You read that right, my sleepy-eyed stoners. Cannabis CURES cancer. Okay, that is a bit of propaganda wrapped up in overstatement. But guess what? It is our turn to spread the real propaganda of ganja. The thing that the government, religious fanatics and our parents alike will hate the most about our propaganda is that it is full of truth.

According to “The Cannabible 3,” in 1974, a study funded by the United States Federal Government found evidence demonstrating that Tetrahydrocannabinol, the most active cannabinoid in cannabis, reduces growth rates of three kinds of cancer. The assholes in the Drug Enforcement Administration office decided it might be bad for business if the public knew this. No major media outlets reported the story and research was halted in that area.

“What a pothead” you scoff. “Believing some pipe-dream a stoner threw into a book about weed.” Oh, ye of little faith. Still can’t trust your brethren to be intelligent on the most important issues facing the world?

Do you trust scientists working at Harvard to be intelligent? On April 17, 2007, www.sciencedaily.com reported on Harvard researchers delving deeper into the relationship between cannabis and cancer. “‘The beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer,’ said Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine.”

Since the initial discovery in 1974, multiple international studies have confirmed that THC can halt or reverse the growth of cancer cells. In Germany: A study demonstrates the anti-cancerous effect of cannabinoids in lung and cervical cancer. At the Complutense University of Madrid Spain: One third of infected rats have their brain tumors eliminated after treatment with synthetic THC. In Italy: Cannabinol is shown to inhibit the growth of cancerous glioma cells, both in vitro and in vivo. The list goes on.

Perhaps the study most worth mentioning is a secret study financed by the U.S. government. In 1997, it was leaked to the media that the U.S. National Toxicology Program had conducted a study worth $2 million, pointing to the fact that THC protected against malignant tumors. This is the only other study funded by the government to investigate the anti-cancerous properties. As with the first study, the findings were kept away from the public eye for a few years. News of this event came only after an inside source deliberately took the report to the media.

Taking stock of this situation is sure to confuse and enrage. Let Mary Jane soothe the rage as I take care of the confusion. (Mary Jane has trouble helping with confusion. It is not her fault, she’s just too stoned to figure out how.) The situation is as follows: we are surrounded by liars. All our short stoner lives, people have been telling us that smoking marijuana will give us cancer. Scary lies like “One joint is equal to 20 cigarettes” are paraded as facts. The government, the one by the people and for the people, takes our taxes to fund studies that may lead to the cure for cancer, then hides the results from us.

The media chooses not to publicize these findings because then there would be less time to terrorize us with stories of violence and despair. Health care providers, the people supposedly fighting diseases for the benefit of others, are not interested in learning more about this issue. It is hard to blame them, though. How can that juggernaut of an industry support itself when a cure for cancer could be grown in a person’s back yard?

Health care providers have to be able to pay the scientists, do the research, discover the drug and test the pill, which has to pass the tests set up by the feds, so they can make money. This is so the public “knows” that when they have to buy health care to pay to see the doctor. How else are you going to afford those little white pills the pharmacy gives you instead of letting you know that many ailments can be cured by changes in diet, exercise or cheaper, natural, healthier substances, like weed?

So, does cannabis prevent or possibly even cure cancer? Pass me that bong and we’ll find out together.