Australia legalised the use of medical cannabis on the 24th of February, 2016, joining dozens other countries to embrace the medical properties of cannabis.
Today, Australia’s Office of Drug Control (ODC) and Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) consider medical cannabis to be a developing medicine – but is it really so new? In this article, we want to give a brief overview of the known history of medical cannabis.
Origins of medical cannabis
While we may never know the true origin of medical cannabis, it’s first recorded use occurred 10,000 years ago in Taiwan, according to botanist Hui-Lin Li. Humans have been eating cannabis seeds since ancient times, meaning they likely understood it had some calming effects.
Cannabis got it’s first celebrity endorsement in 2900 BC when Chinese Emperor, Fu Hsi, described Ma (the Chinese word for cannabis) as a popular medicine with both yin and yang properties.
Medical cannabis then appeared in a Chinese textbook in 2737 BC, with Emperor/Pharmacologist, Shen-Nung, recommending cannabis as a treatment for gout, constipation and rheumatism. From then on, cannabis became one of 50 fundamental Chinese medicine herbs.
Cannabis then appeared in 1550 BC in Egypt’s Ebers Papyrus, where it’s referenced as a treatment for inflammation, glaucoma, and uterus pain. Cannabis is also found on the mummy of Ramesses II, who died in 1213 BC.
We then see cannabis oil referenced in the second book of the bible – the Book of Exodus. In this instance, cannabis (called ‘Kaneh-Bosm’ in Hebrew) appears as a part of a “holy anointing oil” in 30:22-23. Historians estimate this would have occurred around 1450 BC.
Cannabis then appeared in India around 1000 BC, where it was mixed with milk and turned into Bhang. Cannabis’s psychoactive components were likely known at this point, as it was used as an anesthetic, an anti-phlegmatic, and a leprosy cure.
Ancient Greece embraced cannabis around 200 BC, where it was used as a treatment for inflammation, earaches, and edema. Interestingly, Ancient Greeks used cannabis on their horses as well as humans.
Cannabis in Australia
Medical cannabis was introduced into Western medicine by Irish Doctor, William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, in 1842. O’Shaughnessy discovered cannabis’s impact on pain while on a trip to India in the 1830s.
Medical cannabis was then embraced by the United States Pharmacopeia in 1851, but it was quickly overshadowed by opioids. While cannabis was used for medical purposes in Australia, the importation of the drug was prohibited by the Commonwealth in 1926.
From 1926 to 1959, each state progressively banned the medical and recreational use of cannabis during a reefer-madness frenzy.
Read this to discover the true reason Australia outlawed cannabis in the 20th Century.
