It is currently estimated that ‘the European cannabis market will be worth £106b by 2028, while according to the publication Health Europa, the global medical cannabis market was worth $13.4b (£10b) in 2018, and is projected to grow to $148b by 2026.
Despite an almost global ban through most of the 20th century, cannabis has been used in medicine for thousands of years and was a respected treatment option for many different diseases and health conditions until being banned for political reasons. Its acceptance and use in Western medicine was mainly due to the seminal work of four scientists. These were:
- Roger Adams, an organic chemist and Professor of Chemistry, working at the University of Illinois as the head of the chemistry department.
- William Brook O’Shaughnessy, a Professor of Chemistry and assistant surgeon working at the College of Medicine in Calcutta.
- Jacques-Joseph Moreau, a French physician known for his systematic work on drugs.
- Dr. E.A. Birch, who outlined its use in treating opiate addiction.
Professor Roger Adams was the first scientist to identify and isolate substances in the cannabis plant, including CBD, and after conducting experiments on animals (and occasionally children). O’Shaughnessy, who used whole plant extracts, reported its success in treating a wide range of medical conditions and symptoms of disease, as did Moreau and Birch. These included opiate addiction, pain, depression, rabies, alcohol withdrawal, infantile convulsions, cholera, tetanus, and insomnia.Â
As such, the role of cannabis in medicine was so multifaceted that its reputation as a healer quickly grew – so much so that it was featured on the front page of The Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal (the precursor to The British Medical Journal). This resulted in cannabis becoming a popular choice for British patients and their doctors, who commonly prescribed it for pain, as well as other ailments, such as those previously mentioned. The work of these four scientists, therefore, led the way to the relatively recent discovery of our endocannabinoid system (1992) and the role that cannabis plays through its ability to activate this new system.
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However cannabis was soon embroiled in the ill-fated ‘war-on-drugs’ that marked the second half of the 20th century, and so scientific reports were ignored even though they showed cannabis to be effective medicine. Some examples include:
- 1955: Cannabis has strong antibacterial properties.
- Effective in treating muscle spasms. Cannabis extracts were used during the Vietnam War to treat muscle spasms caused by spinal injuries that had occurred during fighting.
- 1964: Evidence showing that cannabis was a potential treatment for glaucoma. Researchers Dr. Albert Lockhart and Marley West, who were studying cannabis use in Jamaica ‘discovered that Rastafarians had unusually low glaucoma rates and local fishermen were washing their eyes in cannabis extract in the belief it would improve their sight… in 1987, the researchers gained permission to market the pharmaceutical Canasol; a cannabis extract. They continued to work with cannabis, developing more pharmaceuticals and eventually receiving the Jamaican Order of Merit for their work.’
Another important and often overlooked factor in the re-emergence of medical cannabis is the role that was played by breeders and growers, often illegally, in creating cannabis strains for medicinal use. Perhaps the most famous of these is Charlotte’s Web, a high CBD strain used in treating childhood epilepsy, which was created by the Stanley brothers in Arizona, but there are hundreds of other strains available to the public through online seedbanks. These cannabis breeders and growers, many of whom are leading horticulturists and botanists, also played a very vital role in seed-banking, which was introduced as a means of safeguarding plant genetic diversity due to agricultural expansion in the 1970s.
Seed-banking enabled cannabis enthusiasts to retain the seeds of cannabis plants that had unique effects and terpene profiles, and it also enabled them to create many new strains by cross-breeding. Nevil Schoenmakers, an Australian-born cannabis breeder, founded the ‘The Seedbank of Holland’ (the world’s first cannabis seedbank) in the early 1980s, and was instrumental in ensuring the safeguard of many different strains that would have otherwise been lost, including strains of ruderalis (a variety that is high CBD with very low levels of THC).
The establishment of seedbanks, which became very popular during the 1970s and 1980s, ‘undoubtedly kept genetics in the cannabis gene pool that ensured the survival of cannabinoids, and that they were not all wiped out by the search for more-and-more THC,’ so the existence of many medical strains of cannabis are due to the dedication of cannabis enthusiasts like Nevil Schoenmakers.
The re-emergence of cannabis for medical use in the latter half of the 20th century began with the decriminalisation of cannabis in Oregon in 1973, followed by Alaska, California, Colorado, and Ohio in 1975, and this pattern continued during the following years. Oregon had fully legalised medical cannabis by 1998, as had a number of other states, and so patients living in these places that have qualifying conditions have been able to grow or have their cannabis grown for them in order to treat their medical condition. And in the decades that followed more and more states reformed their cannabis laws, including full legalisation in some, as did countries such as Portugal and Canada.
Contrary to the expectations of some, the legalisation of cannabis has been a success – even where recreational use had been allowed. None of the risks or dangers often cited by the U.K authorities have materialised: there has been no increase in psychosis or mental health issues in young people, problems with addiction, or any other issues usually cited as a reason to keep cannabis illegal. Of course, that comes as no surprise to the people who actually use cannabis.
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- Online article: ‘EU Top Court Rules that CBD is Not a Narcotic.’ Retrieved 31/01/2021 from: https://www.politico.eu/article/cjeu-rules-that-cbd-is-not-a-narcotic-drug/
- The New York Times (2020). Online article: ‘U.N. Reclassifies Cannabis as a Less Dangerous Drug.. Retrieved 31/01/2021 from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/world/europe/cannabis-united-nations-drug-policy.html
