Cannabis Drug
For the last few years, there has been much
media hype about Cannabis. There
have been talks about medical Marijuana,
allowing farmers to use low THC types
of marijuana for hemp, and completely
legalizing Marijuana. The fiery debates
have been brought to my attention by
the media just recently. Being a teenager
myself, I have become quite
interested in Marijuana. Although most of my friends
have tried Marijuana,
and Marijuana is quite easily available where I lived in
California, I
have never tried it myself. I remember the time when my friend,
Jeremy,
was selling Marijuana right out of his locker. It was last year
during
PE, and I distinctly remember it. When I realized what he was
doing, I asked if
I could look at the Marijuana because I had never seen
any before. When he
showed it to me, it was not what I had expected. It was
in a little plastic bag,
called a "dime" (10 dollars worth), and was a sticky
darkish brown
with little red hairs. The street name for this sub-specie of
Cannabis was
"Skunk". Being as interested in Anarchy, bombs, and basically
anything
that’s illegal, I know quite a lot about marijuana. I know that
there are male
and female marijuana plants and that the female marijuana
plants are more prized
for their higher THC content. I also know that there
is a different species of
Cannabis other then Cannabis Sativa. One
popular one is Cannabis Indica. I also
know of the street name of the many
sub species of Marijuana: Northern Lights,
Super Skunk, Orange Bud,
Durban, and literally 20 more. I know the physical
dangers of using Marijuana
(unfortunately from a biased point of view – a
teenager’s), and I know that
Marijuana is prohibited. Ever since then, I have
wanted to learn more about
Cannabis. I have many questions about it. What is the
classification for
Cannabis? What are they different types of Cannabis? Where
does Cannabis grow
and what is the history of Cannabis? What type of plant is
Cannabis? What
are the uses of Cannabis? Although I have many questions, I will
attempt to
accurately answers all of them as well as I can in this I-search
Physical
Aspects Before I can research about the uses, benefits, harms, or any
other
aspects of Cannabis, I have to research the physical aspects of the
plant.
In order to find out specific information knowing only the name
Cannabis sativa,
I looked in Chinese herb books, botanical books and in
encyclopedias. I found
out quite a lot of good information, but
unfortunately, not as through as I was
hoping for. Cannabis is botanically
classified as a member of the family
Cannabaceae and the genus Cannabis.
There are 3 known species of Cannabis:
Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica,
and Cannabis ruderalis. I had never heard of
Cannabis ruderalis before,
and it was sort of a shock when I discovered it. I
went ahead and found
specific information about each species. Cannabis sativa is
a tall plant,
generally between 8 and 12 feet. The leaves have long thin fingers
and are
light green. The more equatorial varieties have more yellow pigments
to
protect the plant from intense light. Sativa seed pods are long and thin
and
turn red as they mature in a warm environment. In cooler environments the
buds
may be slightly purple. Sativa plants smell sweet and fruity and the
smoke is
generally quite mild. It is a source of fiber for rope and other
products and it
contains THC, which gives smokers the psychic effects they
seek. The leaves of
this plant are smoked but the most highly prized part of
the plant is the top.
Cannabis indica is plentiful in the Mid east,
India, and Central Asia especially
Afghanistan, Kashmire, and Pakistan.
It is a short plant, generally between 3
and 6 feet, and its leaves have
short broad fingers. The leaves are generally
dark green sometimes tinged
with purple. As they near maturity, the leaves may
become significantly more
purple. It is a strong smelling plant with a
"stinky" or "skunky" smell. The
smoke of indicas is
generally thick and more prone to cause coughing when
inhaled. Indicas are the
traditional source of hashish. Cannabis ruderalis is
a debated third variety of
cannabis found in Russia, Poland, and other
eastern European countries. Schultes
classified cannabis as having three
species: sativa, indica, and ruderalis based
on the formation of the
seedpods. There is some debate as to whether there is
justification for this
third category. Some features of ruderalis are large
seeds, short weedy
plants (4-6 feet tall) and a lower level of THC than sativas
or indicas. This
information I found regarding the different species of Cannabis
does not
surprise me in any way, for I already had the basic idea of what
a
Cannabis plant looked like. History After learning about the physical
aspects, I
went on to reaserch about the history of the plant. I went and
looked through
internet site and through books to find information. I found
some interesting
information after minimal searching. A native of central
Asia, cannabis may have
been cultivated as long as ten thousand years ago. It
was certainly cultivated
in China by 4000 B.C. and in Turkestan by 3000 B.C.
It has long been used as a
medicine in India, China, the Middle East,
Southeast Asia, South Africa, and
South America. The earliest known
reference to cannabis is in Assyrian tablets
of the seventh century BC. It
has thus been in use for at least 2600 years. Like
very many other herbs, it
has been used medically for a wide variety of
ailments, especially throughout
Asia and the Middle East. The mild euphoria that
it induces led to its use as
an intoxicant, perhaps most notably in countries
where Islam prohibited the
use of alcohol. After thousands of years of
acceptance and widespread use,
the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 undermined it all.
This law was the
culmination of a campaign organized by the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics in
which the public was led to believe that marihuana was addictive
and caused
violent crimes, psychosis, and mental deterioration. Under the
Marihuana
Tax Act, anyone using the hemp plant for certain defined industrial
or
medical purposes was required to register and pay a tax of a dollar an
ounce. A
person using marihuana for any other purpose had to pay a tax of
$100 an ounce
on unregistered transactions. Those failing to comply were
subject to large
fines or prison terms for tax evasion. The law was not aimed
at medical use of
marihuana - its purpose was to discourage recreational
marihuana smoking. It was
put in the form of a revenue measure to evade the
effect of Supreme Court
decisions that reserved to the states the right to
regulate most commercial
transactions. By forcing some marihuana transactions
to be registered and others
to be taxed heavily, the government could make it
prohibitively expensive to
obtain the drug legally for any other than medical
purposes. Almost
incidentally, the law made medical use of cannabis difficult
because of the
extensive paperwork required of doctors who wished to use it.
The Federal Bureau
of Narcotics followed up with "anti-diversion" regulations
that
contributed to physicians' disenchantment. Cannabis was removed from the
United
States Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary in 1941. Uses I
already know about
the uses of Cannabis. As most people know, Cannabis has
many uses other then
just for recreation. Cannabis can be used as hemp to
make rope, cloth, and other
products, and Cannabis also has medicinal
purposes. Many parts of Cannabis can
be used to make textiles and other
products: 1. The fiber of it’s stem, 2. The
resinous secretion which is
developed in hot countries upon it’s leaves, and
3. It’s oily seeds. The
fiber of its stem is mostly used to make rope, but it
can also be mashed into
a pulp and made into paper. This surprised me because if
Hemp can be made
into paper, and hemp takes less time to grow then tress, Hemp
could become
very beneficial in the future. After more research, I realized that
what I
had thought is true. We are going to have to grow our bio mass in the
future.
Plants used for bio mass sources must be densely foliaged and fast
growing,
yet not tropical. It me not destroy topsoil or require expensive
fertilizers,
herbicides, or pesticides. The leading contender in the race to
find a
alternative bio mass source is Hemp. Cannabis sativa produces 10 times
more
bio mass per acre then corn weighing in at 10 tons per acre after
only
90-120 days of growing. Hemp is a potential source of fiber,
textiles, paper
pulp, oil, and medicine. I think that it is very unfortunate
that such a useful
plant had to have been iligalized just because of it’s THC
content. Another
use of Cannabis is for medical purposes. Marijuana has many
possible medical
uses. Positive effects are claimed for ailments such as
cancer, aids, and
glaucoma. Aids can cause a loss of appetite known as the
"wasting
syndrome" which can lead to drastic weight loss and weakness.
Chemotherapy
used in the treatment of cancer causes nausea resulting in an
inability to keep
down food. Marijuana's healing nature for these two
illnesses is a result of
it's ability to increase a person's appetite as well
as relieving nausea
allowing a patient to regain weight. Marijuana reportedly
helps glaucoma
patients by reducing occular pressure, which can cause damage
to the eye.
Bibliography
1. Samuels, Tanyanika, The Pot
Prescription, Nesdya, Oct 1997. 2. Martin,
Amy, Petro-chemical
Alternatives, Garbage Dec 1991 Pg 44-49. 3. Hemp,
http://www.ocean.icnd/doc/pol/hemp,
Feb 20, 1999. 4. Erriod’s Cannabis
Vault, http://www.erowid.org/entheogens/cannabis/,
March 2nd 1999. 5.
Marijuana as Medicine,
http://mojo.calyx.com/~olsen/MEDICAL/medical.html,
March 2nd 1999.