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Wild Rose College of Natural Healing CANNABIS: An Introduction for Healthcare Providers By Terry Willard ClH, PhD & Jeananne Laing ClH

Wild Rose College of Natural Healing Terry Willard Cl.H PhD. ©2020 1

Cannabis: An Introduction for Healthcare Providers

A Brief History of Cannabis Use In 2016 it was hypothesized that the first cannabis originated upon the Northern Tibetan Plateau in Central Asia, around 27.8 million years ago, when it diverged from Hops (Humulus sp).1 We know that human remains have been found in this region from 40,000 years ago. Cannabis might have attracted first settlers for its food and fiber use. The earliest direct evidence for human use is 10,200-year-old cannabis seeds found in clay jars at a Jomon Japanese archaeological excavation on the

island of Okinoshima, near the city of Munakata. Others believe that its first use was around 200,000 years ago during the first occurrence of Homo sapiens- anatomical modern humans (AMH).

Cannabis was widely spread across Eurasia 5,000 years ago. This plant played a prominent role in many cultures of that era. The earliest known written source of information was in the Shen-Nung some 4,700 years ago. The knowledge of it medicinal uses were incorporated into the Pen-ts’ao Ching (1758 CE) of China. From 1500 – 200 BCE cannabis was used as a medicine in the Mediterranean region, in Egypt, Greece and India. Some scholars believed it was the key ingredient in the holy anointment oil referred to in the Hebrew Old Testament as q’neb bosm. It is safe to say it has played a prominent role as a medicine, fiber and sacramental drug in many cultures throughout the world across millennia. The Aryan religion of India was animistic (that is, it focused on non-human entities—such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects—which were thought to possess a spiritual essence). Cannabis played an important role in Aryan rituals. According to the Vedas, the four seminal books of the Hindu faith written in Vedic (early) Sanskrit, around 1100 BCE the god Shiva brought cannabis down from the Himalayas for the pleasure of mankind. According to legend, cannabis was created when the gods stirred the heavenly oceans with the peak of Mount Mandara, possibly Mount Everest.



A drop of celestial nectar, amrita, fell to earth and a hemp plant sprouted from the spot. It became the favorite drink of Indra, the Lord of Kings, and was subsequently consecrated to Shiva. When evil demons tried to acquire it, they were defeated, hence cannabis is also called vijaya meaning ‘victory’. Another myth has it that Shiva went into the fields and lay under a cannabis plant for shade. Being hungry, he ate some of it and decided it was his favorite food. He is, consequently, sometimes known as the Lord of Bhang as well as by his more common title, Lord of the Dance. The Atharva Veda, the fourth book, says one communes with Shiva through the use of cannabis; calls it one of the five sacred plants and contains a prayer asking it to deliver mankind from disaster, disease and demons. Through its use, mankind is cleansed of sin. The Venidad, one of the volumes of the Zend-Avesta, the ancient Persian religious text was written around the seventh century BCE purportedly by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), the founder of Zoroastrianism. It is heavily influenced by the Vedas, mentions bhang, and lists cannabis as the most important of 10,000 medicinal plants. In early Islamic medicine, cannabis was heavily used. The great Persian physician Mohammad-e Zakaiã-ye Rãzi (865-925 CE) lists a wide range of medicinal uses for cannabis. In 1929, the Russian archaeologist Rudenko excavated a fourth century-BCE high-status burial site at Pazyryk in western Mongolia. That excavation uncovered censers that had been fashioned for inhaling smoke, perhaps as part of the burial ritual. These censers were small cauldrons filled with stones and covered by awnings of leather or felt. Amidst the stones, cannabis seeds were discovered. In addition, clothing made from hemp fiber was found. More recently, in 1993, the Russian archaeologist Natalya Polosmak conducted an excavation of the tomb of a Scythian woman of position in which were found personal possessions including a pot containing cannabis. Both graves fitted the description of Scythian burial rites given by the Greek historian Herodotus. Claudius Galen (circa CE 129–99) was born to Greek parents in Pergamum, a Roman city in what is now Turkey. After studying medicine at the behest of his wealthy father, he became a doctor who attended gladiators. Their wounds often being horrific, he learnt much about anatomy and physiology, publishing his findings and thereby elevated his influence on the medicine of the time to that of Dioscorides. In about 160 CE, Galen wrote that hemp cakes, if eaten in moderation, produced a feeling of well-being but, taken to excess, they led to intoxication, dehydration and impotence. Both the Greeks and the Romans traded in hemp for its fiber. At first, the latter raised virtually no domestic hemp crop at all, importing it from the far-flung corners of their empire which reached as far east as the Caspian Sea, well into the heartland of cannabis. But by the first century BCE, the rapid expansion of the Roman navy created such a demand for hemp fiber for the making of rope and sails that Roman settlements in the region of the Volga started growing hemp along with



those in Palestine and Mesopotamia. It was only a matter of time before the Romans decided to begin cultivating their own hemp supply closer to their imperial center in Italy. The Greek historian Pausanias stated that hemp was being grown around Elis, in the west of the Peloponnese in southern Greece, in the second century BCE. The Roman satirist Lucilius wrote of it in 120 BCE. In his thirty-seven-volume Historia Naturalis published soon after his death in AD 79, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder) noted that hemp made exceptionally strong rope and went into detail about how it was prepared and graded. Hemp as a source of quality fiber had well and truly arrived in western Europe. In the Western world, very little was written down about its medicinal attributes until the 17th century, even though there is strong evidence of use by the common folk before this era. In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton (of England) included ‘hemp-seeds’ in a list of plants for depression. Nicholas Culpeper (1616 – 1654) described its use as an anti-inflammatory in The English Physician (1652). By the early 19th century many physicians, (especially ones that spent time in colonial India) started employing cannabis as part of their practice and wrote about it in several books. It was listed in the National Dispensary 1880 for USA as: • Analgesic • Anti-seizure medication • To help break addictions • To treat sexual dysfunction • routinely used in veterinary medicine to dress wounds, relieve pain

and ease digestive issues



Early 20th century cannabis medicine

• some of the medicine included questionable ingredients in today’s standards: strychnia sulphide (CNS stimulant and often used to quell cholera epidemics) and zinc phosphide (also a CNS stimulant?), both now used as rodent poison!



Prohibition in Canada • a series of events led up to 1923 prohibition • 1908 opium was criminalized in Canada’s first drug prohibition law • “Proprietary and Patent Medicine Act 1908” prohibited the use of

cocaine in medications & introduced mandatory disclosureif product contained opium, heroin, or morphine

• Emily Murphy (1868 - 1933), Canada’s first female magistrate, is a celebrated women's rights advocate who was instrumental in pushing for recognition of women as ‘persons’ under the British North America Act.

• Murphy as one of the “Famous Five” group of women, fought for, and eventually won political equality for Canadian women.

• However, Murphy played a crucial role in having cannabis added to the Opium and Drugs Act of 1923.

• Under the pen name Janey Canuck, Murphy wrote a series of articles for MacLeans magazine & subsequent book “The Black Candle”

"When coming from under the influence of marijuana, the victims present the most horrible condition imaginable. They are dispossessed of their natural and normal willpower, and their mentality is that of idiots. If this drug is indulged to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict.” This claim caught the attention of the lawmakers and without any parliamentary debate, cannabis was quietly added to the list of other prohibited drugs under the “Act to Prohibit the Improper Use of Opium and other Drugs”.



1 McPartlan J and Guy, G W; Cannabis May Have Evolved in the Northern Tibetan Plateau; 26th ICR Symposium 2016 p 61

wild rose college of natural healing cannabis cannabis...zend-avesta, the ancient persian religious...

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