Healing With Cannabis

Above: Blue Dream

Photo copyright © 2010 by Steve Sterling.  All Rights Reserved.

Plant Cuisine is the only plant-based recipe book that also offers specific cannabis recipes for healing and detoxing, including helping people quit their addictions to dangerous and toxic pharmaceuticals, narcotics, and alcohol.  Cannabis, also known as marijuana, has many powerful healing qualities that have been known, studied, and documented in many societies, nations, and empires for thousands of years.  This amazing plant has been an integral and intimate part of societies in many parts of the world for millennia.

Over 4,800 years ago in ancient China, cannabis was a high-value medicine used and recommended even by royalty and the highest ranking court physicians.    

The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine also called the Canon of Internal Medicine, written around 2,800 B.C. acknowledged that cannabis is a safe, highly effective botanical medicine for over 120 different diseases and maladies.  

The Chinese praised this plant as “The Great Eminent Cannabis”, and the Classic of Medicine is the foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).   

Emperor Huangdi is legendary for being the first Chinese ruler to unify a number of warring smaller states, kingdoms and regions into the cohesive nation of China.  An extremely intelligent and capable man, he made several outstanding contributions to Chinese society. 

In 2,737 B.C., cannabis was noted for its medicinal value by Emperor Shen Nung of China, who is venerated as the Father of Chinese medicine and agriculture.  He was a highly knowledgable doctor who authored the Divine Husbandman's Materia Medica (Hen-nung pen ts'ao ching), the earliest surviving Chinese pharmacopoeia that includes 365 medicines derived from plants, animals, and minerals.  

Shen Nung may be the world’s first documented medical marijuana doctor.  He recommended cannabis tea for “treatment of gout, rheumatism, malaria, and poor memory.”

Below: Half of the word for cannabis in Chinese is the ideogram Ma, which appears to depict harvested cannabis and hemp plants hanging upside down to dry and begin the curing process.  

Below: Huangdi the Yellow Emperor

Below: Emperor Shen Nung

Ancient Egypt

Cannabis residue has been found in Egyptian artifacts dated back to at least 2,000 BCE, around 4,000 or more years old.  From 1,700 BC through 200 AD, the medicinal use of cannabis was listed in at least six surviving Egyptian texts/papyruses.  Cannabis salves were applied to treat glaucoma and eye sores, and a powerful anti-inflammatory reducing intraocular pressure.

The Egyptians called cannabis “shemshemset”, and connected to  Seshat the Egyptian Goddess of wisdom, writing, and measurement.

In her book An Ancient Egyptian Herbal, Danish Egyptologist Lise Manniche explained that multiple Egyptian texts dated as far back as 3,800 years ago enthusiastically advise readers to “plant medicinal cannabis!”  

Below: Dogon tribe members

Cannabis specimens have been found in African archaeology site dated at 2,000 BC.  

This plant has been used medicinally for thousands of years throughout the African continent by various tribes.  

The word cannabis is Greek meaning “two dog plant” canna = “canine/dog”, and bis means “two”.  Some scholars say this word is traced back to Africa to the Dogon tribe’s tradition, which they say that cannabis was brought to Earth by extra-terrestrial visitors from the two ‘Dog Stars’ of Sirius.  The tribe is known for its scientifically advanced accurate knowledge of the Sirius Star cluster over thousands of years prior to modern telescopes and astronomy. 

In a detailed study titled History of Cannabis and Its Preparations in Saga, Science, and Sobriquet, Dr. Ethan Russo notes the etymological similarities of words used by various ancient cultures for cannabis, as shown here:

In the Torah/Old Testament, written during the Persian Period, the recipe for the holy anointing oil describes one primary ingredient in the Hebrew word  “קנה בשם” “kana-bosm” meaning an aromatic plant.  This word is used five times in different books. 

In 1935, etymologist Sula Benet of the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw, Poland provided solid evidence that the ancient Hebrews used cannabis.  According to Benet: “In the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament there are references to hemp, both as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration, and as an intoxicant.”   Benet explained that the word cannabis is “kaneh-bosm” derived from the traditional Hebrew word “kaneh” or “kannabus”.  The root “Kan” means “hemp” or “reed”, and “boss” means “aromatic.”  

“Kaneh-bosm” is mistranslated as “calamus”, a commonly found marsh plant with nearly no value; it is poisonous and used in pest control, and certainly does not have the safe, desired “aromatic” properties clearly attributed to “kaneh-bosm”.  

 

It seems the mistranslation began in the the Third Century BC, with the Septuagint, the oldest Greek translation of the Torah and Tanakh (commonly known to Christians and others as the Old Testament); the error continued through all subsequent translations including eventually into English as the King James Version of the Bible which translated it as “fragrant cane”.  For over a millennia, this has baffled translators.  Tenet adroitly solved the mystery 1935.  

Cannabis oil is anti-bacterial, anti-microbial, and probably anti-viral too, so applying a recipe with cannabis oil would be a natural, effective way to disinfect the temple and relics.  Today, some people have already replicated this recipe with cannabis oil.  

It’s obvious that cannabis oil is one of the chief ingredients of the holy anointing oil in the Bible.  This gives a new meaning to the phrase “Give me that Old Time religion” and being a High Priest of the Most High!  

300 TO 600 CE

Eastern European nomadic tribes brought cannabis to areas near the Main and Rhine rivers in Germany.  

Cannabis likely was brought into Britain and France by the four tribes of Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and Jutes from the region of what is now Denmark, Northwestern Germany, the Netherlands, and Northern France.   

650 TO 1,000 CE

In 700 CE (1,300 years ago), Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, was a renowned alchemist known as the Father of Arabic chemistry, and the court physician to Caliph Harry al-Rashid (of Arabian Nights fame) for whom Havyan mixed and provided ‘alchemical’ cannabis concentrates called bhanj.  

Archaeological evidence discovered in 2012 shows that as early as 650 to 800 CE, hemp was cultivated in Stosteli, an Iron Age farmstead in Vest-Agder County in the south portion of Norway.  It indicates the possibility of inhabitants growing hemp to make the highest quality ropes, other cordage, and textiles. 

A Viking Age grave from circa 820-900 CE was discovered in 1901 in Oseberg, Norway.  The grave was a ship that contained bodies of two females, one of high status, likely a Völva (seeress) who practiced Seiðr.  

Amongst the valued possessions buried with her was a purse containing cannabis seeds, proving that inhabitants of Scandinavia already possessed and used cannabis, and probably had done so even before the Viking Age.

The Spanish, British, and Portuguese brought their strains of cannabis with them to the Americas.  

Cannabis and hemp were extremely useful and highly valuable in the English Colonies and early American history.  Cannabis was used as a medicine by a variety of people of all classes and statuses.

Industrial hemp was such a vital part of the British Empire’s economy, that Queen Elizabeth the First required all landowners with sixty or more acres of land to grow hemp or pay a fine.  Farmers in the colonies, including such notable figures as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were required to grow hemp.

In the British colonies of North America, pipe smoking cannabis for recreational purposes was common and perfectly legal.  Cannabis was widely used as a low-cost, highly effective medicine. 

  

 

Above: Massasoit and Governor John Carver sharing a sacred pipe in Plymouth, 1621.

 

America—the USA—was founded on hemp, literally!  The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the United States of America are both written on hemp paper!  

Founding Father and the first President George Washington freely grew cannabis on his private property and used it for medicine to relieve his pain from wooden false teeth appliances, as he suffered from dental problems.   When away on campaign, he wrote to his gardener to be sure to separate the male plants from the females to avoid accidental pollination of select female plants grown for medicine.  

The famous American warship USS Constitution’s sails, ropes, and crew uniforms were all made from hemp, as were all of the first American flags for many decades and well over a century before prohibition.  

Right: George Washington: military commander, Founding Father, President, patriot, Freemason, and medical marijuana cultivator.  He didn’t need a license from the state.

“Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, 

and sow it everywhere!” 

~ George Washington

Note to his gardener at Mount Vernon, 1794

1839

Over 180 years ago, India’s influence revived the interest in cannabis in British medicine.  in 1839, Dr. William O’Shaughnessy’s influential treatise “On the Preparations of Indian Hemp or Gunjah”, was published for scholars and students of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta.  

His paper detailed his extensive research of historical medical applications of cannabis by Ayurvedic and Persian physicians, including his studies on cannabis used in treating animals and humans suffering cholera, convulsions, hydrophobia, rheumatism, epilepsy, muscle spasms, PMS, rabies, tetanus, and many other ailments.  Cannabis tinctures were also used to induce uterine contractions in childbirth.  

In 1841, Dr. O’Shaughnessy brought cannabis and hemp to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and the British Pharmaceutical Society.  His published research sparked the Western interest in and widespread medical use of cannabis in Britain, Europe, and the USA.  Most proprietary cannabis medicines made during that Victorian Era were based on his recipes.  His research, treatises and introduction of cannabis and hemp to Britain qualified Dr. O’Shaughnessy as the world’s first Western medical marijuana doctor.  

Below: Old tincture bottles for cannabis/medical marijuana, a commonly prescribed, highly effective medicine in America prior to oppressive prohibition.

“Indian hemp, when pure and administered carefully, 

is one of the most valuable medicines we possess.”

~ Dr. John Russell Reynolds, 

Physician in Ordinary to 

HM Queen Victoria 

and President of the Royal College of Physicians

“In the clinical experience of many alienists, 

a good preparation of hemp is incomparably 

the best drug for depressive mental conditions.” 

~ Professor. A.D. McDonald of Manchester University, 1941

Cannabis as tinctures and extracts was the second most often used medicine in the United States of America for over sixty years. 

There were seventeen beneficial uses listed in The American Pharmacopeia from 1851 up until 1942. 

1893

From 1893 - 1894, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report performed the largest, most in-depth and complete study on thoroughly analyzing the role of cannabis in Vedic (Indian) spirituality, medicine, and society.  The study comprised of nine volumes at 3,698 pages, concluded that cannabis was such an integral part of Indian society, that prohibition of cannabis would results in serious damage and collapse of the economy and society itself.  Two passages from the report make compelling statements:

Cannabis has always been legal in India.

EARLY 1900s

In the early 1900s, before prohibition in the 1930s, in the USA, there were already more than two thousand documented pharmaceutical grade cannabis medicines and products available to the general public by pharmaceutical companies including Abbot, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Parks Davis (now Pfizer), and many others.  Even joints were sold to treat asthma.  

“Cannabis was originally classified as a member of the nettle family (Urticaceae) 

and then of the mulberry family (Moraceae). 

It is now considered most closely related to the hop plant, 

and is thus a cousin of the fig tree.” 

~ Peter Stafford, Psychedelics Encyclopedia

1911 THROUGH 1937

Prohibition laws were passed against cannabis (marihuana/marijuana) and hemp that made it illegal to grow or possess these plants, their seeds, and their extracts.  These laws started at State level and finally, in 1937, a Federal government ban was unConstitutionally enacted on cannabis, resulting in decades of draconian laws, penalties, imprisonment, property seizures, lives ruined, and tax money squandered.

 

1990 THROUGH THE 2000s

In 1990, Alaska recriminalized cannabis.

Since the mid-1990s through the present date of 2023, the US National Library of Medicine’s Pubmed indexing service has listed over 10,300 published research papers discussing the benefits of cannabis, over 16,700 papers on cannabinoids, and in excess of 7,500 papers elucidating on the human endocannabinoid system.  This averages to about one paper published per day on the topic of scientific researching validating the many uses and benefits of cannabis!  The evidence in support of cannabis’s many healing properties are overwhelming and undeniable.  “Trust the science.”  

"In regard to the moral effects of the drugs [cannabis], the Commission are of opinion that their moderate use produces no moral injury whatever.  There is no adequate ground for believing that it injuriously affects the character of the consumer.”

“No gem or jewel can touch in value cannabis taken truly and reverently”

~ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report of 1893-94

“The American Medical Association knows of 

no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug.”

~ Dr. William Woodward, American Medical Association, 

in hearings on the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.

“A prohibition law strikes a blow 

at the very principles upon which 

our government was founded.” 

~ President Abraham Lincoln

1942 

During World War II, hemp was made legal again to certain farmers in the U.S. to grow for the war effort, as once again, hemp proved to be not only needed but indispensable for wartime survival and victory.   

In 1942, The U.S. Department of Agriculture produced a training film called Hemp For Victory. The film explained the uses of hemp, and encouraged farmers to grow as much of it as possible. 

“The film shows a history of hemp and hemp products, how hemp is grown, and how hemp is processed into rope, cloth, cordage and other products.  During World War II, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was lifted briefly to allow for hemp fiber production to create ropes for the U.S. Navy but after the war hemp reverted to its de facto illegal status.” Source: Wikipedia

Hemp For Victory is public domain and available for free download from 

the Internet Archive.

1960s

1969: The Marihuana Tax Act was struck down in the case Leary v. United States.  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the act violates the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination.

1970s

The Controlled Substances Act is enacted in 1970.  Through this Act, the federal government classified cannabis as a Schedule I drug, determined to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, thereby prohibiting its use for any purpose.

In 1972, the Netherlands’ government redefined cannabis as a ‘lesser-dangerous drug’ and reduced possession of 30 grams or less of it to a misdemeanor. 

In 1973, Dr. Tod Mikuriya reprinted O’Shaughnessy’s original paper as the first part of Marijuana: Medical Papers 1839-1972.  

That same year of 1973, decriminalizing cannabis/marijuana started in Texas and Oregon, and continued through the remainder of the decade to include Alaska, Maine, California, Colorado, Ohio, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Virginia.  

1976: Cannabis became available for recreational consumption in coffeeshops in the Netherlands.  Minnesota decriminalized cannabis.

1996

In a landmark event, California becomes the first state to legalize medical cannabis with the approval of Proposition 215 in 1996.

In 1998 and 1999, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Nevada, and Maine adopted laws allowing medical marijuana.  More states including Hawaii followed in 2000 and the early 2000s.

OCTOBER 7, 2003

The same government that for decades has claimed cannabis is either harmful or of no medicinal or health value also claims the opposite in order to give itself a patent on something that the government has said should be illegal for all Americans to grow, possess, and/or consume.  

Democracy of Hypocrisy

The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services, filed patent #6630507, for the medical use of cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants. 

From the text of the patent (freely available via the US Patent & Trademark Office): “This new found [antioxidant] property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia.”

In a stunning historical move, in 2018, President Donald Trump boldly made hemp legal again in all fifty states in the USA, ending the decades-long tyrannical prohibition against growing and using domestic hemp.  This is a victory for freedom for all Americans with the potential to create many new businesses and jobs in the revived hemp industry.  

The 2018 Farm Bill signed into law by President Trump legalizes low-THC (less than 0.3% THC) hemp and hemp-derived products such as cannabidiol (CBD) at the federal level. The bill also fully removed or "descheduled" low-THC cannabis products from the Controlled Substances Act, where they had been listed as Schedule I drugs since the CSA's inception in 1970.