New Cannabis Club

Historians claim that cannabis was first employed in these states as an antiseptic and drug. Other medical uses were later developed and spread across the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. A few years after the return of Napoleon’s army from Egypt, cannabis became widely accepted by Western medical practitioners. Formerly , it had had limited use for such purposes as the handling of burns. The systematic members of Napoleon’s forces had an interest in the drug’s agony relieving and sedative effects.

It was employed during, and to a bigger extent, following his rule in France, particularly after 1840 when the work of such doctors as O’Shaughnessy, Aubert-Roche, and Moreau de Tours drew wide attention to this drug. With the upward thrust of the literary movement of the 1840-1860 period in France ( Gautier, Baudelaire, Dumas, and so on. ), cannabis became rather favored as an intoxicant of the intellectual classes. In the U. S. , medical interest in cannabis use was shown in 1860 by the assembling of a Panel on Cannabis indica of the Ohio State Medical Society, which reported on its healing applications ( McMeens, 1860 : one ). Between the period 1840-1890, Walton states that more than one hundred articles were printed suggesting cannabis for one disorder or another. Concern about cannabis as an intoxicant led the govt. of India to determine the India Hemp Commission of 1893-94 to look at the whole question of cannabis use in India. Paralleling the question over cannabis use in the second 1/2 the 19th century was the growing medical use of other medicines superior to cannabis in their effects and easier controlled as to dose. Accordingly , medical use of cannabis dropped and cannabis commenced to lose support of the medical profession. In the years between 1856-1937, cannabis lost its image as a drugs and was left with a cowboy image as an intoxicant. Robust public reaction joined with a campaign in the general public press led straight to a Fed. anti-marijuana law in 1937.
( The drug was against the law in several states before 1937 ).

The issue of medical use stayed active and Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Endorse to the AMA, an adversary of cannabis use and the sole surgeon to be a witness at the Taxation of marijuana hearings, stated : There are exceptions in treatment in which cannabis can’t seemingly be successfully substituted for. The work of Pascal appears to show that Indian Hemp has outstanding properties in divulging the subconscious ; thus, it can be employed for mental, psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic research ( Hearings, House of Delegates , 1937 : 91 ). Though cannabis drugs are sometimes considered to be outmoded and barely utilized in “western” drugs today, cannabis is “still used extensively in the Ayruvedic, Unani and Tibbi techniques of medicine of the Indian-Pakastani subcontinent” ( “The Cannabis Problem, 1962 : twenty-seven ). The Pharmacopoeias of India mention cannabis use in recent times.

2 preparations of cannabis, a liquid extract and a tincture, are listed in the 1954 and 1966 Pharmacopoeias of India which contain descriptions of cannabis and its extract and how it is created ( Chopra & Chopra, 1957 : nine ). A more up to date source makes reference to the proven fact that “in recent India and Pakistan, there remains widespread native medical, ‘quasi-medical,’ and unlawful use of both opium and cannabis” ( Chopra & Chopra, 1957 : 12-13 ). Bouquet observes that hemp resin is sometimes employed in the local drugs of the countries where it is picked up. He points particularly to India where, “the medical systems. Make much use of cannabis as a sedative, hypnotic, drug, anti-spasmodic and anti-hemorrhoidal” ( Circular on Narcotics, 1962:27 ). Canadian Commission : The Non-Medical Use of substances. There’s no currently accepted medical use of cannabis in Northern America outside of an experimental context. Though cannabis has been reported to supply an array of most likely handy medical effects, these have either not been adequately investigated, or can get replaced by employing other more widely available and convenient drugs. The natural product’s variability in virility and unstableness over time are among the factors which have led straight to its disfavor in Western 20 th century medicine…. cannabis has traditionally been employed in the past, and is presently used illicitly in North America, to cut back the secondary symptoms and suffering due to the flue and the common cold. These. Purported healing properties of cannabis haven’t been adequately studied in a systematic context, and their general medical potential remains a matter of conjecture ( 1970 : 74 ). Similar statements concerning cannabis are going to be found in Marijuana, edited by Erich Goode, and in the textbook Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics by Goodman and Gilman ( 1970 : three hundred ). Concerning healing uses, the second states : though cannabis was once used for a wide selection of clinical defects and has been demonstrated to have antibacterial activity, there are at present no well substantiated prospects for its use.

It’s no longer an official drug. Preparations are barely available ( cannabis preparation and man-made THC are obtainable just for research purposes ), and prescriptions are controlled by special tax laws.

Hollister ( 1971 : twenty-seven )
1. The start of the action of oral quantities of THC is commonly rather slow, in contrast to that of typical sedative-hypnotics.
2. Doses high enough to provide a marked hypnotic effect are nearly always accompanied by some quantity of psychotomimetic-like perceptual defects, which many patients might find unpleasant.
3. The fine titration of dose needed to provide sedative effects is probably going to be troublesome.
4. The drug doesn’t have novel effects compared to other sedative-hypnotics.

The Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare report to Congress in 1971, marijuana and Health, repeats the statement of the Canadian Interim Report of Investigation into the Non-Medical Use of substances, and states : “There is no now accepted medical use of cannabis in the U. S. outside of an experimental context” ( DHEW : 1971 : twenty-seven ). Allen Geller and Maxwell Boas ( 1969 : four ) think that cannabis’ “unsavory reputation has mostly stymied further research.” regardless of the many statements refunding cannabis’ healing value, some authorities maintain that its medical price could be reborn thru further research and / or use. David Solomon, in his foreword to The marijuana Papers ( 1968 : xxi ) argues that marijuana should be accorded the medical standing it once had in this country as a bonafide prescription item. After 1937, with the passage of the marijuana Tax Act and subsequent Fed and state legislation, it became unlikely for consultants to get or prescribe marijuana preparations for their patients.

Therefore , the medical profession was denied access to a flexible pharmaceutical tool with a record of healing application going back millenia. In a 1970 article, “Pot Facing Tough Systematic Exam ,” reference is created to Dr. Par who states that there are 3 areas in which “chemical and animal experiments are under way:” Analgesia-mood elevation and drug power may make handy drug. Blood pressure reduction-hypertension might be helped by new drugs which lower the blood pressure by what looks to be action on the central nervous system. Psychotherapeutic-new compounds are anti-depression drugs and antianxiety drugs ( Culliton : 1970 ). Mikuriya cites it studies concerning cannabis funded by the nation’s Institute of Psychological Health in 1961. The studies were “either specialised animal experiments, part of an observational sociologic study of a number of gear, or explorations of chemical detection methods” ( Mikuriya, 1969 : 38 ). Feinglass ( 1968 : 206-208 ).

1. Anticonvulsant effects-treatment of tetanus, convulsions of rabies, epilepsy, and child convulsions.
2. Psychotherapeutic actions – appetite-stimulation, treatment of depression, and as a sedative and hypnotic in reducing uneasiness ; treatment of dependence.
3. Antibiotic properties.
4. Pain-affecting power.

Grinspoon suggests : little research attention has been given to the chance that marijuana might protect some folk from psychosis. Among users of the drug, the percentage of people with neuroses or character disorders is generally higher than in the general population ; one might therefore expect the prevalence of psychoses also to be higher in this group. The proven fact that it’s not means that for some mentally upset folks, the escape supplied by the drug may function to forestall a crazy breakdown ( 1969 : twenty-four ). Mikuriya lists many possible healing uses of THC and matching products in his paper “marijuana in Medication : Past, Present and Future.” He includes : Analgesic-hypnotic, appetite stimulant, antiepileptic, antispasmodic, prophylactic and treatment of the neuralgia’s, including headache and twitch douloureaux, antidepressant-tranquillizer, anti-asthmatic, oxytocic, anti-tussive, topical pain-killer, withdrawal agent for opiate and alcohol obsession, kid birth drug, and antibiotic ( 1968 : 39 ). China. The oldest known healing outline of cannabis was by the Emperor Shen-Nung in the 28th century B.C. In China, where the plant had long been grown for fiber. He prescribed cannabis for beriberi, hard stools, “female weakness,” gout, malaria, rheumatism and dreaminess ( Bloomquist, 1968 : 19 ). ).

Egypt.
In Egypt, in the 20 th century B.C, cannabis was employed to treat sore eyes.
Extra medical use wasn’t reported until much later on.

India.
Before the tenth century B.C, Bhang, a cannabis preparation, was employed as a pain-killer and antiphlegmatic in India. In the second century A.D, a Chinese surgeon, Hoa-Tho, prescribed it as an analgesic in procedures ( Mikuriya, 1969 : 34 ).
From the tenth century B.C. Up to 1945 ( and even to the time ), cannabis has been utilized in India to treat a wide selection of human maladies. The drug is highly considered by some medical practitioners in that country. The non secular use of cannabis in India is believed to have preceded its medical use ( Blum and Associates, II, 1969 : 73 ; Snyder, 1970 : 125 ).
The spiritual use of cannabis is to help “the user to free his mind from worldly diversions and to focus on the Supreme Being” ( Barber, 1970 : eighty ). Cannabis is employed in Hindu and Sikh churches and at Mohammedan shrines. Besides using the drug as an help to meditation, it’s also used to beat hunger and thirst by the non secular mendicants. In Nepal, it is distributed on certain banquet days at the churches of all Shiva supporters ( Blum & Associates, 1969, eleven : 63 ). The Hindus spoke of the drug as the “heavenly guide,” “the soother of grief.” Considered holy, it was called a holy grass in the Vedic period ( Fort, 1969 : fifteen ). A reference to cannabis in Hindu scriptures is the following
To the Hindu the hemp plant is holy. A guardian lives in Bhang … Bhang is the joy giver, the sky filer, the heavenly guide, the poor man’s heaven, the soother of grief … No god or man is as good as the spiritual drinker of Mang. The scholars of the scriptures of Benares are given Bhang before they sit to study. At Benares, Ujjain and other holy places, yogis take deep draughts of Mang that they may center their thoughts on the Eternal. By the aid of Mang ascetics pass days without food or drink. The supporting power of Mang has brought many a Hindu family safe thru the miseries of famine ( Snyder, 1970 : 125 ).

Greece.
In traditional Greece, cannabis was employed as a cure for earache, edema, and swelling ( Robinson, 1946 : 382-383 ).

Africa.
Cannabis was employed in Africa to revive appetite and to alleviate discomfort of piles, its antiseptic uses were also known to certain African local clans ( O’Shaughnessy, 1842 : 431 ). Varied other uses, in a number of nations, included the treating of tetanus, dread of water, delirium tremens, infantile convulsions, neuralgia and other nervous illnesses, cholera, menorrhagia, rheumatism, hay fever, asthma, skin diseases, and lengthy work during birth. Marijuana In The 19th Century. Documents of the 19th century report on the use of cannabis to govern gut rot in cholera and to excite appetite. In his reports of the late 1830’s and early 1840’s, O’Shaughnessy ( 1842 : 431 ) said that tetanus might be arrested and cured when treated with additional large batches of cannabis. John Bell, M.D, Boston, reported enthusiastically in 1857, about the consequences of cannabis in the control over psychological and emotional aberrations vs the utilization of moral discipline to control the mentally unwell. Likewise , in 1858, Moureau. De Tours reported a few case histories of manic and depressive abnormalities treated with hashish ( Walton, 1938 : three ). The Ohio State Medical Society’s Council on Cannabis Indica, assembled in 1860, announced that their respondents claimed cannabis successfully treated neuralgic discomfort, dysmenorhea, uterine hemorrhage, hysteria, delirium tremens, mania, palsy, whooping cough, infantile convulsions, asthma, gonorrhea, twitchy rheumatism, protracted bronchitis, muscly cramps, tetanus, epilepsy and appetite kick ( McMeens, 1860 : one ). The India Hemp Commission ( 1894 : 174 ) similarly was informed of similar medical uses for cannabis. Particular reports included the employment of cannabis as a drug, a restorer of energy, a hemostat, an ecbolic, and an antidiaretic.

Cannabis was also discussed as an aid in treating hay fever, cholera, dysentery, gonorrhea, diabetes, impotency, urinary incontinence, swelling of the testicles, granulation of open sores, and protracted ulcers. Other favorable effects credited to cannabis were curbing of sleeplessness, relief of stress, defense against cholera, deadening of hunger and as an help to density of attention. Marijuana In The 20th Century. In spite of the proven fact that marijuana was made against the law in the U. S. in 1937, research has continued on the medical uses of marijuana. The discoveries include diverse possible medical applications of cannabis and its chemical derivatives. One of the latest and engaging findings ( Frank, 1972 ) concerns the consequences of cannabis in reducing intraocular pressure. It was discovered that as the dose of marijuana increased, the pressure in the eye reduced by almost thirty percent. This took place in ordinary people as well as in those with glaucoma, an illness of the eye in which increased intraocular pressure may result in blindness.
Much more research is mandatory regarding this experimental clinical finding before final judgment can be passed on such a probable healing price.