Hydrolife Magazine February/March 2017 (USA Edition)

Though cannabis has been used
for millennia for medicinal and
recreational uses, it was not widely used
by European settlers in North America,
however, until the early to mid-19th
century. In 1839, Dr. W.B. O’Shaughnessy
published a paper on the successful
treatments of arthritis and various
muscle spasms through cannabis
therapies. For another hundred years,
the North American medical community
experimented with various concoctions
and tinctures of cannabis for treating
numerous physical and psychological
maladies without opposition. By the
middle of the 20th century though,
marijuana became vilified and
outlawed. Today, we are seeing a
resurgence of the use of cannabis for
medicinal purposes and a greater
level of acceptance by the public
and some local, state, and provincial
governments for its recreational use.
which was also mixed in and associated
with marijuana. Stoked by the unrest
of the Great Depression, governmentsponsored
research fanned the flames of
resentment and sought to link marijuana
with violence and crime. By the early
1930s, 29 states had outlawed its use.
A national propaganda campaign was
launched, and by 1937, US Congress
passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which
essentially brought an end to its legitimate
usage in the medicinal world and
restricted its possession. In that same
year, the American Medical Association,
in its annual report, suggested there was
still no evidence that cannabis was an
addictive substance and for that reason
should still be prescribed to patients.
Medicinal Use of Cannabis in
the 19th and 20th Centuries
Prior to the advent of giant pharmaceutical
companies and the development
of the syringe, cannabis was widely
prescribed to sufferers of myriad symptoms.
It gained such quick acceptance
after O’Shaughnessy’s report that by
1860, the Ohio State Medical Society
listed it in its annual report as the
remedy of choice for stomach pains,
childbirth psychosis, coughs, and gonorrhea.
Noting its lack of side effects,
many medical professionals preferred
to prescribe cannabis, as opioid usage
was not only associated with interference
of gastrointestinal functions but
also had a high rate of toxicity. The
medical literature of the day is rife
with praise for cannabis due to users
showing no appreciable physical
dependence to it and because higher
doses were not needed over time for
the same pain-relieving effects.
A drawback to medicinal cannabis,
discovered at the same time, is its
insolubility. Opiates can be easily
converted to an injectable form,
allowing a sufferer to achieve quick
reprieve; cannabis takes considerably
longer for its properties to take their
full effect on the patient. With the
advent of the hypodermic syringe and
mass production of pills by the end of
the 19th century, cannabis fell out of
favor as the pain killer, sleep inducer,
and relaxant of choice.
With the influx of Mexican immigrants
into the US in the early 1900s,
a more recreational approach towards
cannabis was introduced and with
it, the use of the term marihuana or
marijuana. Anti-drug campaigners
were quick to seize upon the fear
and prejudice around immigration,
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