Dr Peyraube is Medical Doctor and specialist in the field of Drug Policy and Cannabis for Medicinal purposes. Throughout her career she has been involved in training, prevention, treatment and drug related harm reduction, including innovative theoretical and methodological developments with an emphasis on ethical issues, which earned her regional and international recognition. She has been advocating for drug policy reform in several countries.
In her home country, Uruguay, she has been ad hoc advisor to the National Board on Drugs (SND) in the reform of the public drug policy and the Institute of Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA) of Uruguay, and actively participated in the drafting of the law that regulates Cannabis for all purposes.
Racquel is a member of the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines (IACM) and of the group of experts working on the public health recommendations for Cannabis regulation, coordinated by the O’Neill Institute of the Georgetown University, Washington DC, and the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA).
Dr Peyraube is the designer and academic coordinator of the 1st International Medical Cannabis Course for physicians and nurses endorsed by IACM, a protocol designed to be implemented in different contexts. Also, she is scientific advisor to foundations and companies working in the field of medical Cannabis who are interested in developing clinical trials and public education.
In May 2017 she founded the Uruguayan Society of Endocannabinology and is its founder president. Currently she is dedicated to Cannabis medicine practice, the development of protocols for clinical trials for research, medical cannabis education for health professionals, and consulting on Drug Policy Reform, particularly Cannabis legalization in different countries.
Seemingly in the light of the introduction of the ‘Medical Innovation Bill‘ in South Africa’s parliament in 2014, the Cancer Society of South Africa has revised it’s position on cannabis and cancer. It seems to have five more pages than their 2012 position paper but their conclusion remains the same:
To this day i have yet to be in anyway convinced that the cansa assosiation actually help cacer patients. In fact everytime i arrived at their offices they had a personel crises of some sort or were out campaigning with no one to assist. In fact i have spoken to four people in Rustenburg who have asked for assistance and never even had the courtesy of a follow up phone call. So i do not believe they have the patient in mind only their paychecks.They wont agree with trying alternative measures because then the public would not be so eager to hand them their hard earned cash….
It is quite evident that CANSA knows next to nothing about the properties of Cannabis. One word: APOPTOSIS! Cannabis instructs cancer cells to self destruct and leaves the good cells unharmed! It is a sin not to at least approvde clinical tests!
Not to mention morphine is insanely addictive.
I read the Cancer Associations paper on Cannabis with interest. What struck me are the obvious inconsistencies, and what appears to be an embarrasses shuffling around of hard scientific facts , in an attempt to continue to cling to its outdated and discredited position on this much maligned medicinal and recreational herb.
The paper is long on emphasizing cannabis’s alleged harmful effects , and at best gives over to the use of MM for symptomatic relive. It is only towards the end of its long winded statement does it seems to give in , and then only apparently grudgingly, to the the curative potential of MM : “While not every strain of cannabis has the same effect, more and more patients are experiencing success in cancer reduction in a short period of time by using cannabis”
It then goes on to to give a long list of peer review papers, some in top medical journals on the use of cannabis for cancer. Just a glace through the titles of the papers tells an amazing story that apparently many would prefer never was mentioned in polite company…
“reduces tumor growth…,inhibits tumor growth and angiogenesis in animal models……. data from this research support the clinical testing of Cannabinoids against prostate carcinoma” etc
But the position paper goes on to say ” It is still not clear whether the health risks associated with the use of
Cannabis outweighs the benefits ….. so if you are dying of cancer , and conventional treatments have only pushed you closer to the abyss, you really need to be concerned about the potential health risk of using a herb, that has repeatedly been shown, in many studies to have relative benign side effects (certainly relative to the risks of using most prescribed medications)
And then to push it even further it puts in a plug for big pharma ( its obvious , bed fellow): “Morphine is one of the drugs of choice for the control of severe pain and is also available at a reasonable cost”… so Morphine is a safe and ‘cheap’ drug…. I don’t think so, morphine is lethal if slightly overdosed,and has many health side effects, that far outweigh the use or risks of accidental overdosing of MM.
SO why does this position paper make me feeling even more suspect …who hiding what and why ?
The human body is wired to receive cannabinoids and it is every body’s God given right to use Cannabis if they so choose.