Marijuana
The History Of Cannabis (Part I)
From the book Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine
By Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar.
Copyright © 1993 Yale University.
The marihuana, cannabis, or hemp plant is one of the oldest psychoactive plants known to humanity. It is botanically classified as a member of the family Cannabaceae and the genus Cannabis.
Most botanists agree that there are three species: Cannabis sativa, the most widespread of the three, is tall, gangly, and loosely branched, growing as high as twenty feet.
Cannabis indica is shorter, about three to eight feet in height, pyramidal in shape and densely branched; Cannabis ruderalis is about two feet high with few or no branches.
There are also differences among these species in the leaves, stems, and resin. According to an alternative classification, the genus has only one highly variable species, Cannabis sativa, with two subspecies, indica and ruderalis.
The first is more northerly and produces more fiber and oil; the second is more southerly and produces more of the intoxicating resin.
Cannabis has become one of the most widespread and diversified of plants. It grows as weed and cultivated plant all over the world in a variety of climates and soils.
The fiber has been used for cloth and paper for centuries and was the most important source of rope until the development of synthetic fibers.
The seeds (or, strictly speaking, akenes - small hard fruits) have been used as bird feed and sometimes as human food.
The oil contained in the seeds was once used for lighting and soap and is now sometimes employed in the manufacture of varnish, linoleum, and artists' paints.
The chemical compounds responsible for the intoxicating and medicinal effects are found mainly in a sticky golden resin exuded from the flowers on the female plants.
The function of the resin is thought to be protection from heat and preservation of moisture during reproduction.
The plants highest in resin therefore grow in hot regions like Mexico, the Middle East, and India. When the reproductive process is over and the fruits are fully ripe, no more resin is secreted.
The cannabis preparations used in India often serve as a folk standard of potency. The three varieties are known as bhang, ganja, and charas. The least potent and cheapest preparation, bhang, is produced from the dried and crushed leaves, seeds, and stems.
Ganja, prepared from the flowering tops of cultivated female plants, is two or three times as strong as bhang; the difference is somewhat akin to the difference between beer and fine Scotch.
Charas is the pure resin, also known as hashish in the Middle East. Any of these preparations can be smoked, eaten, or mixed in drinks. The marihuana used in the United States is equivalent to bhang or, increasingly in recent years, to ganja.
The marihuana plant contains more than 460 known compounds, of which more than 60 have the 21-carbon structure typical of cannabinoids.
The only cannabinoid that is both highly psychoactive and present in large amounts, usually 1-5 percent by weight, is (-)3,4-trans-delta-l- tetrahydrocannabinol, also known as delta-1-THC, delta-9-THC, or simply THC.
A few other tetrahydrocannabinols are about as potent as delta-9-THC but present in only a few varieties of cannabis and in much smaller quantities.
A number of synthetic congeners (chemical relatives) of THC have been developed under such names as synhexyl, nabilone, and levonatradol. The other two major types of cannabinoid are the cannabidiols and the cannabinols.
It appears that the plant first produces the mildly active cannabidiols, which are converted to tetrahydrocannabinols and then broken down to relatively inactive cannabinols as the plant matures.
The recent discovery of nerve receptors in the brain stimulated by THC (and the cloning of the gene that gives rise to these receptors) suggests that the body produces its own version of the substance.
The receptors are found mainly in the cerebral cortex, which governs higher thinking and in the hippocampus, which is a locus of memory (1).
A native of central Asia, cannabis may have been cultivated as long as ten thousand years ago.
It was certainly cultivated in China by 4000 B.C. and in Turkestan by 3000 B.C. It has long been used as a medicine in India, China, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and South America.
The first evidence for medicinal use of cannabis is an herbal published during the reign of the Chinese emperor Chen Nung five thousand years ago.
Cannabis was recommended for malaria, constipation, rheumatic pains, absentmindedness, and female disorders. Another Chinese herbal recommended a mixture of hemp, resin, and wine as an analgesic during surgery.
In India cannabis has been recommended to quicken the mind, lower fevers, induce sleep, cure dysentery, stimulate appetite, improve digestion, relieve headaches, and cure venereal disease. In Africa it was used for dysentery, malaria, and other fevers.
Today certain tribes treat snake bites with hemp or smoke it before childbirth. Hemp was also noted as a remedy by Galen and other physicians of the classical and Hellenistic eras, and it was highly valued in medieval Europe.
The English clergyman Robert Burton, in his famous work The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621, suggested the use of cannabis in the treatment of depression.
The New English Dispensatory of 1764 recommended applying hemp roots to the skin for inflammation, a remedy that was already popular in eastern Europe.
The Edinburgh New Dispensary of 1794 included a long description of the effects of hemp and stated that the oil was useful in the treatment of coughs, venereal disease, and urinary incontinence.
A few years later Nicholas Culpeper summarized all the conditions for which cannabis was supposed to be medically useful.
But cannabis did not come into its own in the West as a medicine until the middle of the nineteenth century.
During its heyday, from 1840 to 1900, more than one hundred papers were published in the Western medical literature recommending it for various illnesses and discomforts (2).
It could almost be said that physicians of a century ago knew more about cannabis than contemporary physicians do; certainly they were more interested in exploring its therapeutic potential.
The first Western physician to take an interest in cannabis as a medicine was W B. O'Shaughnessey, a young professor at the Medical College of Calcutta who had observed its use in India.
He gave cannabis to animals, satisfied himself that it was safe, and began to use it with patients suffering from rabies, rheumatism, epilepsy, and tetanus.
In a report published in 1839, he wrote that he had found tincture of hemp (a solution of cannabis in alcohol, taken orally) to be an effective analgesic. He was also impressed with its muscle relaxant properties and called it an anticonvulsive remedy of the greatest value (3).
O'Shaughnessey returned to England in 1842 and provided cannabis to pharmacists. Doctors in Europe and the United States soon began to prescribe it for a variety of physical conditions. Cannabis was even given to Queen Victoria by her court physician.
It was listed in the United States Dispensatory in 1854 (with a warning that large doses were dangerous and that it was a powerful narcotic). Commercial cannabis preparations could be bought in drug stores. During the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia, some pharmacists carried ten pounds or more of hashish (4).
Meanwhile, reports on cannabis accumulated in the medical literature. In 1860 Dr. R. R. M'Meens reported the findings of the Committee on Cannabis Indica to the Ohio State Medical Society (5).
After acknowledging a debt to O'Shaughnessey, M'Meens reviewed symptoms and conditions for which Indian hemp had been found useful, including tetanus, neuralgia, dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation), convulsions, rheumatic and childbirth pain, asthma, postpartum psychosis, gonorrhea, and chronic bronchitis.
As a hypnotic (sleep-inducing drug) he compared it to opium: Its effects are less intense, and the secretions are not so much suppressed by it.
Digestion is not disturbed; the appetite rather increased; ... The whole effect of hemp being less violent, and producing a more natural sleep, without interfering with the actions of the internal organs, it is certainly often preferable to opium, although it is not equal to that drug in strength and reliability.
Like O'Shaughnessey, M'Meens emphasized the remarkable capacity of cannabis to stimulate appetite.
Interest persisted into the next generation. In 1887, H. A. Hare recommended the capacity of hemp to subdue restlessness and anxiety and distract a patient's mind in terminal illness.
In these circumstances, he wrote, The patient, whose most painful symptom has been mental trepidation, may become more happy or even hilarious (6).
He believed cannabis to be as effective a pain reliever as opium: During the time that this remarkable drug is relieving pain, a very curious psychical condition sometimes manifests itself; namely, that the diminution of the pain seems to be due to its fading away in the distance.
The pain becomes less and less, just as the pain in a delicate ear would grow less and less as a beaten drum was carried farther and farther out of the range of hearing (7).
Hare also noted that hemp is an excellent topical anesthetic, especially for the mucous membranes of the mouth and tongue - a property well known to dentists in the nineteenth century.
In 1890, J. R. Reynolds, a British physician, summarized thirty years of experience with Cannabis indica, recommending it for patients with senile insomnia and suggesting that in this class of cases I have found nothing comparable in utility to a moderate dose of Indian hemp.
According to Reynolds, hemp remained effective for months and even years without an increase in the dose. He also found it valuable in the treatment of various forms of neuralgia, including tic douloureux (a painful facial neurological disorder), and added that it was useful in preventing migraine attacks.
Very many victims of this malady have for years kept their suffering in abeyance by taking hemp at the moment of threatening or onset of the attack. He also found it useful for certain kinds of epilepsy, for depression, and sometimes for asthma and dysmenorrhea (8).
Doctor J. B. Mattison, urging physicians to continue using hemp, in 1891 called it a drug that has a special value in some morbid conditions and the intrinsic merit and safety of which entitles it to a place it once held in therapeutics (9).
He reviewed its uses as an analgesic and hypnotic, with special reference to dysmenorrhea, chronic rheumatism, asthma, and gastric ulcer, and added that it has proved an efficient substitute for the poppy in morphine addicts.
One of his cases was a naval surgeon, nine years a ten grains daily subcutaneous morphia taker ... [who] recovered with less than a dozen doses (10).
The use of cannabis in treating drug addiction had already been reported in 1889 by E. A. Birch. He treated a chloral hydrate addict and an opiate addict with pills containing Cannabis indica and found a prompt response in both cases, with improved appetite and sound sleep (11).
But for Mattison the most important use of cannabis was in treating that opprobrium of the healing art - migraine. Reviewing his own and earlier physicians' experiences, he concluded that cannabis not only blocks the pain of migraine but prevents migraine attacks (12).
Years later William Osler expressed his agreement, saying that cannabis was probably the most satisfactory remedy for migraine (13).
Mattison's report concluded on a wistful note: Dr. Suckling wrote me: The young men rarely prescribe it. To them I specially commend it. With a wish for speedy effect, it is so easy to use that modern mischief maker, hypodermic morphia, that they [young physicians] are prone to forget remote results of incautious opiate giving.
Would that the wisdom which has come to their professional fathers through, it may be, a hapless experience might serve them to steer clear of narcotic shoals on which many a patient has gone a wreck.
Indian hemp is not here lauded as a specific. It will, at times, fail. So do other drugs. But the many cases in which it acts well entitle it to a large and lasting confidence (14).
As he noted, the medical use of cannabis was already in decline by 1890. The potency of cannabis preparations was too variable, and individual responses to orally ingested cannabis seemed erratic and unpredictable.
Another reason for the neglect of research on the analgesic properties of cannabis was the greatly increased use of opiates after the invention of the hypodermic syringe in the 1850s allowed soluble drugs to be injected for fast pain relief; hemp products are insoluble in water and so cannot easily be administered by injection.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the development of such synthetic drugs as aspirin, chloral hydrate, and barbiturates, which are chemically more stable than Cannabis indica and therefore more reliable, hastened the decline of cannabis as a medicine.
But the new drugs had striking disadvantages. Five hundred to a thousand people die from aspirin-induced bleeding each year in the United States, and barbiturates are, of course, far more dangerous yet.
One might have expected physicians looking for better analgesics and hypnotics to have turned to cannabinoid substances, especially after 1940, when it became possible to study congeners (chemical relatives) of THC that might have more stable and specific effects.
But the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 undermined any such experimentation. This law was the culmination of a campaign organized by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry Anslinger in which the public was led to believe that marihuana was addictive and caused violent crimes, psychosis, and mental deterioration.
The film Reefer Madness, made as part of Anslinger's campaign, may be a joke to the sophisticated today, but it was once regarded (by some people, but not the makers of the film) as a serious attempt to address a social problem, and the atmosphere and attitudes it exemplified and promoted continue to influence American culture today.
Under the Marihuana Tax Act, anyone using the hemp plant for certain defined industrial or medical purposes was required to register and pay a tax of a dollar an ounce.
A person using marihuana for any other purpose had to pay a tax of $100 an ounce on unregistered transactions. Those failing to comply were subject to large fines or prison terms for tax evasion.
The law was not aimed at medical use of marihuana - its purpose was to discourage recreational marihuana smoking. It was put in the form of a revenue measure to evade the effect of Supreme Court decisions that reserved to the states the right to regulate most commercial transactions.
By forcing some marihuana transactions to be registered and others to be taxed heavily, the government could make it prohibitively expensive to obtain the drug legally for any other than medical purposes.
Almost incidentally, the law made medical use of cannabis difficult because of the extensive paperwork required of doctors who wished to use it.
The Federal Bureau of Narcotics followed up with anti-diversion regulations that contributed to physicians' disenchantment. Cannabis was removed from the United States Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary in 1941.
A reading of the hearings in which the bill was examined by the House Ways and Means Committee before its passage shows how little data supported the judgment that marihuana was harmful and how much mass hysteria surrounded the subject.
The only dissident witness was W. C. Woodward, a physician-lawyer serving as legislative counsel for the American Medical Association.
He supported the aims of Congress but argued for less restrictive legislation on the grounds that future investigators might discover substantial medical uses for cannabis.
In reference to marihuana addiction, Woodward commented: The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for their statements.
It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence.
We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.
But as yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informal inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.
You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit among children.
Inquiry of the Children's Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.
Inquiry of the Office of Education - and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the county, if there is a prevalence of the habit - indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it. (15)
Congressmen questioned Woodward closely and critically about his educational background, his relationship to the American Medical Association, and his views on medical legislation of the previous fifteen years. His objections to the quality and sources of the evidence against cannabis did not endear him to the legislators.
Representative John Dingell's questions are typical:
Mr. Dingell: We know that it is a habit that is spreading, particularly among youngsters. We learn that from the pages of the newspapers. You say that Michigan has a law regulating it. We have a State Law, but we do not seem to be able to get anywhere with it, because, as I have said, the habit is growing. The number of victims is increasing each year.
Dr. Woodward: There is no evidence of that.
Mr. Dingell: I have not been impressed by your testimony here as reflecting the sentiment of the high-class members of the medical profession in my State. I am confident that the medical profession in the State of Michigan, and in Wayne County particularly, or in my district, will subscribe wholeheartedly to any law that will suppress this thing, despite the fact that there is a $1 tax imposed.
Dr. Woodward: if there was any law that would absolutely suppress the thing, perhaps that is true, but when the law simply contains provisions that impose a useless expense, and does not accomplish the result.
Mr. Dingell: (interposing): That is simply your personal opinion. That is kindred to the opinion you entertained with reference to the Harrison Narcotics Act.
Dr. Woodward: If we had been asked to cooperate in drafting it.
Mr. Dingell (interposing): You are not cooperating in drafting this at all.
Dr. Woodward: As a matter of fact, it does not serve to suppress the use of opium and cocaine.
Mr. Dingell: The medical profession should be doing its utmost to aid in the suppression of this curse that is eating the very vitals of the Nation.
Dr. Woodward: They are.
Mr. Dingell: Are you not simply piqued because you were not consulted in the drafting of the bill (16)?
Woodward was finally cut off with the admonition: You are not cooperative in this.
If you want to advise us on legislation you ought to come here with some constructive proposals rather than criticisms, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do (17).
His testimony was futile. The bill became law on October 1, 1937. Many state laws, just as punitive and hastily conceived, followed.
One of the few public officials who responded rationally to the issue of marihuana in the 1930s was New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
In 1938 he appointed a committee of scientists to study the medical, sociological, and psychological aspects of marihuana use in New York City.
Two internists, three psychiatrists, two pharmacologists, a public health expert, the commissioners of Correction, Health, and Hospitals, and the director of the Division of Psychiatry of the Department of Hospitals made up the committee.
They began their investigations in 1940 and presented detailed findings in 1944 under the title The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York. This largely disregarded study dispelled many of the myths that had spurred passage of the tax act.
The committee found no proof that major crime was associated with marihuana or that it caused aggressive or antisocial behavior; marihuana was not sexually over stimulating and did not change personality; there was no evidence of acquired tolerance.
In September 1942 the American Journal of Psychiatry published The Psychiatric Aspects of Marihuana Intoxication, by two of the study's investigators, Samuel Allentuck and Karl M. Bowman.
Among other things, Allentuck and Bowman wrote that habituation to cannabis is not as strong as habituation to tobacco or alcohol.
Three months later, in December, an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association described Allentuck and Bowman's article as a careful study and mentioned potential therapeutic uses of cannabis in the treatment of depression, appetite loss, and opiate addiction.
But in the next few years that journal's editors were induced to change their minds under government pressure.
They received and published letters denouncing the LaGuardia report from Bureau of Narcotics Director Harry Anslinger in January 1943 and from R. J. Bouquet, an expert working for the Narcotics Commission of the League of Nations, in April 1944.
Finally, the American Medical Association expressed its agreement with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the following editorial, published in April 1945:
For many years medical scientists have considered cannabis a dangerous drug. Nevertheless, a book called Marihuana Problems by the New York City Mayor's Committee on Marihuana submits an analysis by seventeen doctors of tests on 77 prisoners and, on this narrow and thoroughly unscientific foundation, draws sweeping and inadequate conclusions which minimize the harmfulness of marihuana.
Already the book has done harm ... The book states unqualifiedly to the public that the use of this narcotic does not lead to physical, mental or moral degeneration and that permanent deleterious effects from its continued use were not observed on 77 prisoners.
This statement has already done great damage to the cause of law enforcement. Public officials will do well to disregard this unscientific, uncritical study, and continue to regard marihuana as a menace wherever it is purveyed.
In the words of A. S. deRopp, the journal had abandoned its customary restraint and voiced its editorial wrath in scolding tones.
So fierce was the editorial that one might suppose that the learned members of the mayor's committee ... had formed some unhallowed league with the 'tea- pad' proprietors [owners of places where marihuana users gathered to smoke] to undermine the city's health by deliberately misrepresenting the facts about marihuana (18).
For more than forty years after that editorial, the American Medical Association steadfastly maintained a position on marihuana closely allied to that of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and its successor agencies.
continued in part 2
Books Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine
Two eminent Harvard researchers describe the medical benefits of marihuana, explain why its use has been forbidden, and argue for its full legalization to make it available to patients who need it.
Examples of the ways that marihuana alleviates symptoms of cancer chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, glaucoma, AIDS, and depression, as well as symptoms of such less common disorders as Crohn`s disease, diabetic gastroparesis, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts:
A Review Of The Scientific Evidence
You might want to read this if you are interested in marijuana, or want to discuss marijuana with your kids, but do not have enough facts to begin.
This is not propaganda put out by anti-drug crusaders, it is a scientific study of the facts. If you need to talk to your children about marijuana, and have them respect your opinion, get the facts, not the hype.
Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts Reefer Madness:
The History of Marijuana in America
Reefer Madness is the authors reply to the movie of the same name. But this is an honest version of the social history of marijuana use in America.
Beginning with the hemp farming of George Washington, author traces the fascinating story of our nation's love-hate relationship with the resilient weed we know as marijuana.
Reefer Madness The Emperor Wears No Clothes:
The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis
and the Conspiracy Against Marijuana
Probably the best book around about the history, uses, and war on this plant. Over 300 pages of text, photos, illustrations and charts.
This book has been an eye opener to me and everyone else I know that has read it. You would be hard pressed to find a more complete source for information relating to the suppression of the hemp industry in the United States.
The Emperor Wears No Clothes
Marijuana Related Books About Marijuana More Marijuana Articles Various Marijuana Links