Essay on Marijuana

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Marijuana

In this report I will show you my views on Marijuana, if it should be legal,

for medical and/or recreational purposes.

Marijuana has many names: Dope, Marihuana, Ganja, Pot Mary Jane, Cannabis

Sativa (Scientific) to name a few.

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 purposes. "From 1914 to 1931, 29 States, 17 of them

West of the Mississippi made it a criminal offense to possess or use

it."(Snyder,1985,p40) An army report from 1925 concerning the Panama Canal Zone

said it wasnt habit forming and no steps should...

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