© Paul Fearn/Alamy Stock PhotoMedical Marijuana got a try-out in Victorian Britain thanks to William O'Shaughnessy
ON THE evening of 6 November 1838, William Brooke O'Shaughnessy received an urgent note from the hospital where he worked. Could he come immediately? One of his patients was exhibiting "very peculiar and formidable" symptoms. Alarmed, he rushed to the man's bedside.
O'Shaughnessy, assistant surgeon with the East India Company's Bengal Medical Service, had reason to worry. The patient was one of the first human guinea pigs in his pioneering experiments with cannabis. A few hours earlier, the man had been given a modest dose of cannabis resin dissolved in alcohol. What might have gone wrong?
To a scientifically inclined physician based in India, cannabis - or Indian hemp - was a prime candidate for investigation. It was popular as a means of intoxication, but local doctors also valued it as a treatment for a range of ailments. In 1813, one of O'Shaughnessy's predecessors reported somewhat sniffily on the intemperate habits of those who indulged in the various preparations. But O'Shaughnessy believed cannabis would make a useful addition to Western medicine and decided to put it to the test.
Comment: Cannabis most likely fell "out of favor" for a number of reasons, many of them relating back to politics and profit. The pharmaceutical industry had yet to isolate the compounds and so could not patent them; it was not administered through syringe and so was contrary to their preferred method which required equipment and a doctor; it was a natural product which could actually be grown quite easily by the patients themselves; its other uses such as for clothing, paper and construction rivalled other established, powerful monopoly industries; and finally, in the US it was used recreationally, similar to alcohol, by certain groups of society, particularly blacks and latino's, who were prime targets for the ruling class at the time.
As the article notes, BigPharma is again back in the market looking to develop 'synthetic cannabis-like drugs' which they will, this time, be able to patent, even though they may prove to be less effective and will have perhaps the litany of side-effects common in pharmaceutical drugs. Many natural medicines tend to rely on the 'whole-plant', or at least many co-factors found within the plant itself, to work.
It is criminal that something so beneficial has been withheld from the public for over a century, and is reflective of the corruption and ignorance within mainstream medicine which is clearly beholden to the political class:
- Hypocrites: UK is world's largest legal cannabis producer UN reveals - Claims it has "no therapeutic value"
- UK's unscientific cannabis laws causing more harm than ever
- UK: Cannabis license considered for boy saved from seizures by using "just 3 drops" of medicated oil
Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: The Highs and Lows of Cannabis as Medicine