Reports after reports have been telling us over the last 120 years that Cannabis has significant therapeutic effects. Doctors have been reporting on the positive effects of the Cannabis plant to tackle child epilepsy for nearly 100 years.
From Hero to Zero – How Cannabis was ‘Discredited’
Cannabis used to be a well-accepted medicine around the world until the early 1900’s. From Britain to the USA, all the way down to Australia and New Zealand and in most cultures across the East, Cannabis was used to treat a huge number of conditions.
Despite the overwhelmingly positive evidence of scientific studies over the last century, Cannabis was demonized for most of the century.
A man called Harry Anslinger, dedicated his life to inflict as much damage to the cannabis plant as possible. To aid the growth of the pharmaceutical and synthetic chemical industries, he created the cannabis prohibition in the US as the first Commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. And then he went on to spread the damage internationally as the chief U.S. delegate to the international drug agencies until 1970.
As a result, up until the early 2000’s cannabis was not only forgotten to ever be a medicine, but many people thought of the idea of medical cannabis as a fraud. Some kind of a scam that people came up with to get high.
From Zero to Hero Again – How Cannabis is Becoming the Miracle Plant Again
Fortunately, in today’s online world it is a little more difficult to sweep information under the carpet and this includes the old and new facts on medical cannabis.
According to Gallup polls, only about 1 in 3 Americans favored cannabis legalization in the early 2000’s. Among many other things, the re-discovery of the miracle effects of cannabis on children with epilepsy helped to lift the profile of the plant significantly. The numbers favoring legislation in the US climbed to 44% by 2009, to 48% by 2012 and then 58% by 2013.
The world is waking up to use cannabis as a medicine again and it is a great time to be alive and witness this shift.
Many States in the US, as well as many other countries around the world, are legalizing medical cannabis.
The approved conditions that cannabis can be used for greatly varies, which means that some countries allow use for a certain condition, while others may not.
Cannabis is a Holistic Medicine
This is quite confusing as most pharmaceutical drugs are used for the same or very similar conditions in most jurisdictions if they are approved.
Cannabis is not like most drugs, though. Most medications are isolated molecules focusing on a certain disorder or symptom. While cannabis is referred to as a holistic medicine, which means it interacts with the endocannabinoid system and works on restoring homeostasis in your body.
You Don’t Have to Be Sick to Benefit From Using Cannabis
That is why it can be used for such a wide range of conditions. As a result of how Cannabis works to restore homeostasis, it is preventive as well as curative at the same time.
Our body can easily get out of balance by the end of a hard day at work in a highly stressed and stimulating environment. You may not be sick as such (yet), however, on the other hand, you may not have as much patience for the kids, or for your partner. You may be restless and keep worrying about that late afternoon meeting you had with your boss, and what exactly he meant when he was referring to the loss of revenue.
We are all familiar with these nights after a long day at work when we are there in body, but our mind is still (or already) at work.
Cannabis has a list of unique benefits that most of us think of as just ‘getting high’, while they may be the perfect solution to the above-described situation.
“It needs to be legalized across the board. Who draws the line of what’s medical? If a hardworking person comes home and they want to enjoy cannabis, who’s to say that it’s not medicine? It helps in many medicinal ways.” – Melissa Etheridge
Cannabis helps us channel our attention and extend our patience, to be playful, to open our minds and help us be creative. It also helps to promote self-examination and our ability to reflect on events in our lives.
Cannabis enhances life and as Steve Deangelo writes in his book, The Cannabis Manifesto, it is more of a wellness product, than anything else.
We tend to do various activities in order to restore balance in our body and mind. Yoga, meditation, walk in the park and so on.
Cannabis aids the same kind of balance in our body and mind, and that is why so many of us find its therapeutic effects relaxing and rejuvenating.
Use Cannabis Responsibly – Avoid Misuse
In my view, any use of cannabis is medical and therapeutic. Having said that, this does not give us an excuse to overuse or misuse cannabis.
Any substance with a psychoactive effect will be a problem for a small percentage of the population.
If you are not a medical patient as such but use cannabis for prevention and wellness purposes, you may not have a doctor’s recommendation on frequency and doses. In this case, we have to take responsibility for our own cannabis use and make sure we don’t misuse it.
A lot of people use more cannabis than they need. They tend to keep increasing their cannabis intake, while the benefits are not increasing proportionally after a certain level. As a matter of fact consuming too much can make us less productive, tired and sleepy. Also, the more we consume the more our ‘tolerance’ goes up, resulting in increasing consumption.
We just have to listen to our body to realize that cannabis works in harmony with our mind and body, and if we take in too much, our body will give us signs.
Too much of the good thing can be too much.
Here are some tips to establish a responsible practice to use Cannabis:
- Be aware of how much cannabis you need to get the desired therapeutic effects. More isn’t always better.
- Keep records of your usage in a notebook or journal, so you can keep track how much you consume every day, week and month.
- Always set an intention when you use cannabis. Be conscious of what you are trying to achieve and bring out from your ‘high’.
- Stick to your doses when possible, so you don’t increase your tolerance more than you should.
- Have occasional ‘tolerance breaks’ when you don’t use cannabis for a few days, so your tolerance resets a little.
The most important I suggest to focus on is intentions. I started this practice of setting intentions a few years ago and have been doing it ever since. There is something about setting a conscious intention every time you use the plant.
We need to know where we are going in order to get there, so setting your intention before you consume cannabis could take your experience to the next level.
Regardless if you are using cannabis to have a good relaxing time, a good sleep, or to be able to get some focused work done, it will help if you get clear on your goals before using it.
Developing a discipline to use cannabis responsibly is the best way to build a relationship with this extremely therapeutic and nutritious plant.
Share your thoughts and/or experience with our community in the comments below.
I have a bachelor degree of Agricultural Science and have studied plant production for 8 years. Meanwhile, I learned so much about plants that it was hard to miss the outstanding (quite incredible) qualities of this hugely versatile plant.
After university I went on to build a career and recently I had the opportunity to return to this most passionate area of my life and have been writing about a wide variety of topics on Cannabis and Hemp.
- Nimbin Medican – Educating Australians About Medical Cannabis - January 28, 2020
- Pill Testing and Roadside Drug Testing – When is it Appropriate to Test for Drugs? - August 2, 2019
- The Australian Cannabis Summit in Review - July 16, 2019
