Anyone living in the United States of America during the 21st century has heard of

a plant called cannabis. More commonly referred to as help, and most frequently

referenced by a by-product called marijuana, this plant has been used in myriad of ways

by individuals around the world since at least as early as fifth-century BC.1 Cannabis is

referred to, among a variety of names, as marijuana when discussing the use of hemp as a

recreational drug. The drug’s recreational popularity comes from a key chemical that

exists in the mature cannabis plant: tetrahydrocannibol (also commonly known as

“THC”). Although recreational use of the cannabis plant is internationally illegal under a

United Nations document called the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,2 the drug

is “the most widely produced, trafficked and used illicit drug on earth, accounting for

over 50 percent of all customs seizures.”3

In this paper, I will first briefly discuss the cannabis plant - what it is composed

of; where and how it grows; and different varieties and uses for the plant. Next, I will

address the popular, albeit illegal, use of cannabis as a drug and some of the controversy

and politics surrounding this topic in the United States, including the plant’s social

history with a primary focus on its legacy post-18th century (and more specifically, during

the last 40 years). Then, I will address the importance of this drug as a medicine.

Finally, I will end the paper with some concluding thoughts.

1
Booth, 27
2
Booth, 205
3
Booth, 302
Page 1 of 11
 I. What is Cannabis?

The name “Cannabis” is based on the Greek work Kannabis, which was derived

from the Sankrit word cana meaning ‘cane’. Bis comes from the Aramaica busma which

means ‘aromatic’. In 1753, Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus named the plant Cannabis

sativa, meaning a cultivated fragrant cane. The three botanical classifications for the

cannabis plant are Cannabis sativa (the most widespread of the species), Cannbis indica

(Indian cannabis), and Cannabis nuderalis (cannabis from western Siberia and central

Asia).

Although the originating location of cannabis has never been inarguably

determined, most studies point to central Asia as cannabis’ birth-place, due mostly to the

region’s perfect climate for wild cannabis growth. In China’s Xinjiang province, the

cannabis plant grows wildly in areas that were affected by erosion or flood. The Gobi

and Takla Makan deserts in this region have also provided the perfect climate for

cannabis growth for thousands of years.

Cannabis is a versatile and resilient plant. It can grow at altitudes as high as 8000

feet, germinates within six days, and can even grow in “poor, sandy soils.”4 The plant

thrives in direct sunlight (it does not fare well in shade) and requires only small amounts

of water during the germination and early growth stages.

The cannabis plant consists of approximately 460 known chemicals, but the most

crucial chemical in the plant is tetrahydrocannibol (THC). THC is a critical psycho-

active chemical that affects a cannabis user’s body and brain, and is present in the

cannabis plant “by up to 5 percent by weight”.5 THC “works as an analgesic, muscle-

4
Booth, 3
5
Booth, 6
Page 2 of 11
relaxing, anti-depressant and anti-emetic agent. It can reduce epileptic fits, stimulate

appetite and dilate bronchial tissue.”6 Cannabis plants with the highest THC content are

grown in hot temperatures, and THC potency can be incredibly high depending on the

psycho-active product of the plant. The three psycho-active products of the plant are

marijuana (5-10 percent THC), hashish (20 percent THC) and, rarely, hashish oil (85

percent THC).

Other important chemicals and oils that compose the cannabis plant include six

essential oils, and at least eight alkaloids, flavonoids and sugars. Cannabidiol (CBD) and

connation (CBN) appear in the plant as its resin ages, and CBN is another slightly

psycho-active chemical contained in the plant.

Although “cannabis is most famous throughout the world as a source of a drug

and… as a psycho-active agent,”7 there are a number of other ways that the cannabis

plant has been used throughout history. The word “hemp” refers to use of the plant’s

incredibly strong stalks as fiber to create rope, coarse cloth, twine and paper. The

cannabis seed contains an oil that is rich in unsaturated fatty-acids. This greenish-yellow

oil was used as lamp fuel, in soap manufacturing, as an ingredient in high-quality varnish,

a pharmaceutical emulsion and in artists’ oil paints. The seed is eaten by birds and other

mammals in the wild, probably as a tonic because of the seed’s “substantial quantities of

sugars and albumen.”8 In China, Europe and India, the cannabis seed has been used as a

food source during famines and as a staple ingredient in the diets of poorer communities.

In sub-Saharan Africa, some people have ground the seed and used it as baby food. To

this day, some Middle Eastern and Oriental cuisines consist of dishes that use hashish or

6
Ibid.
7
Booth, 5
8
Ibid.
Page 3 of 11
marijuana as an ingredient. In Cambodia and Thailand, dried cannabis plants are sold as

an ingredient for soups or curried dishes, respectively.

II. Cannabis/Marijuana: The Drug

Although cannabis has existed globally since the BC era, no one knows for certain

how long cannabis has been used as a drug in the North America, and specifically the

United States. A French explorer who arrived in Virginia in 1542 “reported seeing

natives dressed in a clothing of leaves sewn with hemp.”9 Hemp cultivation flourished in

America during the 17th and 18th centuries, however, as the government demanded that

farmers produce the fiber for use as twine, rope and clothing. Even Presidents George

Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp as cash crops on their personal farms.

By the mid-1850s, America was in the midst of a literary renaissance, and psycho-

active drugs were readily and easily available to any interested parties.10 Although most

people took drugs for medicinal reasons, it is not known how many people took psycho-

active drugs for experimentation and recreation. During this period, marijuana was sold

“in extracts… and herbal packages… [as] a remedy for all sorts of conditions, from

migraine headaches to asthma, epilepsy, insomnia, chronic bronchitis, and gonorrhea.”11

By the late 19th century, American newspapers began reporting that secret hashish houses

existed in several American cities, where individuals experimented with the drug as an

intoxicant. When the hypodermic needle was invented, it allowed for the direct injection

of dissolvable drugs into the human body, thereby alleviating the need for the slow pain-

relief that marijuana offered. In 1941, cannabis was removed from all of America’s

9
Booth, 32
10
Booth, 76
11
Schleichert, 9
Page 4 of 11
professional drug directories. During this time, however, marijuana use was still thriving

within the recreational drug-use communities, and by the 1920s, prices for marijuana

doubled as its use as an intoxicant was spreading throughout immigrant populations and

other “new segments of American society.”12 As marijuana use became more widespread

in America, however, the number of its critics increased and in 1931, twenty-nine states

had already outlawed marijuana. Then, in 1937, the American government passed the

Marijuana Tax Act that essentially taxed marijuana into non-production because it

became too expensive for the grower and user.

In 1961, Harry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Treasury Department’s Federal

Bureau of Narcotics, was on a mission against narcotic drug use in America. Although

his arguments were not always sound, he managed to blackmail the United Nations into

passing the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (UNSCND). He manipulated this

outcome by leveraging America’s power of veto in the UN Security Council. The

UNSCND makes it illegal for any country that is a UN member to legalize marijuana.

Although the Convention allowed medical narcotic use, it made the process of

researching medicinal marijuana particularly difficult.13

Nevertheless, by 1975, marijuana was the main recreational narcotic used in

America.14 There was no typical marijuana user, either. Its users included hippies,

dropouts and disaffected youth, as well as blue-collar workers and hippies who matured

to take establishment jobs and positions. There are literally hundreds of street names for

marijuana as a drug. A few popular terms include: aunt mary, boom, chronic, dope ganja,

gangster, grass, hash, herb, hydro, kif, mary jane, pot, reefer, sinsemilla, skunk, and

12
Schleichert, 13
13
Booth, 205-6.
14
Booth, 240
Page 5 of 11
weed.15 Military personnel during the Vietnam War began smuggling weed to the United

States, and some returned from duty with “top-quality Laotian or Cambodian seeds in

order to set themselves up with a lucrative cash crop back on the farm.”16 By this time

during the 1970s, under the “war on drugs” that President Richard Nixon launched

following his 1969 election, approximately ten thousand agents were operating world-

wide under the American-led Drug Enforcement Agency.

Today, the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs still presides as the

international law regarding recreational cannabis use. Drug trafficking has become

synonymous with terrorism and gang violence, as many of these groups rely on drug

sales as a primary source of income. These realities, combined with government and

private propaganda campaigns against marijuana use, have been the hallmark of

American discussion of marijuana use. Attempts to submit scientific proof to the UN

showing that marijuana is benign are futile “as, in recent years, [the World Health

Organization] has suppressed any submitted scientific analysis that has not supported the

Single Convention and US government viewpoint.”17 Perhaps this can change if

President Obama, who has made transparency and honesty the foundation of his

campaign, allows discussion of legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

III. Medical Use

When the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was initially proposed, only two dissenting

parties came forward during the act’s congressional hearings. The birdseed industry

argued, as well as the American Medical Association (AMA). Dr. William Woodward,

15
Weed Farmer Dictionary
16
Booth, 240.
17
Booth, 331.
Page 6 of 11
lobbyist for the AMA, said that marijuana was not dangerous enough to require legal

prohibition or criminal sanctions. Dr. Woodward also argued “that marijuana had

important medical properties and expressed concern that the proposed prohibition would

restrict marijuana’s therapeutic use while inhibiting research with the plant,”18 and noted

that further studies could reveal additional advantages of medicinal marijuana.

Under the leadership of President Nixon, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970

dealt a crucial blow to research that could vindicate the use of medicinal marijuana.

When an appointed Presidential Commission offered their findings to Nixon, they

recommended the decriminalization of marijuana, going so far as to note that “of

particular signifance… would be investigations into the treatment of glaucoma, migraine,

alcoholism and terminal cancer.”19 However, Nixon stuck with his platform attacking

liberal stances on “pot, pornography and permissiveness,”20 and ignored the findings and

recommendations.

Medical documents from a number of countries dating back thousands of years

have mentioned and proven the medicinal benefits of the cannabis plant. To this day,

Chinese herbal doctors follow the centuries-old remedy that works as a laxative, lowers

fever, treats open wounds and burns as an antiseptic, and cures a cough when ingested:

hemp oil. Islamic, Indian and African countries also populate the list of nations wherein

doctors used cannabis to treat a number of ailments.

In the United States, Harry Aslinger’s UNSCND strongly challenged any

professional attempts to research medicinal marijuana through prohibition or

bureaucracy. Following Aslinger’s retirement in 1962 and a general realization that very

18
Randall, 30.
19
Randall, 33.
20
Randall, 31.
Page 7 of 11
little was factually known about hallucinatory drugs, the doors opened for major research

into the medicinal uses of marijuana. After Andrew Weil and Norman E. Zinberg

conducted the first major research project in 1968 and published their findings, other

scientists became interested and research flourished.

Among the important findings that medicinal marijuana research has provided,

there are some especially astonishing and influential facts. Cannabis works as an anti-

emetic for cancer patients who take chemotherapy by counteracting the nausea, as well as

reducing pain and stimulating appetite. Cannabis ceases convulsions in sufferers of

muscular dystrophy (MD) and multiple sclerosis (MS). Cannabis helps epileptics,

paraplegics and quadriplegics control muscular spasticity and sufferers of arthritis can use

cannabis as a muscle relaxant. Because medicinal marijuana was not legalized until the

21st century, there were great numbers of MS, MD and arthritis patients buying cannabis

illegally. Furthermore, cannabis has even offered an almost complete cure for glaucoma,

as an ingredient in the plant reduces the intra-ocular pressure that causes and worsens the

condition.

It seems the main argument against widespread medical marijuana use concerns

the risk of intoxication and psycho-active reaction. However, as British doctor Dr.

William Notcutt argued in 2000, “anti-depressants like Prozac are prescribed [to treat

pain and depression] almost with abandon and yet they are mind-altering drugs with a

risk of severe side effects. Marijuana has few contra-indications and yet it is

prohibited.”21 Individuals like Robert C. Randall and Alice O’Leary cultivated their own

cannabis to treat his glaucoma. After being arrested, he won his trial by offering a plea of

medical necessity in his defense. Other individuals have not been so lucky, however. A
21
Booth, 294.
Page 8 of 11
convicted paraplegic was sentence to life imprisonment plus sixteen years.22

It has been proven that marijuana can be an effective medicinal drug that treats

the same problems as legally manufactured drugs, but without the detrimental side effects

to the user. Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard

University Medical School, stated:

[Medical marijuana] will eventually be commonly used by millions...

[and] it will alter the public perception of cannabis and bring into

question the attitude and dogma of governments such as that of the USA

which doggedly opposed the idea of medical marijuana because it is a

supposedly dangerous drug… [like] heroin or cocaine. The legacy of

Harry J. Aslinger will come under intense scrutiny and when people learn

that its harmfulness has been greatly exaggerated and its usefulness

underestimated, the pressure will increase for drastic change in the way

we, as a society, deal with this drug. 23

IV. Conclusion.

The cannabis plant has grown in the wild for thousands of years and

millions of people have used the plant in a variety of ways. In the United States,

this resilient plant is at the center of major controversy, and stigmatized as a

gateway drug and terrorist tool. Although cannabis can be used in a number of

ways that do not involve illegal drug use, the threat of illegal intoxication is what

keeps this drug in its precarious situation.

22
Booth, 296.
23
Booth, 301.
Page 9 of 11
 Understanding the plant and its variety of practical uses (like clothing and food)

as well as its extremely beneficial attributes (like functioning as a medicine that is

basically devoid of any harmful side effects) is crucial for the future of the American

government, pharmaceutical world, and law enforcement/ drug enforcement agency

policies. Because marijuana thrives in a number of sunny environments and requires

little water, it can be used by poorer populations and will certainly be grown by anyone

who really desires to use it (for medicinal or recreational purposes). Perhaps a

reexamination of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is due, as well as an

honest explanation regarding the historic American bureaucratic dismissal of marijuana’s

medicinal benefits and recreational harmlessness.

Page 10 of 11
 Bibliography

1. Booth, Martin. Cannabis: A History. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's

Press, 2003.

This book gives a very detailed look at cannabis, from its’ origins and chemical

composition to the politics surrounding its global illegality.

2. Randall, R. C. Marijuana Rx : the patient's fight for medicinal pot. New York :

Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.

Authors Randall and O’Leary discuss the fight for medicinal marijuana use from

the perspective of two individuals who successfully argued Robert Randall’s case

in court.

3. Schleichert, Elizabeth. Marijuana. Springfield, N.J., U.S.A.: Enslow Publishers, 1996.

Schleichert discusses the history, dangers, street names, and side effects of

marijuana. The book is somewhat biased, but provides a good amount of factual

information.

4. http://www.weedfarmer.com/growing_guide/words.php

This website page contains an extensive list of commonly used slang and non-

official terms for cannabis, and more specifically, marijuana. The page also

contains descriptions of exactly what each term refers to.

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