The Benefits of Cannabis with Tuberculosis

For thousands of years cannabis has been used as a folk medicine to treat tuberculosis.

Cannabis is a powerful medicine for its anti-microbial properties. Marijuana can treat infections that have shown drug resistance such as TB, pneumonia and MRSA.(Source)

Tuberculosis is a highly contagious bacterial infection that is transmitted through airborne particles. TB needs oxygen and therefore proliferates in the lungs. It causes a chronic cough, weakness, fever, weight loss and sometimes death. It is common to become a carrier of the disease without showing symptoms. A weak immune system increases susceptibility to the disease.

TB is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide. In 2013, there were 9 million new cases of tuberculosis worldwide with only 9,582 cases of TB in the US. This same year 1.5 million died from the disease.(Source)

Cannabis has been used as a folk medicine for TB worldwide. In India, cannabis is grown in the location where a cobra snake was killed. They believe this gives the plant stronger medicinal properties.(Source) The Zulu's of South Africa use cannabis with hot water infusions as medicine to treat TB and other respiratory ailments. It is still commonplace in Mexico to smoke cannabis to treat TB.

Dating back to pre-WWII in Czechoslovakia, it is often produced as a recipe of ground hemp seed steeped in warm milk. A 30-year study for this remedy shows significant improvement in symptoms and cures for TB. It is believed that the high protein content of edestin in hemp seed helps in the treatment as well as immunity. The high content of linoleic acid in cannabis has shown to destroy TB bacteria.(Source)

Source:

http://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factsheets/statistics/tbtrends.htm

http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/tuberculosis/en/

http://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/cannabis-treatment-tuberculosis/