When I was in third grade, we had to sit through a D.A.R.E. program in our school library. The police officer told us that smoking cannabis could kill you, and that it was as powerful a drug as heroin or crack. My nine-year old brain immediately smelled bullshit, and I haven’t trusted a cop since.
If you’re interested in the history of medical cannabis, I suggest Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medical_cannabis). That’s where I found a link to the most important scientific journal article I’ve ever read. As a former scientist, I’ve read over a thousand research articles, and among them, only one made me cry .
ON THE PREPARATIONS OF THE INDIAN HEMP, OR GUNJAH, (CANNABIS INDICA). Their Effects on the Animal System in Health, and their Utility in the Treatment of Tetanus and other Convulsive Diseases. By W.B. O’Shaughnessy, M.D., Bengal Army, Late Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica in the Medical College of Calcutta. Provincial Medical Journal And Retrospect of the Medical Sciences. No 123. London, Saturday, February 4, 1843.
O’Shaughnessy felt there was sufficient evidence “to show that hemp possesses, in small doses, an extraordinary power of stimulating the digestive organs, exciting the cerebral system, of acting also on the generative apparatus.” He also found that in larger doses hemp was a “powerful sedative. The influence of the drug in allaying pain was equally manifest in all the memoirs referred to.”
In O’Shaughnessy’s day, there were haters of cannabis in the colonial mind, and its use was probably vilified due to its widespread use among colonized people. The colonial propagandist spread their lies, but O’Shaughnessy sought to “gain more accurate knowledge of the action, powers, and possible applications of this extraordinary agent.” And to the haters, he wrote that the “evil sequelae so unanimously dwelt on by all writers, there did not appear to me so numerous, so immediate, or so formidable, as many which may be clearly traced to over-indulgence in other powerful stimulants or narcotics – viz, alcohol, opium or tobacco.”
O’Shaughnessy lays out several case studies where he uses a hemp tincture to successfully treat rheumatism, cholera, lock-jaw from tetanus, and a single case of infantile convulsions. One patient he noted was an “old muscular cooley, a rheumatic malinger, and to him half a grain of hemp resin was given in a little spirit.”
“In two hours the old gentleman became talkative and musical, told several stories, and sang songs to a circle of highly delighted auditors, ate the dinners of two persons subscribed for him in the ward, sought also for other luxuries we can scarcely venture to allude to—and finally fell soundly asleep, and so continued till the following morning. On the noon-day visit, he expressed himself free from headache or any other unpleasant sequel, and begged hard for repetition of the medicine, in which he was indulged for a few days and then discharged.”
While treating a patient suffering from severe hydrophobia due to rabies, O’Shaughnessy spares us “the details of the horrors which ensued” following “tumultuous agony and excitement” in the dying man. For four days he administered hemp to the patient, and when the panic resumed throughout that time, he states that the hemp “almost immediately assuaged as at first.” After the patient died, O’Shaughnessy reflects that “I am not, however, rash enough to indulge the hope which involuntarily forces itself upon me, that we will ever from this narcotic derive an effectual remedy for even a solitary case of this disease; but next to cure, the physician will perhaps esteem the means which enable him ‘to strew the path to the tomb with flowers,’ and to divest of its specific terrors the most dreadful malady to which mankind is exposed.”
Medical students took notice and decided to experiment on themselves, and they had a blast: “the appetite became extraordinary; vivid ideas crowded the mind; unusual loquacity occurred; and, with scarcely any exception, great aphrodisia was experienced.” In one student, the hemp tincture caused him to trip balls for three hours, of which O’Shaughnessy describes as “a scene more interesting it would be difficult to imagine.” In the end there was “no headache, sickness, or other unpleasant symptom following the innocent excess.”
O’Shaughnessy’s conclusion stirred me: “I have given Mr. Squire, of Oxford-street, a large supply of the gunjah, and that gentleman has kindly promised me to place as sufficient quantity of the extract at the disposal of any hospital physician or surgeon who may desire to employ the remedy. My object is to have it extensively and exactly tested without favor or prejudice, for the experience of four years has established the conviction in my mind, that we possess no remedy at all equal to this in anti-convulsive and anti-neuralgic power.”
I’ll end with this gem: “In action it resembles opium and wine, but is much more certain than these remedies. I have no hesitation in saying, that in the cases in which the opium treatment is applicable, hemp will be found far more effectual. The changed state of mind it produces is truly wonderful. From the appalling terror which generally predominates, the patient soon passes into a state of cheerfulness, often of boisterous mirth, and soon sinks into a happy sleep.”
The O’Shaughnessy article is available from the National Institute of Health website (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2490264/pdf/provmedsurgj00865-0001.pdf). The next time someone comments about your cannabis use, tell them you’re a fan of boisterous mirth and happy sleep. As far as I’m concerned, the naysayers can keep their wine and opiates, and I’ll continue to smoke weed. Let’s see who has more fun.