Maybe you’ve noticed the latest alternative medical news fashion. CBD cures everything. But where’s the truth? Can cannabis oil really cure? Which diseases can it cure? After all, cure is disappearing from most medical theory and practice.
Of course, this is in the news, but it’s not really news. In 1839, William O’Shaunessey reported from India that “I submit an abstract of the clinical details of the treatment of several patients afflicted with hydrophobia, tetanus, and other convulsive disorders, in which a preparation of Hemp was employed with results, which seem to me to warrant our anticipating from its more extensive and impartial use no inconsiderable addition to the resources of the physician.” It is interesting to note that many of the conditions treated with cannabis today are similar to those reported almost 200 years ago. But, does it cure?
Can we ask the FDA? The New York Times advises “The F.D.A. prohibits unproven health claims.” But, that’s just fake news, perhaps simply an honest error, or a failure of fact-checking. The FDA doesn’t prohibit unproven health claims, they prohibit unapproved medical claims. Proof has nothing to do with it. The FDA is a bureaucratic organization, that approves (or not) medical claims submitted, and refers to them as “health claims” (sic). The FDA cannot approve CBD oil for any disease – it can only approve a CBD oil product, one product at a time. Health is not in their dictionary. They are no arbitrator of truth, only of bureaucratic approval.
CBD is considered safe, even at very high doses, and many scientists, researchers, and others believe it should be available without a prescription. However, the FDA has approved one drug containing CBD (Epidiolex), and as a result, in strict FDA rules cannabinoid can’t be considered a nutraceutical or dietary supplement. As soon as FDA gives approval for a “health claim”, the rules can change. It’s bureaucratic nonsense, deliberately designed to profit the claimant. But it’s FDA law.
Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery, (MIND), reports that people who use cannabis as medicine also improve cognitive function. Over time their brain activity begins to normalize. Medical cannabis patients often reduce their use of conventional medications, which are usually toxic to brain structure and function.
But, does CBD cure? We don’t know. We can’t know. Cure is not defined. Cures have disappeared from conventional medicine except for phrases like miracle-cure, cure-all, cure rate, and other not-cures.
There is no medical test for cured for epilepsy, Chron’s, cancer, arthritis, depression, acne, ADHD and ADD, addictions, anorexia, asthma, bipolar, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, fibromyalgia, IBD, IBS, migraines, motions sickness, MS, nausea, obesity, OCD, osteoporosis, Parkinson’s, PTSD, schizophrenia. Note: all of those diseases appear to benefit from cannabis oil. They can be diagnosed as a disease – but no cure can be diagnosed for any of them. Technically, scientifically, medically, cured is not defined for most diseases.
Medically, it’s official. CBD can’t cure. But it’s a nonsense statement, that says nothing about CBD, and everything about “cure”. CBD can’t cure because cured is not defined.
When we look closely at the news (as opposed to the headlines and the marketing) about CBD, we often see words like therapy and treatment. Advertising and alternative medical organizations might use the word cure, but no medical authority can claim a cure. Medicine “treats” diseases.
Is CBD an important treatment for these diseases? Of course, it is. But like all treatments that don’t cure – your mileage may vary. You might see no benefit, some small benefit, a large benefit, even a cure. But if, or when CBD cures a disease, it’s just an anecdote, not a real cure. Every cure is just an anecdote – in the bureaucracies of modern medicine.
It’s not hard to define cured for every disease. But today, cures are invisible.
Once we define cured, we can actually see a cure, when it occurs.
Once we define cured for a specific disease, we can use that definition to improve our definitions of cured, and find better cures.
Until then, we can only debate the effectiveness of “treatments” and therapies that don’t cure, that can’t possibly cure.
Can cannabis cure cancer? Who knows? CBD oils is an important treatment for disease. Can it cure? We don’t know. Today, even when it cures, we don’t know. Cured cannot be proven.
to your health, tracy
Author: The Elements of Cure
