The evidence of its medicinal benefits is amazing and is no longer being ignored.
Nothing is new about hemp. Hemp has accompanied people for a very long time. Archaeologists found hemp seeds in 5,000-year-old burial mounds in Siberia. The Chinese used the plant as a basis for medicines thousands of years ago. The first American president, George Washington, grew hemp on Mount Vernon. Throughout the long history of mankind, hemp products have mostly been legal, they have been a component of many medicinal tinctures and extracts. CBD as one of the main ingredient is legal and powerful. For more details regarding the medical benefits please check out our blog post about cbd: https://www.charmingc.ch/blog/about_cbd/
From consumption to criminalisation
In the 1930 the movie “Reefer Madness” has been released in the cinemas, a film sponsored by the church about marijuana as the murderer of the youth. The gateway drug. That was the beginning of the criminalisation of hemp. Soon the consumption of the plant was frowned upon worldwide, and researchers hardly ever bothered with it. In 1961, the so-called United Nations Union Agreement came into force, in which the signatory countries undertook to combat illegal drugs, including hemp.
Since then, most of the people who sought scientific knowledge about cannabis were criminals by definition.
Image change & legalisation
But now liberation is approaching. For several years now, hemp research has been pushed forward again in America and Europe. More and more people are treating – legally or illegally – their diseases with active ingredients from the hemp plant. The use of hemp for certain medicinal purposes is again permitted in more and more states in the USA. In Uruguay it has been cleared, in Portugal there is no prosecution for possession of small quantities. Israel, Canada, the Netherlands and numerous other countries have relaxed their laws in recent years. CBD’s medicinal benefits is no longer being ignored.
The unmistakable scent of Hemp no longer shocks most people when it rises up their noses. Sure, those who smoke hemp may temporarily tend to unmotivated laughing, look holes in the air, have memory interruptions or suddenly cravings for greasy fries. It is undisputed that marijuana in its powerful variants can be a powerful and potentially dangerous drug. Although – unlike alcohol, for example – there has never been a reported death from a hemp overdose.
Recently, hemp is no longer just perceived as a stoner drug, but as a medicine that relieves pain and depression, promotes sleep, and stimulates appetite. Its active ingredients suppress nausea during chemotherapy, dilate the bronchi and inhibit inflammation. Some scientists are convinced that the ingredients of the plant could protect the brain from emotional injury, strengthen the immune system and help to erase painful memories after disasters. You use hemp to treat post-traumatic stress disorders.
And the louder the voices that grass should become socially acceptable again, the more attention is also paid to the old substance. Because there are still many open questions. How exactly does marijuana actually affect the body and brain? And how can pharmacy develop new drugs on this basis?
Cannabinoids such as CBD and other substances that have shown promise for the treatment of a wide variety of diseases: multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Hemp – a wonder?
Most of you have heard that hemp can alleviate the side effects of cancer treatment. It reduces the nausea that often occurs with chemotherapy, strengthens appetite, and helps relieve pain and insomnia. But does it also work against cancer itself? The Internet is full of such stories, but most of the reports are, at best, unsubstantiated individual events.
For 15 years the Spanish doctor Guzmán has been treating animals with cancer with hemp compounds. In the study from which he showed images, the tumors in one third of the rats had completely disappeared; in another third they were smaller. Discoveries like these excite the world, and Guzmán worries time and again that his research could raise false hopes in cancer patients. “The problem,” he says, “is that rats are not humans. We have no idea whether the result can be transferred to humans. “
The German doctor Grotenhermen and his colleagues can help sick people in two ways: They prescribe drugs made from hemp ingredients such as dronabinol or sativex. Or they support their patients in applying for an exemption. With it, the sick can order marijuana in the pharmacy and treat themselves. The prerequisite is that all other treatment options have been exhausted. Only around 400 people in Germany have this permit.
“The spectrum of diseases that we treat with cannabis literally extends from A to Z,” says Grotenhermen, “from allergy tendencies and anxiety disorders to ADHD and chronic pain to epilepsy, migraines and obsessive-compulsive disorder. My youngest patient is four years old, my oldest patient 85. “He himself has around 250 patients – and a waiting period of five to six months for new patients. There are around 8,000 people nationwide who alleviate their suffering with cannabis active ingredients or natural marijuana.
The geneticist – with great strides
“Hemp is such a valuable plant,” says Nolan Kane. The geneticist and evolutionary biologist stands in a greenhouse on the grounds of the University of Colorado in Boulder and looks at ten hemp plants that he recently bought for research purposes. “So many questions have not yet been answered. How did the plant develop in the course of evolution? Why does it produce such an abundance of ingredients? We don’t even know how many types of hemp there are. “
As soon as the information from the hemp genome has been completely deciphered and put in a legible order, geneticists – whether at universities or pharmaceutical companies – will be able to use it to breed new varieties that contain certain medically important ingredients in much larger quantities.
When Kane talks about his work, his eyes light up, and the same enthusiasm exudes his young employees. The atmosphere here resembles that in a newly founded start-up that hopes to revolutionise the market with a new idea. “In science there is often only a small step forward,” says Kane, “but our work with hemp is not a science of small steps. It will not only expand our knowledge about the plant, but also about ourselves – about our brain, our nervous system, our psyche. CBD’s medicinal benefits is no longer being ignored.
The new knowledge about the biochemical properties of the ingredients will revolutionise entire industries, not just medicine and the treatment of many diseases, but also agriculture and energy production. It could even change our eating habits, because hemp seeds provide a very healthy, protein-rich oil. “
Kane puts it in slightly different words, but he means the same as the research pioneer Raphael Mechoulam in Israel: “Cannabis is a treasure chest, the contents of which we don’t really know yet.” But we are about to open the lid.
Source:
(National Geographic issue 8/2015, page (s) 36 to 65)
https://www.nationalgeographic.de/geschichte-und-kultur/marihuana-als-heilmittel-ein-tabu-faellt
