Cannabis As A Medicine

Cannabis As A Medicine The earliest recorded evidence of the use of cannabis as a medicine was in a text from the reign of the Chinese Emperor Cheng Nung 5000 years ago. In this text, cannabis was recognised as a treatment of malaria, constipation, rheumatic pains, absent-mindedness and female disorders. In the Indian Aurvedic medical tradition, cannabis is recommended for lowering fevers, inducing sleep, stimulating the appetite, relieving headaches and the treatment of venereal disease. In the 17th century, Nicolas Culpeper in his Herbal Apothecary, said that the qualities of cannabis were widely known, and listed many of those uses mentioned here. In the early 19th century, the use of medical cannabis was further popularised by W. O'Shaughnessey, a young professor who studied its use in the Calcutta in the 1830s. He used it on a range of patients suffering conditions including rabies, rheumatism, epilepsy and tetanus. O'Shaughnessey returned to England in 1842 and worked to make it available through pharmacists. Cannabis was

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even prescribed to Queen Victoria by her physician for menstrual pains. During the 19th century more than 100 papers were published recommending cannabis for a range of conditions. In the Pharmacopoeia of 1918, cannabis is recommended for the treatment of asthma, migraine, acute nervousness, sleeplessness, period pains, and the relief of pain. After the invention of the syringe, the use of cannabis for pain treatment declined in favour of opiates, which since they are water-soluble, can be injected straight into the blood stream, giving faster relief. Commercial cannabis preparations were available from drugstores in America during the 19th Century, but in 1941, as a result of pressure from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Cannabis was removed from the National Pharmacopeia in the USA. In Britain it remained in the Pharmacopoeia, although its use fell out of general use, with the instruction of synthetic drugs in 1948; along with many other herbal-based treatments. It did however continue to be available medically up to 1971 when it was moved into Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations. This category indicates that cannabis has no medical use. In the '70s and '80s, Harvard Professor Lester Grinspoon investigated the effects of cannabis. He interviewed people who had found beneficial results from using it medicinally. In 1993 he published some of his findings in the book written in conjunction with James Bakalar entitled 'Marihuana the Forbidden Medicine'. In this book, Grinspoon gives the accounts of patients who have had beneficial results from using cannabis in the treatment of glaucoma, epilepsy, MS, AIDS, chronic pain, migraine, pruritis [skin itching] and depression. In 1998 the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology held an investigation into the scientific and medical uses of cannabis. This was a wide ranging report taking evidence from the main experts in the field of cannabis research, including the medical use of Nabilone, which is synthetic cannabis. Although the reports indicated that Nabilone was successful in reducing pain, it was effective for only 30% of patients, and those patients who had also smoked cannabis found that the plant was more effective and had fewer side effects. The conclusion of the Committee was that:The Government should take steps to transfer cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule 1 to the Misuse of drugs Regulations Schedule 2 so as to allow Doctors and pharmacists to supply it on prescription. Their report also made the point that: 'People who use cannabis for medical reasons are caught in the front line of the war against drug abuse, this adds a huge burden on the enforcement agencies and brings the law into disrepute'. In 1998 a licence was issued to GW Pharmaceuticals to commence medical trials on the use of cannabis. These trials have been completed, and in March 2003, GW Pharmaceuticals applied for the licence to allow their cannabis medicine to become available on prescription. For this to happen, the Government has to reschedule cannabis out of Schedule One of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations. The report of the House of Lords report also gave a clue as to the difficulty the Government has on this issue by saying that:'All cannaboids other than THC remain in Schedule One and transferring them would require an agreement with the World Health Organisation under the 1971 Convention. We recommend that the Government should raise the matter of rescheduling the remaining cannaboids with the WHO in due course'.This still has not happened, and until it does, cannabis based medicine cannot be put on the market. Since the publicity around reclassification, many people have assumed that it is legal to cultivate cannabis for personal use. A medical user can use up to an ounce a week, and to obtain that amount on the black market would cost a lot more than most medical users can afford. The cannabis might also be of doubtful quality. Meanwhile the police in some areas are continuing to persecute the cultivators, often discovering the crop by accident. There are appeal cases going through the courts at the moment which hopefully, will improve the rights of people to self-medicate and to treat their own bodies, as is stated in the European Human Rights Legislation. However more needs to be done to give people the legal right to use what has been found by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to be a relatively harmless recreational relaxant. It is also a powerful herbal medicine.