Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Denis Richard and Catherine Dejean
Centre hospitalier Henri Laborit, Poitiers, France, and Faculty of Medicine
and Pharmacy, University of Poitiers, France
15.1 Introduction
The start of the 19th century saw the golden
age of cannabis use as a medicinal drug. It was
included in the American pharmacopoeia in 1854
and could be purchased in pharmacies. It soon
replaced opium as a drug, thanks to the relative
lack of narcotic side effects. Interest in the plant
declined towards the end of the 19th century - as
with other medicinal plants - as doctors started to
favour industrially produced medicines, the effects
of which were faster in onset, more spectacular
and more reproducible. In the USA, the prescrip-
tion of cannabis was outlawed in 1937, when the
drug itself became prohibited. It disappeared from
the American pharmacopoeia in 1941 and from
the French pharmacopoeia in 1953. Cannabis
has, however, retained its listing in some pharma-
copoeias around the world, including that of Italy
(Caballero and Bisiou, 2000).
A number of patient groups, together with
many doctors, are calling for cannabis to be
licensed again and therefore available for
medicinal use in cases where conventional
treatments are ineffective and/or poorly toler-
ated (Michka
et al
., 2009).
The properties and virtues of hemp, or canna-
bis (
Cannabis sativa
L.), have been recorded
for several thousand years, although the medi-
cal applications of its extracts and molecular
derivatives are still not universally recognized.
Studies undertaken since the start of the 1990s
on cannabinoid receptors and their physiologi-
cal role within living organisms allow us to
anticipate developments on the therapeutic
use of synthetic cannabinoids. For a review of
this subject, see Hanus (2009) and the section
on further reading at the end of the topic.
15.2 Well-established and
Recognized Medicinal Properties
The medicinal properties of cannabis were
exploited as early as 5000
BC
. It was used in
China for a number of indications, including
malarial fever, rheumatic pains, menstrual
pains and constipation. In India, hashish was
used in various forms (
ganjah
,
charras
,
bhang
),
as an antipyretic but also as a hypnotic, for the
treatment of migraines and as an appetite stim-
ulant, applications that are still popular today
among supporters of its use as a therapeutic
agent. For historical reviews of the subject, see
Russo (2007), Frankhauser in EMCDDA
(2008, Vol 1) and Hanus (2009).
15.3 The Pharmacological
Action of Cannabis
Cannabis contains several hundred compo-
nents, of which approximately 60 are derived
from the cannabinoids. Among this chemical
