The revised report reviews nearly 200 scientific trials assessing the therapeutic utility of cannabinoids for the treatment of seventeen specific disease indications: Alzheimer's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), diabetes mellitus, dystonia, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorders, gliomas, hepatitis C, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hypertension, incontinence, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, pruritis, rheumatoid arthritis, sleep apnea, and Tourette's syndrome.

NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano, who authored the report, said: "Despite continued political debates regarding the legality of medicinal marijuana, clinical investigations of the therapeutic use of cannabinoids are now more prevalent than at any time in history. A search of the National Library of Medicine's website quantifies this fact. A keyword search using the terms ‘cannabinoids, 1996’ reveals just 258 scientific journal articles published on the subject for that year. If one performs this same search for the year 2007, one will find over 3,400 published scientific studies.

"[This] emerging body of clinical and preclinical work … makes it clear that the US government's stance against the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids is based on politics, not science."

Armentano stated that the findings from recently published studies indicate that cannabinoids may provide long-term therapeutic relief from symptoms associated with degenerative diseases such as MS or ALS. "Conditions such as multiple sclerosis are chronic, degenerative diseases; their symptoms become more severe over time," he said. "Therefore, one would assume that patients would increase their use of cannabis over time in order to maintain their initial levels of relief. That they are typically not doing so indicates that patients are not becoming tolerant to the drug’s therapeutic effects. More importantly, this result may also be evidence that cannabinoids are moderating the progression of some of these debilitating diseases."

Armentano also stated that preclinical studies published this past year indicate that cannabinoids possess significant anti-cancer properties and can limit the spread of various types of malignant cell lines – including breast cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, cervical cancer, and pancreatic carcinoma. "Far from being a cancer causing agent, many experts now believe that cannabinoids may one day represent a new class of non-toxic anti-cancer drugs that can halt the spread and growth of various cancers without inducing the painful and life-threatening side effects of chemotherapy," he said.

Full text of the report, "Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis & Cannabinoids: A Review of the Recent Scientific Literature, 2006 – 2008," is available online at: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7002.