Tag: national cancer institute

The American Independent has long reported on inconsistencies in federal acknowledgment of marijuana’s medical benefits. These came to a head in March, when an update to the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) treatment database went into detail about the treatment potential of marijuana as prescribed for cancer patients.

In March, The American Independent was first to report that the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a component agency of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), had acknowledged the medicinal benefits of marijuana in its online treatment database. Newly obtained documents showing the development of NCI’s summary over months of emails and text revisions now reveal not only how NCI database contributors arrived at their March 17 summary of marijuana’s medical uses, but also the politicking that went into quickly scrubbing that summary of information regarding the drug’s potential tumor-fighting effects.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has now published online an explanation for changes made to its treatment database entry on cannabis that The American Independent previously reported on.

Last week, The Colorado Independent's sister site, The American Independent, was first to report that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) had added a section on medical marijuana to its treatment database, making it the first federal agency to formally recognize marijuana’s medicinal properties. Now, NCI has altered the page, removing any mention of the evidence that marijuana can diminish and even reverse tumor growth.

As federal battles over medical marijuana across the country heat up, a statement from The National Cancer Institute may be a huge asset for medical marijuana dispensaries that have been targeted by the various arms of the U.S. Department of Justice and the IRS.