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Marijuana Medicine

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MEDICAL AND THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS Cannabis hemp was first introduced into the western pharmacopoeia in 1839 by W.B. O¹Shaughnessy although Culpeper had referred to it as early as 1652. Prior to this however, it had been traditionally used as a folk medicine for many thousands of years. The earliest pharmacopoeia in existence, the Pen-ts¹ao-Ching (attributed to Emperor Shen-nung, circa 2000BC) was also aware of the psychoactive properties of the plant. The medicinal use of cannabis is central to both the Unani Tibbi and Ayurvedic systems of medicine, which in 1965 were estimated to be the only forms of health care accessible to 80% of Indians. From 1842 through to the 1890¹s extremely strong forms of cannabis known as extractums, tinctures and elixirs were routinely the second and third, most used medicines in the US. The US Pharmacopoeia listed over 100 separate conditions for which cannabis was prescribed for. In 1890, Queen Victoria¹s personal physician J. Russell Reynolds had stated: Indian hemp, when pure and administered carefully, is one of the most valuable medicines we possess. In 1916 it was included in Oslers Principles & Practices of Medicine. It was widely used in a variety of patent medicines and tinctures available through doctors and pharmacists marketed by Parke Davis, Eli Lilly and Squibbb among others until the 1930¹s. . (See Figures 4 & 5 below.) For 3,000 years previously however, varying parts of the plant (buds, leaves, roots, seeds) were the most commonly used medicine for the majority of the world¹s illnesses. Despite its widespread use, scientists had no idea of how cannabis worked, until Dr. Raphael Mechoulam isolated D-9, tetrahydro-cannabinol (THC) in 1964. In addition to medical research on the value of the biochemical constituents of cannabis hemp seeds (which contain negligible amounts of cannabinoids) much work has also been done on the therapeutic applications of cannabis for various conditions. To date more than 400 separate compounds have been isolated out of over a thousand suspected. At least 60 are considered to have some therapeutic potential. Mikuriya (1973) provides a comprehensive and well referenced list which include its use as an analgesic-hypnotic, appetite stimulant, antiepileptic-antispasmodic, prophylactic and treatment of neuralgia¹s, (including migraine and tic douloureaux), anti-depressant-tranquilliser, oxytocic, antitussive, topical anaesthetic, withdrawal aid for opiate and alcohol addiction, childbirth analgesic, antibiotic, intraocular hypotensive and as a hypothermagenic. In lay terms this means therapeutic potential for asthma, glaucoma, tumours, nausea relief (for HIV/AIDS, chemotherapy, sea sickness), epilepsy, M.S., labour and back pain, muscle spasms, sleep and relaxation, emphysema, appetite stimulation, pruritus, paraplegia and quadriplegia, menstrual cramps, depression and other mood disorders. It can also be used as an antibiotic, disinfectant and expectorant. In 1988, Francis Young, the American Drug Enforcement Agency¹s own Administrative Law Judge went so far as to state that cannabis: "is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known" and recommended that it be immediately rescheduled, to allow doctors to prescribe it. Medicines, useful for many ailments and symptoms could thus be produced locally, free of multi-national pharmaceutical companies control. The good example is in Jamaica, where Cannisol (topical, anti-glaucoma eyedrops), derived directly from cannabis, is proving cheap, safe and effective, in preventing blindness.