Quote Originally Posted by LIP
The only cell within the brain THC kills is called the glioma cell, which is the only cell in the brain to turn cancerous and is also not used by the brain for anything.
LIP, man, you know I respect and like the heck outta you, but you keep making the statement above about glial cells being the only cells in the brain to turn cancerous, and that's completely untrue. Among the other types of cancers that are found in the brain, all named after the cells they originate from, are neurofibromatomas, ependymomas, meningiomas, adenomas, astrocytomas, oligodendroglial tumors, medulloblastomas, pineocytomas, parenchymal tumors, craniopharyngomas, germ cell cancers, and several others. Annoying as I may be, I can't help but jump in and set the record straight so you don't put the study of neuro-anatomy back 100 yearsâ??or provide falsely reassuring information to someone who may someday get a brain tumor.

The fact is that THC has been shown to inhibit glial cell growth (and hence, we can assume, gliomas, the tumors that originate from those cells) in rat studies. That's as far as the research has gone for now. The hope is that it would do the same thingâ??and even kill those tumor cellsâ??in humans. But that's not been studied or proven yet. I hope it will be studied someday soon. Gliomas are very deadly brain cancers. People who get them rarely live longer than three years; usually glioma patients die within 12 months or less.

Glial cells, by the way, have enormously important function in the brain and are heavily relied upon. Without the support and nutrition of glial cells, the brain couldn't send signals among neurons and synapses. We'd all quickly become vegetables and then die without our glial cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glia