Health Canada has approved a medicated spray made from the ingredients of the cannabis plant. The medication, called Sativex, provides patients with advanced cancer a new option for pain management.Sativex was approved in 2005 for use by patients with multiple sclerosis and has not caused any adverse side effects. Most pain-killing drugs, like Opioids, can't make this claim. They are still very good at what they do, though so for cancer pain, it's likely they will be used in conjunction with Sativex but at lower doses.
For those who may view drugs like Sativex as illicit substances -- because they are derived from cannabis -- one palliative medicine physician says the original substance has been modified and in its medicinal form is an appropriate and legitimate treatment.
Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell is a cancer survivor. And so she knows the pain and heartbreak associated with the disease. Still, she vetoed a bill that would have allowed people with serious illnesses to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. It's just too problematic and sends mixed messages to children, Rell said in a statement last Tuesday. 
Here's an easy way to make a charitable difference -- send an instant message.
A clinical study involving 1,000 prostate cancer patients was stopped this week by Southwest Oncology Group in Michigan due to concerns the treatment may have caused leukemia in three of the participants.
