Article by Rachel Colic, Potent
Cannabis has been used as a medicinal plant for millennia. Across continents and throughout every type of society, humans have been using cannabis for health and wellness for longer than mankind has been writing down their ideas.
Originally introduced to Western medicine by W.B O’Shaunghnessy in 1841, physicians began to prescribe cannabis for a whole host of ailments including: headaches, muscle pain, epilepsy, and even rabies. During the 1800’s and early 1900’s cannabis became so widely used in North America that there were more than 100 papers published in the Western medical literature recommending it for various illnesses and discomforts.
Up until the early 1890’s doctors continued to prescribe cannabis, including H.A. Hare who recommended cannabis to subdue restlessness and anxiety, or distract a patient’s mind when dealing with a terminal illness, or to relieve all types of pain. Cannabis became such a common ingredient that eventually medicinal preparations were sold over the counter at your local pharmacy. These were the good old days.
You’re probably asking yourself, how did we get from there to cannabis being considered a controlled substance with no medicinal value? Good question. While we could debate how and why cannabis became rescheduled as a narcotic, there are plenty of well written pieces on the subject that you can read. Here, here and here.
There’s enough misinformation and rhetoric about cannabis on the internet and probably even your local newspaper to sink a ship. Unfortunately, there isn’t as much talk about the actual research that’s happening here in North America and around the world – despite the fact that we’ve had scientific proof of the medicinal benefits of cannabis for over 40 years.