"Emperor Shen-Nung in China prescribes cannabis for beri-beri, constipation, 'female weakness,' gout, malaria, rheumatism and absentmindedness."
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I.

"Actually, the emperor [Emperor Shen-Nung] turns out to be mythological; Shen is a component of Chinese folk religion, creator of agriculture, and one of the gods most widely worshipped in pre-Revolutionary China. The Treatise on Medicine attributed to Shen was compiled by an early Han dynasty writer, whose sources go back only as far as the fourth century B.C."
1970 Eric Goode, Ph.D. The Marijuana Smokers , Page 13.

In Egypt, cannabis is used to treat sore eyes.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

"A thriving Bronze Age drug trade supplied hashish (cannabis) and opium to ancient cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean as balm for the pain of childbirth and disease, proving a sophisticated knowledge of medicines dating back thousands of years."
8/8/02 Associated Press report of conference on DNA and archaeology in Israel.

Cannabis use begins in India to overcome hunger and thirst by the religious mendicants.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

Bhang, a cannabis preparation (a drink, generally mixed with milk) is used as an anesthetic and anti-phlegmatic in India...

Cannabis begins to be used in India to treat a wide variety of human maladies. The drug is still highly regarded and used by some medical practitioners in India.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

In ancient Greece, cannabis is used as a remedy for earache, edema, and inflammation.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

A Chinese physician, Hoa-Tho, prescribes cannabis as an analgesic in surgical procedures.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

America's first marijuana law is enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia, "ordering" all farmers to "make tryal of" (grow) Indian hemp seed. More mandatory (must-grow) hemp cultivation laws are enacted in Massachusetts in 1631, in Connecticut in 1632 and in the Chesapeake Colonies into the mid-1700s. Cannabis is used primarily for fibers, and it’s medical use is not widely known by the population at large.
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes

The medical book The Anatomy of Melancholy by English clergyman Robert Burton claims cannabis is a treatment for depression.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

Napoleon’s army returns from Egypt with knowledge (and samples) of cannabis. The scientific members of Napoleon’s forces are interested in the drug’s pain relieving and sedative effects.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

William O'Shaughnessy, an Irishman working in the service of the British in India, writes the first modern English medical article on cannabis.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

Work of physicians O’Shaughnessy, Aubert-Roche, and Moreau de Tours draw wide attention to cannabis.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

O’Shaughnessy reports that tetanus could be arrested and cured when treated with extra large doses of cannabis.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

Various marijuana and hashish extracts are the first, second or third most prescribed medicines in the United States from 1842 until the 1890s.
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer  The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

U.S census of 1850 records 8,327 cannabis plantations of over 2,000 acres each.
2002  U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide 

"Medical use of cannabis declines and cannabis begins to lose support of the medical profession as other medications, considered superior to cannabis in their effects and more easily controlled as to dose, come into wide use."
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

"Cannabis loses its image as a medicine and is left with a disreputable image as an intoxicant."
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

John Bell, MD, Boston, reports that the effects of cannabis in control of mental and emotional disorders is superior to the use of “moral discipline” to restrain the mentally ill.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

Smith Brothers of Edinburgh market cannabis indica extracts.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide 

"Moreau de Tours reports several case histories of manic and depressive disorders treated with hashish [cannabis]."
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

The Committee on Cannabis Indica of the Ohio State Medical Society is convened. The Committee reports that their respondents claimed cannabis successfully treated neuralgic pain, dysmenorrhea, uterine hemorrhage, hysteria, delirium tremens, mania, palsy, whooping cough, infantile convulsions, asthma, gonorrhea, nervous rheumatism, chronic bronchitis, muscular spasms, tetanus, epilepsy and appetite stimulation.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

U.S. Pharmacopoeia lists cannabis as a medicine.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

India establishes the India Hemp Commission to examine the question of cannabis use in India. The Commission reports the use of cannabis as an analgesic, a restorer of energy, a hemostat, an ecbolic, and an anti-diarrhetic. Cannabis is also mentioned in the report as an aid in treating hay fever, cholera, dysentery, gonorrhea, diabetes, impotence, urinary incontinence, testicular swelling, granulation of open sores, and chronic ulcers. Other beneficial effects attributed to cannabis are prevention of insomnia, relief of anxiety, protection against cholera, alleviation of hunger and as an aid to concentration of attention.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse - Appendix, Chapter One, Part I

First known use of the name "marijuana" for cannabis, by Pancho Villa's supporters in Sonora, Mexico.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners'Guide

Sir William Osler, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins and later Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, stated in his 1898 discussion of migraine headaches that marijuana "is probably the most satisfactory remedy" for that condition.
2002 The Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy

The Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, forming the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and giving it the power to regulate foods and drugs, and requiring labeling of contents on foods and drugs. The patent medicine industry was demised by this act.
2003 The Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy; 

Utah passes the first U.S. state anti-marijuana law. Mormons who had gone to Mexico in 1910 returned smoking marijuana. The Utah legislature enacted laws outlawing all Mormon religion prohibitions as criminal laws.
2002 The Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy; Drug Law Timeline

The States of Utah, California and Texas outlaw cannabis.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

The Narcotic Drug Import and Export Act is passed by U.S. Congress. It is intended to eliminate use of narcotics except for legitimate medical use.
2002 The Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy; Drug Law Timeline

Canada adds Cannabis to the Schedule of prohibited drugs of the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act.
8/4/03 Drug Sense/MAP 

The States of Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington outlaw cannabis.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

At the Second International Opiates conference, "cannabis is declared a narcotic."
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

The Bureau of Chemistry is reorganized into two separate entities. Regulatory functions are located in the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration, and nonregulatory research is located in the Bureau of Chemistry and soils.
May 3. 1999  U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Backgrounder,

Southwest states in the U.S. make cannabis illegal "as part of a move to oust Mexican immigrants."
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

The U.S. government sponsors the Siler Commission to study the effects of off-duty smoking of marijuana by American servicemen in Panama. The report concludes that marijuana is not a problem and recommends that no criminal penalties apply to its use.
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer The Emperor Wears No Clothes

The Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration is shortened to the Food and Drug Administration.
May 3. 1999 U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Backgrounder, 

Mellon, in his role as President Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, appoints his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to be head of the newly reorganized Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD).
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer  The Emperor Wears No Clothes

The Military Surgeon writes: “Practically all the seed for the present day American hemp culture is grown in the Kentucky River valley. Hemp is found growing wild in the 'slough' district of the Illinois River valley, especially in Tazewell County, where the gathering of the flowering tops is a local industry. The harvest is sold to the pharmaceutical trade. There is no evidence that the smoking of hemp or other abuse respecting this plant is practiced or known to those engaged in this occupation.”
July-December 1933  The Military Surgeon Volume 73 

The FDA recommends a complete revision of the obsolete 1906 Food and Drugs Act. A five-year legal battle is launched in the U.S. Senate.
May 3. 1999  U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Backgrounder,

The drug is used very little in the practice of medicine. It is considered unstable and unreliable and as there are other drugs which can be used to relieve pain and produce sleep the prescribing of this drug for these purposes is falling into disuse.
July-December 1933 The Military Surgeon Volume 73  

"The abolition of slavery following the Civil War put hemp at a competitive disadvantage because its harvest and processing required intensive labor. The industry slowly declined to the brink of extinction as cotton captured the fiber market, but by the mid-1930s new machinery could efficiently extract hemp's fibers from its stalk, and the plant was poised for economic recovery. The February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics hailed it as the 'New Billion-Dollar Crop,' while a concurrent issue of Mechanical Engineering deemed hemp 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop That Can Be Grown.'"
1/18/04 Los Angeles Times - "The Demonized Seed" by Lee Green, 

"In secret U.S. Treasury Department meetings, prohibitive tax laws are drafted and strategies plotted. Marijuana is not banned outright; the law calls for an occupational excise tax upon dealers, and a transfer tax upon dealings in marijuana."
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

Assistant U.S. Surgeon General Walter Treadway told the Cannabis Advisory Subcommittee of the League of Nations that, "It [cannabis] may be taken for a relatively long time without social or emotional breakdown. Marihuana is habit-forming. . . in the same sense as. . . sugar or coffee."
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

"The Hearst newspapers had acquired a taste for sensationalistic headlines and lurid stories about Mexicans and 'marijuana-crazed Negroes' assaulting, raping and murdering whites. It was all nonsense, but Anslinger shamelessly parroted these myths and concocted his own in congressional testimony and in speeches and articles, branding marijuana the 'worst evil of all.' In a 1937 magazine piece titled "Marijuana, the Assassin of Youth," he blamed suicides and "degenerate sex attacks" on the drug.

'Marijuana is the unknown quantity among narcotics,' he wrote. 'No one knows, when he smokes it, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler, a mad insensate, or a murderer.' Prior to such calculated misstatements, few Americans had smoked marijuana. Most had never even heard of it."
1/18/04 Los Angeles Times - "The Demonized Seed" by Lee Green

"After the Supreme Court decision of March 29, 1937, upholding the prohibition of machine guns through taxation, Herman Oliphant made his move. On April 14, 1937 he introduced the bill directly to the House Ways and Means Committee instead of to other appropriate committees such as food and drug, agriculture, textiles, commerce, etc.

His reason may have been that "Ways and Means" is the only committee that can send its bills directly to the House floor without being subject to debate by other committees. Ways and Means Chairman Robert L. Doughton, a key DuPont ally, quickly rubber-stamped the secret Treasury bill and sent it sailing through Congress to the President."
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

"William G. Woodward, M.D., who was both a physician and an attorney for the American Medical Association, testified on behalf of the AMA.

He said, in effect, the entire fabric of federal testimony was tabloid sensationalism! No real testimony had been heard! This law, passed in ignorance, could possibly deny the world a potential medicine, especially now that the medical world was just beginning to find which ingredients in cannabis were active.

Woodward told the committee that the only reason the AMA hadn't come out against the marijuana tax law sooner was that marijuana had been described in the press for 20 years as 'killer weed from Mexico.'

The AMA doctors had just realized 'two days before' these spring 1937 hearings, that the plant Congress intended to outlaw was known medically as cannabis, the benign substance used in America with perfect safety in scores of illnesses for over one hundred years.

'We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman,' Woodward protested, 'why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession, that it was being prepared.' He and the AMA were quickly denounced by Anslinger and the entire congressional committee, and curtly excused."
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

"When the Marijuana Tax Act bill came up for oral report, discussion, and vote on the floor of Congress, only one pertinent question was asked from the floor: "Did anyone consult with the AMA and get their opinion?"

Representative Vinson, answering for the Ways and Means Committee replied, "Yes, we have. A Dr. Wharton [mistaken pronunciation of Woodward?] and the AMA are in complete agreement!"

With this memorable lie, the bill passed, and became law in December 1937."
The Emperor Wears No Clothes 11th edition (November 2000) Jack Herer; Chapter 4.

The Marijuana Tax Act passes and becomes law.
Act of Aug. 2, 1937, Public 238, 75th Congress

"The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is passed. The FDA is given control over drug safety, and the Act establishes a class of drugs available by Prescription."
2003 The Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy

Dr. R.N. Chopra reports that, in India, “hemp drugs are popularly used as household remedies in the amelioration of many minor ailments.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

"Marijuana is officially removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia."
1997 American Medical Association, Report 10 of the Council of Scientific Affairs

Drs. Allentuck and Bowman, in a study of the use of marihuana in the morphine abstinence syndrome, state “The results in general, although still inconclusive, suggest that the marijuana substitution method ameliorated or eliminated (the symptoms) sooner, the patient was in a better frame of mind, his spirits elevated, his physical condition was more rapidly rehabilitated, and he expressed a wish to resume his occupation sooner.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

U.S. Military Surgeon magazine declares that "smoking cannabis is no more harmful than smoking tobacco."
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

New York City Mayor LaGuardia’s Committee on Marihuana studied 56 morphine and heroin addicts at Riker’s Island Penitentiary, N.Y., find-ing “those who received tetrahydrocannabinols had less severe withdrawal symptoms than those who received no treatment or who were treated with Magendie’s solution.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Newsweek Magazine reports "over 100,000 Americans use cannabis."
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide 

To refute the LaGuardia report, the AMA, "at Anslinger's personal request, conducts a 1944-45 study, which reports; 'of the experimental group 34 were negroes and one was white' (for statistical control) who smoked marijuana, became disrespectful of white soldiers and officers in the segregated military."
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

Dr. Douthwaite reports using cannabis hashish “for reducing of anxiety and tension in patients with duodenal ulcer.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

"Testifying before a strongly anti-Communist Congress in 1948 - and thereafter continually to the press - Anslinger proclaims that marijuana renders its users not violent at all, but so peaceful - and pacifistic - that the Communists 'could and would use marijuana to weaken our American fighting men's will to fight.'"
Nov. 2000 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes 

Researchers JP Davis and HH Ramsey report (Fed. Proc. Am. Soc. Exp. Biol. 8: 284) that a clinical trial of five institutionalized epileptic children found that: “Three children - responded at least as well as to previous therapy. Fourth child – almost completely seizure free. Fifth child – entirely seizure free.” Their conclusion was that “the cannabinols herein reported deserve further trial in non-institutionalized epileptics.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Dr. J. Kapelikovi, in his report "Antibacterial Action of Cannabis Indica," concludes that "alcohol extract of cannabis is bacterially effective against many gram-positive and one gram-negative micro-organisms." He also found a paste form of external application successful. According to the report; “from a study of 2,000 herbs by Czechoslovakian scientists it was found that cannabis indica was the most promising in the realm of antibiotics.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Drs. Thompson and Proctor report; “Pyrahexyl (a synthetic cannabis-like drug) and related compounds are beneficial in the treatment of withdrawal symptoms from the use of alcohol to a marked degree, and in the treatment of withdrawal symptoms from the use of opiates to a less marked, but still significant degree.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Pharmacopoeias of India contains descriptions of liquid cannabis extract and tincture, and describes how it is made.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

"In 1957, a Wisconsin farmer harvested the last legal commercial hemp crop in America."
1/18/04 Los Angeles Times - "The Demonized Seed" by Lee Green

Drs. Chopra and Chopra, in their article “The Use of the Cannabis Drugs in India”, state; “with regard to the use of cannabis in Indian indigenous medicine at the present time, it may be said that it was and still is fairly extensively used in both the Ayurvedle (Hindu) and Tibbi (Mohammedan) systems of medicine as an anodyne, hypnotic, analgesic and antispasmodic, and as a remedy for external application to piles. It is also used in the treatment of dysmennorhoea, rheumatism, chronic diarrhea of the sprue type, gonorrhea, malaria and mental diseases on the advice of itinerant practitioners of indigenous medicine as well as quacks who roam about the country. For medicinal purposes the drug is administered by mouth and hardly ever by smoking.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

In the Czech publication of Pharmacie, Dr. Krejci reports that he extracted a chemical from the cannabis plant that had “antibiotic properties.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Kabelik also notes; “In human therapy the best results have been obtained with the following medicaments combined with substances derived from cannabis: dusting powder together with boric acid, ointment, ear drops, alcohol solutions with glycerine, aqueous emulsions, dentin powder. The preparations mentioned above have been already tested clinically, and will eventually be made available for production.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Dr. Krejci reports in another Czech publication that he had obtained “two additional samples [from cannabis] with antibiotic activity.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

The U.N. Treaty 406 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed, which seeks to outlaw cannabis use and cannabis cultivation worldwide, and "eradicate cannabis smoking within 30 years." The U.S. representative is Anslinger.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

President John F. Kennedy, who uses cannabis as a pain relief, fires Anslinger.
2002 U.K. Cannabis Campaigners' Guide

H.B.M Murphy, M.D. PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, reports on cannabis investigations in Eastern Europe, stating “it is alleged to be active against gram positive organisms at 1/100,000 dilution, but to be largely inactivated by plasma, so that prospects for its use appear to be confined to E.N.T. (ear, nose and throat) and skin infections.”
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, Lionel Jacobson Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the first to identify delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as the most active compound in cannabis.
2/11/02 U.S. Hempfood Association 

An article of Medical News, “Cardiac Glycocides” suggests cannabis as treatment for a specific form of malignancy.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Pharmacopoeias of India contain descriptions of liquid cannabis extract and tincture, and describes how it is made.
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

A report by a London Advisory Committee suggests that "cannabis treats the symptoms and not the cause by focusing the user’s attention on his anxieties and pains without helping to resolve them."
1972 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse