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Marijuana History Essay, Research Paper

Marijuana originated in the middle east (Taiwan, Korea). China plays an

important part in Marijuana’s history. Hoatho, the first chinese physician to

use Cannabis for medical purposes as a painkiller and anesthetic for surgery. In

the Ninth Century B.C., it was used as an incense by the Assyrians Herbal, a

Chinese book of medicine from the second Century B.C., was first to describe it

in print. It was used as an anesthetic 5,000 years ago in ancient china. Many

(*) ancient cultures such as the persians, Greeks, East Indians, Romans, and the

Assyrians for many things. These were what they used it for: the control of

muscle spasms, reduction of pain, and for indegestion. Imagine that if they

still practiced this, instead of taking an Alka Seltzer after you had mom’s

Chili or Tacos, you might be sitting in the living room on the LAY-Z Boy,

smoking a joint or however they would take it. The folk medicine of Africa and

Asia have used it as an herbal preparation. A "mythical" and

"legendary" pharmacist and emperor Shen Nung thought using it as a

seditive was all right. In 2,700 B.C. that same "mythical" emperor

said it helped female weakness, gout, rheumatism, malaria, beri-beri (?),

contipation, and absentmindedness. In 1979 (A.D.) Carlton E. Turner visited

China and found marijuana was not in use in formal medical places. J. D. P.

Graham of the Welsh National School of Medicine wrote, "One not need take

to seriously the anecdotal use of it’s use for many purposes in China or by the

Hindus in the pre-Christian Millennia …and by the Arabs!" In 1890 in

England’s "Lancet" said cannabis extract was good for neuralgia, fits,

migraine and psychosomatic disorders but not for rheumatic conditions. It is not

easy to tell the dosage because of the variations in potency and the

irregularity in absorbtion. The time delay before the onset of the possible

effects of marijuana lowered it’s popularity as a medicine as did the

introduction of a variety of new and better medicines like aspirin, morpheine

(habit forming), chloral, barbituates tranquilizers, and when it got on the list

of drugs thought by the world community to require legal restrictions. Our first

President, George Washington, grew cannabis on his plantation. The cannabis he

grew was more fibrous and is better known as hemp. Hemp was used to make rope,

twine, paper and canvas (the word "canvas" comes from Cannabis) and

was an important crop in the american colonies. In Jamestown, Virginia it was

grown for it’s fiber qualities in 1611. (Snyder, 1985) The U.S. Pharmacopeia had

it listed as a useful medicine from the year 1870 to 1941. A Pharmacopeia is

"a book of directions and requirements for the preparations of medicines,

generally published by an authority; a collection or stock of drugs." This

tells us the U.S. Pharmacopeia was an authority on the use of drugs for medical

purposes, and said that the use of marijuana for said purposes was helpful. The

U.S. Pharmacopeia last listed cannabis ("the dried flower tops of the

pistillate plants of cannabis sativa") in 1936.(Lovinge,1985,p434) That

years epitome of the pharmacopeia and the national formula described the drug

for physicians thus:"a narcotic poison, producing a mild delirium. Used in

sedative mixtures but of doubtful value. Also employed to color corn

remedies." The next pharmacopeia released in 1942 (I gather they were

relaesed every six years) did not have cannabis sativa in it. "The 1937

U.S. dispensatory said:"Cannabis is used in medicine to relieve pain,

encourage sleep, and to soothe restlessness. We have very little definite

knowledge of the effects of therapeutic quantities, but in some persons it

appears to produce a euphoria and will often relieve migrainic headaches. One of

the great hindrances to the wider use of this drug is the great variability and

the potency of different samples of Cannabis which renders it impossible to

approximate the proper dose of any individual smaple except by clinical trial.

Because of occasional unpleasant symptoms from unusually potent preparations,

physicians have generally been overcaustious in the quantities administered. The

only way of determining the dose of an individual preparation is to give it in

ascending quantities until some effect is produced. (The Book suggested using a

fluid extract – powdered cannabis in solution, 4/5 alcohol – three times a day,

starting with two or three minims.)"(Lovinge,1985,p434) Extracts,

tinctures, and herbal packages of cannabis manufactured by many drug companies,

was available in any pharmacy until 1941 when "The two main professional

directories of drugs in the United States" dropped it.(Snnyder 1985,p38) It

is still used as a medicine in the Middle East and Asia, and is completely legal

in Amsterdam. Since the 19th Century, it has been recognized as as intoxicant in

Europe, and an intoxicant for many centuries in Central and South America, and

in Asia. "An 1870 Book called "The Hasheesh Eater" by Fitz Hugh

Hudlow, discussed the intoxicating properties of

marijuana."(Snyder,1985,p39) Mexican farm workers emigrating to the United

States smoked marijuana regularly, and the surrounding population…"

quickly followed. California and Utah were the first to call it a narcotic and

outlawed it completely except for mecial

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