In 1898, Scientific American featured a comprehensive overview of contemporary medicinal cannabis research, prepared by Dr. G. Archie Stockwell. Stockwell noted the use of cannabis as a primary treatment for a wide range of conditions including migraine (“by long odds the best remedy known”), chronic pain, epilepsy, brain tumours, asthma, eczema, anorexia and even to “promote mental cheerfulness.”Read more
Although Canada banned cannabis in 1923, it didn’t really appear on anyone’s radar until the late 1930s. This Daily Colonist editorial, from Victoria, BC, reveals the ‘reefer madness’ that was taking hold. Ottawa has decreed, at long last, that the cultivation of marijuana can only be carried on with a licence from the Department of Health… TheRead more
In 1851, The Guardian published an excerpt of Frederick Arthur Neale’s book Eight Years in Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor describing “the most curious sight [Neale] ever witnessed”. It involved a horse, hashish and a “hive of worms”, among other things… Horse Surgery in Syria The Guardian, September 17, 1851 In Acre, there is a plentiful supply ofRead more
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dozens of sales agents of the G. F. Harvey Company criss-crossed America peddling the company’s plethora of pills, tinctures, tablets and elixirs – a number of which contained cannabis. The company’s preparations gained a wide reputation (even attracting a poisoner to their headquarters, whose correspondence with the company would later spell hisRead more
By the late 19th century, cannabis was becoming a popular North American remedy. The ad below, for cannabis products made by “Dr. H. James Imported Remedies,” reveals the extent it had been adopted in the United States. Everyone from the village postmaster to the local pastor were using it on themselves, their friends and relations. [Source:Read more
“Close to the mosque of Hakem is the hemp-eater’s coffee-house, called Kahwet-el-Hashasheen, which is frequented by those who indulge in the abominable narcotic called hasheesh. Of these coffee houses there are five in Cairo and its environs, and two in Boulak. But at least twenty per cent of the male population eat hasheesh in private,Read more
