はじめに  


Cannabis is the oldest recognised medicinal plant known to mankind. Cannabis Sativa, its official Latin title, was first mentioned in the Chinese dynasty in the year 6500 BC. In Europe, Dioscorides, Emperor Nero's military doctor, was the first to mention it in the 1st century AD in his work Materia medica. Pliny, his contemporary, mentioned it in his thirty-seven-volume encyclopaedia, Naturalis Historia. Solinus referred to it in his work Medicina Plinii in the 4'h century AD. Nearly all medieval academic studies make frequent reference to the works of Pliny. In every herb book published before 1930, you can find recipes for tinctures, compresses, teas, ointments etc. After that time, cannabis came under the Opium Act and knowledge of this herb evaporated.

In the sixties, the hippies rediscovered it as a mind-expanding drug. People who smoked it used it to get high. Among the latter were also persons who were suffering from a chronic or terminal disease and, to their surprise, the symptoms of their illness were alleviated! MS patients had fewer problems with spasms, people undergoing chemotherapy and radiation felt less sick and rheumatic patients could cope with the pain better. In the course of time, it became clear that cannabis could provide relief in many illnesses, as is demonstrated in this book.

Cannabis is a relatively cheap and effective herb that should really be classified as natural medicine. It is a safe, therapeutic herb and, although its effects are powerful, there has never been any record in history of people dying of an overdose, which cannot be said of the many mainstream opiates, such as morphine. Furthermore, in comparison with regular medicines, cannabis does not produce any physical dependence. In all honesty, we must add that with intensive and long-lasting use a mental dependence can develop. Then the question arises: what criterion should one adopt? If a person is chronically or terminally if l and using medicines that are scarcely effective, but have many side effects, and they have to choose between that and cannabis, the choice doesn't appear difficult to me. Cannabis can improve the quality of their life considerably-

What is regrettable is the fact that marihuana has had such a bad press in past decades due to misuse by young people, ignorance and prejudice and it was closely connected with the criminal milieu. Does that mean that this plant should be forbidden and banned? Don't they realise that this same plant can bring comfort to chronically and terminally ill people? It's the reason for using it that counts! If nothing is helping any more and people are suffering unnecessarily, and with them all those around them who love them, then the justification for using this plant as a medicine is as clear as daylight.

It is distressing to see how divergent political policy can be in the various countries of the world. In one country you can buy it openly, provided that it is not more than 5 grams per day, in another country you can only buy it on doctor's prescription and yet again in other countries you can end up in jail for the possession of just a few grams. You are persecuted like a criminal although you have done nothing to harm society. All you want is to feel better when troubled by an illness that you haven't asked for.

The plant

Cannabis is an annual plant that, when grown outside, can reach two meters in height. The part of the plant that we find most interesting is the Rower of the female plant. In the cannabis world, the female plants are deliberately kept apart om the male plants. Through dispersion, the female plant produces seeds that are not very interesting for medicinal use. That does not alter the fact that cannabis seeds are very healthy and good things can be made from them, such as hemp milk, as described in the chapter 'Recipes'.

hat is unique about the cannabis plant is that it is the only plant that is built up of what are known as cannabinoids. These are the building materials of the female plant. There are about sixty cannabinoids in this plant, plus about 400 chemical connections. What the cannabinoids do is to alter pereption. Colours, smells, taste, music, in fact everything we observe becomes more intense. This is how it operates in recreational use. Imagine that there are two people sitting together, one is healthy and the other has MS. Ifthey both took the same amount of cannabis the healthy person would become high and the person with MS would not be troubled by spasms any more and would not become high.

The most effective component of the Rower is THC, in full: delta9TetraHydroCannabinol and is primarily responsible for the psychoactive reaction. The THC is a fatty, hairy substance located on the leaf, the bearer. This is the part that is important for us as a medicine. What we are talking about is cannabis, also called marihuana. 'Marihuana' is originally a South American word that is a combination of Maria and John (juan), who were the only witnesses of the death of Jesus. 'Marijuana' was the herb smoked by the poor in South America.

Let's go back to the THC. If the flowers of the plant are put in a freezer for some time then the THC freezes. Subsequently, if the frozen Rowers are put in a pollinator, a sort of extractor with a fine-meshed gauze, the rotation causes the THC crystals to break om the bearer and fall below in the form of a fine green powder. If you compress this powder under high pressure you then have hash.

And God said, Behold, I have given you very plant bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in its fruit; and you shall have them for food.

Genesis 1:29