The ancient Assyrians made use of cannabis and it is specifically mentioned on clay tablets found at the library of Assurbanipal. It along with another 400 other drugs comprised the whole of the Assyrian pharmacopoeia of its day. And here it should be pointed out that we obtain the word cannabis from the Romans who obtained it from the Greek word Kannabis, who in turn could have, and probably did, obtained it from the Assyrians. This would (if correct) make it one of the oldest words known to humans.
As far back as 3000 years India has used cannabis for the relief of anxiety by ingesting the plant as food, still referred to as bhang today.
It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that doctors in the west began to take an interest. WB O’Shaughnessy, a professor at the Medical College of Calcutta observed and studied its use in India. He began to use it with patients suffering from rabies, rheumatism, epilepsy, and tetanus. In a report published in 1839, he wrote that he had found tincture of hemp (a solution of cannabis in alcohol, taken orally) to be an effective analgesic. He was also impressed with its muscle-relaxant properties and called it “an anticonvulsant remedy of the greatest value.” O’Shaughnessy returned to England in 1842 and provided cannabis to pharmacists. Doctors in Europe and the United States soon began to prescribe it for a variety of physical conditions. Cannabis was even given to Queen Victoria by her court physician.
After cannabis was used freely for thousands of years, a major change in it’s history came in the early 20th century, when prohibitionists in the United States succeeded in getting the government to criminalize the drug, beginning with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. By the 1930s the word cannabis was seldom if ever used, and American newspapers had substituted it with the word marijuana. Some suggest that the lawmakers themselves were so confused by the wording that they did not even know they were outlawing a common medicine. And as the horror stories spread, more and more states passed prohibition laws.
Americas influence led to other countries following their stance. At first exceptions for medical uses were made but high taxes and other forms of harassment made it prohibitively expensive to even cultivate the plant. As one large botanical and pharmaceutical dealer wrote to the D.E.A. “I have decided to discontinue the collection and sale of the herb owing to the fact that it has been placed in the narcotic list by both State and Federal laws. “I have no cannabis and have not made any collection this season as practically all of the manufactures and dealers whom I have done business with have decided to discontinue the use and sale of this herb.” – J.T. Huffman, of Manito, Illinois. In 1942, under heavy pressure, Cannabis was officially removed from both the U.S. Pharmacopoeia as well as the National Formulary. And by the late 1940s even the memory of its medical uses had been forgotten.
In 1938, the plant “cannabis sativa” was outlawed in Australia as a result of a reefer madness style campaign in Australian newspapers, orchestrated by the US bureau of narcotics and it’s commissioner Harry J Anslinger. This campaign introduced the word “Marijuana” into Australia.
Marijuana was described as ” a new drug that maddens victims”. It was an “Evil Sex Drug” which causes “it’s victim’s to behave like raving sex maniacs.” For this generation of Australians, cannabis was to be “the dreaded sex drug marijuana”.
This American renaming of cannabis to “marijuana” meant that most Australians were unaware that this dreaded new drug was the familiar medicine cannabis, which they had used for many decades without concern.
In the 1960s, American anti-drug propaganda was widely distributed with the message that smoking marijuana would not only make you lazy and irresponsible, but that you were also out of touch with reality and a threat to national security.
In Australia, 1970’s cannabis use was considered as confined to groups, such as radical students, “hippie” dropouts, and opponents of the Vietnam War. Australian conservatives launched a Nixon-style “War on drugs”. This war on cannabis was most extreme in Queensland where Queensland premier bjelke-petersen called for a police-crackdown to drive cannabis users out of Queensland. The result was the Cedar Bay raid on a commune in far north Queensland where houses were burnt to the ground and orchards chopped down as the Queensland police went on a rampage.
1988, American DEA administrative law Judge Francis Young finds, after thorough hearings, that cannabis has a clearly established medical use and should be reclassified as a prescriptive drug. His recommendation is ignored.
1996 California (the first American state to ban cannabis use in 1915 became the first American state to then re-legalize medical cannabis use for people suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses.
2003 Canada becomes the first country in the world to approve medical cannabis nation-wide.
2014 Numerous other countries have now followed Canada’s lead and have now access to cannabis for medicinal use. These include 22 American states, Israel, North Korea, Portugal, Spain, Argentina, Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy and Iran.