medicinal properties. These medicinal properties are a threat to many pharmaceutical drugs, perhaps that’s one reason (out of many) marijuana is currently illegal in many parts of the world.

Cannabinoids refer to any of a group of related compounds that include cannabinol and the active constituents of cannabis. They activate canbinoid receptors in the body. The body itself produces  compounds called endocannabinoids and they play a role in many processes within the body that help to create a healthy environment(1). Cannabinoids also play a role in immune system generation and re-generation. The body regenerates best when it’s saturated with Phyto-Cannabinoids. Cannabinoids can also be found in Cannabis. Cannabinoids may very well be the best cancer fighting substance out there!

Doctors who have been researching cannabis and it’s benefits in diet for have recommended that people make cannabis a part of their everyday diet. To reiterate, the plant does not need to contain high levels of THC and it can simply be eaten. Smoking it does not give the same therapeutic results as eating or juicing the plant. If we view the plant simple as a vegetable like all other vegetables we eat, it makes sense that we wouldn’t be smoking it to get the nutritional benefit. However, smoking Cannabis has shown other benefits and can be a positive experience for those looking to explore their consciousness a little further.

It’s important to look at both sides of the coin when dealing with this plant. Most “experts” who believe that marijuana is harmful to human health are usually the ones who are unable to site specific sources and studies to back up their belief. There is very little scientific evidence to back up the reported negative effects of marijuana. On the other hand, there is an enormous amount of scientific evidence to back up the reported medicinal qualities of marijuana, and the health benefits that cannabinoids offer.

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/03/uruguay-cannabis-law

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/01/316632/uruguay-passes-bill-on-marijuana/

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/uruguay-taking-steps-to-become-first-nation-with-legal-marijuana-industry-1.1393211

http://news.yahoo.com/uruguays-house-oks-legal-marijuana-market-plan-024441970.html

(1)http://edrv.endojournals.org/content/27/1/73.full

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1607/3326.abstract?sid=20cf2c23-e4fd-49e3-9398-ec8be2e00226


Related:
The data is very strong: Marijuana plant extract stops cancers from spreading
Cannabis & The Pineal Gland: Turn On The Third Eye


  

The data is very strong: Marijuana plant extract stops cancers from spreading

The data is very strong and there's no toxicity associated with A compound found in cannabis could halt the spread of many forms of aggressive cancer, scientists say.

The first research to show marijuana's anti-tumor properties was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Los Angeles in 2007 demonstrating that THC may activate biological pathways that halt cancer cell division or block development of blood vessels that feed tumors. It then became a target of synthetic research into THC for drugs such as ImClone System Inc.'s Erbitux and Amgen Inc.'s Vectibix. 

Researchers have now found that the compound, called cannabidiol, had the ability to 'switch off' the gene responsible for metastasis in an aggressive form of breast cancer. Importantly, this substance does not produce the psychoactive properties of the cannabis plant.

The team from the California Pacific Medical Center, in San Francisco, first spotted its potential five years ago, after it stopped the proliferation of human breast cancer cells in the lab.

Last year they published a study that found a similar effect in mice. Now they say they are on the verge of publishing further animal study results that expand these results further.

Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. CBD (Cannabidiol), one of the main constituents of the cannabis plant has been proven medically to relieve many diseases including the inhibition of cancer cell growth. Recent studies have shown it to be an effective atypical anti-psychotic in treating schizophrenia. CBD also interferes with the amount of THC your brain processes, balancing the psychotropic effect of marijuana. That is precisely why the power of raw cannabis is turning heads.

Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, study co-leader Dr Sean McAllister, said: 'The preclinical trial data is very strong, and there's no toxicity. There's really a lot or research to move ahead with and to get people excited.'

While he, along with colleague Dr Pierre Desprez acknowledge that they are some way off from turning their finding into a pill, they are already developing human trial models. They hope to eventually test the drug in combination with current chemotherapies.

Professor Desprez had previously found that a protein called ID-1 seemed to play a role in causing breast cancer to spread. Meanwhile Dr McAllister had discovered the cannabidiol had anti-cancer potential.

The pair teamed up to see if they could treat a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer called 'triple negative.' This form, which affects 15 per cent of patients, doesn't have three hormone receptors that the most successful therapies target. Cells from this cancer have high levels of ID-1.

When they exposed cells from this cancer to cannabidiol they were shocked to find the cells not only stopped acting 'crazy' but also returned to a healthy normal state.

They discovered that the compound had turned off the overexpression of ID-1, stopping them from travelling to distant tissues.

Other potentially treatable cancers are forms of leukaemia, lung, ovarian and brain cancers, which also have high levels of ID-1.

Dr Desprez has a particular reason for wanting to create a treatment as quickly as possible - his sister was recently diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer at the age of 41.

Her condition is currently receptive to hormone therapies but Professor Desprez fears it could recur in a form that lacks hormone receptors.

He said: 'I want to be ready for that. There is a deadline.'

Cannabis is a Class B drug that is illegal to have, give away or sell. “If cannabis were discovered in an Amazon rainforests today, people would be clambering to make as much use as they could out of the potential benefits of the plant,” said Donald L. Abrams, MD, Chief of Hematology and Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at the University California. Dr. Abrams is widely known for his research on medical cannabis applications. "Unfortunately, it carries with it a long and not so long history of being a persecuted plant," he added.

Marco Torres

  

Cannabis & The Pineal Gland: Turn On The Third Eye

The Pineal Gland or the ‘Seat of the Soul’ as described by Rene Descartes, is the focal point of our spiritual guiding system which makes us go beyond the five senses of rationality and become multisensory, tuned into and aware of higher dimensions of consciousness within a holographic cosmos.

Cannabis or Marijuana among other psychedelics facilitates the activation of the pineal gland and helps turn on the third eye or the mind’s eye directing our spiritual evolution to wholeness.

The pineal gland, located in the centre of the brain, is about a quarter of an inch in size, reddish-gray, and weighs about one-tenth of a gram. Unlike other parts of the brain which come in pairs, the pineal gland is singular. Its location in the center of the brain and presence in other species indicates it is an older part of humanity’s evolutionary brain system.

The pineal gland is present in all lower vertebrae. In other species, like birds, reptiles and frogs, the pineal gland is called the parietal eye or “third-eye” as its functions closely resemble that of an actual eye. In these other species, the pineal gland has components of an actual eye, with a cornea, rod and cone. It is considered to be the vestige of a functional sense organ of early primitive vertebrates.

Directly affected by the light taken in through the eyes, the pineal regulates sleep, menstrual cycles, mating seasons, hibernation, seasonal flight patterns and many other “instinctual” behaviors.

Tryptamine Trippiness

Psychedelic researcher Dr Rick Strassman has explained how the pineal gland “is quite active in synthesizing compounds related to serotonin, an important neurotransmitter in the brain. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers allowing communication among individual nerve cells. Most typical psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and DMT are active in brain sites which are also affected by serotonin. In addition, most of these drugs are similar in their chemical structure to serotonin.”

Strassman states that most of the above substances belong to the “tryptamine” class of drugs, and proposed that the pineal gland produces “one or two endogenous tryptamines found in human blood and cerebrospinal fluid. This latter fluid continually bathes the brain, and compounds found in it most likely affect brain function.”

Strassman also explains how “psychedelic drugs, meditational states, spontaneous near-death experiences and other phenomena which may induce stereotypic death/rebirth and paradisal/hellish states act via the pineal gland.

Lyttle points to the universal mystic vision of God as an all-consuming white light, and postulates that on a physiological level, this experience is produced from chemical reactions in the pineal gland which is extremely light sensitive. “Light, the eyes and the ‘third eye’ or pineal gland form a triad which directly controls and regulates normal or altered consciousness and many bodily functions? these three factors are also directly related to, or implicated in, mystical states and the ‘psychedelic’ experience.”

Visions of white light are not only associated with mysticism and psychedelic explorations, but are also a prevalent image recorded by those who experience the near-death state. A reason for this recurring theme in near-death states may be found with Dr Strassman, who suggests that after death, as the pineal gland shuts down, some of the chemical present in it may turn into “psychedelic” drugs!

According to Dr Strassman, the pineal gland may not only play an important role in death, but also in birth, possibly even in rebirth…

The pineal gland first becomes visible in the human fetus at the same time as does the clear differentiation of the fetus into female or male gender. The time for both of these events is 49 days, the period of time that, according to several Buddhist texts, the life force of a deceased individual coalesces around its next corporeal existence. If the life force does indeed enter through the pineal, the manifestation of this coming and going would be the release of psychedelic tryptamines, which would mediate the visionary experiences associated with near-death, and near-birth states.

Spiritual Traditions

Certain initiatory cults, such as Tantrism, Kundalini and Gnosticism, acknowledged the role of the pineal gland in the spiritual process. The spiritual/instinctual life force was seen as a serpent, due to its physical structure extending from the genitals, through the spine and up into its single all-seeing eye in the pineal gland.

These spiritual systems focussed around the raising of this primordial serpentine energy, based in the genitals and at the core of the pro-creative process. Through certain yogic practices this energy can be reversed and forced to travel up the spine into the brain, where it is reputed to cause “enlightenment”.

In the Kundalini system, which has seven distinct energy centers, the pineal gland has been variously identified with the “Ajna Chakra” and alternatively the “Sahasrara Chakra”. Both pre-Christian Mithraic and second century Gnostic texts also distinctly refer to the pineal gland in relation to seven distinct energy centers and this serpentine energy.

Not surprisingly, a common experience of those who have successfully raised their kundalini is the vision of all-consuming white light. More importantly, the devotee who successfully raises the kundalini experiences a radical switch in consciousness, obliterating the sense of individuation, and enters Nirvana.

Another potential reference to this curious little gland may occur at the end of the New Testament book of Revelation, where we find that the elect will know God intimately, “his name will be in their foreheads,” which is where the pineal deeply lies. Noting the gland’s strong connection with light, the rest of the passage is interesting: “There will be no more night; they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.”

Likewise in the Qabalistic tradition, the primordial archetypical man, Adam Kadmon, shines forth with a light from his forehead that was rich in complex patterns and linguistic symbols. Similar imagery occurs in the Persian tradition of the light-like sacred fluid, the “vivifying and spermatic” xvarenah. “Ahura Mazda is preeminently the possessor of xvarenah, but this ‘flame’ also springs from the forehead of Mithra and like a solar light emanates from the heads of sovereigns.”

This mind-light from the forehead is also identical with the 3rd Eye of Shiva, which when opened in the individual burns away the concept of ego-bound consciousness, and when opened collectively has the potential to burn away the ties and fetters of the Old World Order.

Perhaps if enough modern psychonauts achieve the pineal experience we can push this new frame of mind onto the rest of ego-bound humanity. Here at the turning of the millennia, in the apocalyptic year of 1999, never has the potential for the state of mind which has been the goal of yogic sages, and psychedelic voyagers alike been so possible to attain for humanity as a whole.

Chris Bennet