Medicinal Uses of Hemp Drugs

Tod Mikuriya, M.D.

Introduced into western medicine in 1839 by William O'Shaughnessey, M.D., hemp drugs attained wide uses. Sedative, analgesic, and antispasmodic therapeutic qualities of this unique substances combine efficacy and low toxicity.

Despite contemporary scientific protestations as to the lack of substantive knowledge, a background of substantive clinical and scientific data remains largely forgotten.

Because current drug laws preclude general clinical use, review of medicinal, pharmaceutical, and social pre-prohibition is requisite to understanding its medicinal utility. Bereft of actual clinical experience with the drug its understanding has become largely retrograde and atrophic.

Reefer madness signals were substituted for pharmacy. Cannabis became marihuana. The Drug Enforcement Agency has continued the official fictions, a side effect of national marijuana prohibition of 1937.

Despite official denial and statements to the contrary, significant evidence exists that hemp drugs are effective as:

• Relaxant/sedative
• Antidepressant
• Analgesic/antispasmodic
• Child birth aid
• Intraocular hypotensive
• Appetite stimulant
• Hypothermogenic
• Alcohol substitute
• Withdrawal agent for sedative dependence
• Topical antibiotic

Clinical efficacy before its' removal from availability as reported in the literature is variable as with most medications used in many conditions. One of the most frequently mentioned in medical texts of the 1900's was migraine headache.

The effects of hemp drugs on the individual and society has been one of the most extensively studied drugs in history.

• 1893-5 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
• 1931 Panama Canal Military Study
• 1938-44 Mayors' Committee on Marihuana (New York)
• 1973 National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse
• 1980 National Academy of Science Study
• 1990 California Research Advisory Panel

The effects of politics upon the findings of commission studies in the U.S. by presidents, prosecutors, and government attorneys has been devastating. All of the findings and the studies themselves have been rejected, ignored, or suppressed.

The latest disgraces in a public policy based upon resultant debased information have been wrought by the recent federal policies of withholding hemp drugs from AIDS victims.

The RESTORATION OF HEMP MEDICAL PREPARATIONS TO LIST OF AVAILABLE MEDICINES IN CALIFORNIA; DECLARATION OF POLICY initiative seeks to correct this bad and harmful policy.

Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D.

Psychiatrist

Former Director Marijuana Research

National Institute of Mental Health

7-14-91