Marijuana and I – Personal Discovery
June 25th, 2009
Cannabis plant
“My introduction to marijuana”
One afternoon, after work, my group of young engineers decided to spend the evening at the beach. After a few rounds of beer, somebody suggested to switch gear by smoking marijuana. Being the senior engineer, my permission was sought for and I acceded on two conditions: first, I don’t take it and, second, they have to contend with me if they do something foolish. That’s how I get to know of “shotgun.”
Fast forward several years later, I met a Canadian woman in a corner beer stand in Bangkok, Thailand. After a round of beer we went to a disco where the question of “my place or yours” immediately came up. Too giddy with lust and alcohol (a bad mixture), we went to her place. After a quick shower, she inserted a tape into her VCR, shoved me onto an air mattress, then she squatted on the floor and started smoking marijuana. The acrid smell made me sick, I didn’t know what was shown from the VCR and I slept like a babe. I woke up at the break of dawn to find out I was in a place where Bangkok characters practically crawl out from the cracks of the walls around me.
Discovering marijuana:
Recently I received an article from a friend in Australia of a study about the relationship of marijuana use and the increased incidence of TGCT (testicular germ cell tumor) Finding it funny that what can make a person go “high” can cause much problem “below,” I surfed for the subject and found it to be of great interest and value.
Marijuana (marihuana or ganja in Sanskrit) refers to any number of preparations of the cannabis plant intended for human consumption as a drug, the most common form of which is the natural herbal form – taken from mature female flowers or sub-tending leaves of the pistillate (female) plants.
Derivates of marijuana include hashish, a concentrated resin taken from the heated glandular trichomes or hairy part of the plant; kief, a Moroccan version of hashish and hash or honey oil, extracted from the cannabis plant through various solvents.
Marijuana consumption:
The use of marijuana pre-dates history. In the 20th century, it has seen an increase in consumption for recreational, religious or spiritual and medicinal purposes. It is estimated that four percent (162 million) of the world’s adult population use cannabis annually and 0.6 percent (22.5 million) daily.
Today recreational use of marijuana in the western world drives a sizable demand for the drug that in the U.S. an estimated $36 billion a year is generated from it as a cash crop.
In the Philippines, marijuana appears in the news with amazing regularity with hectares of the plant being uprooted and burned by police authorities. More amazing, however is for them never to have apprehended any of the farmers responsible for planting them. Of course, what appears in the paper is just the tip of the ice-berg. What lies beneath is larger and goes to the illicit drug trade.
History of marijuana:
Pre-historic use of marijuana is evidenced by charred cannabis seeds, dated as far back as the 3rd millennium BC, in a ritual brazier in what is now Romania. And the most famous users of cannabis were the ancient Hindus of India and Nepal.
Ancient Assyrians discovered its psychoactive properties through the Aryans, and they used it in some religious ceremonies. The shamans of the Thracians/Dacians and the Scythians burned cannabis flowers to induce a state of trance.
In 2003, a leather basket filled with cannabis leaf fragments and seeds was found next to a 2,500 to 2,800 year-old mummified shaman in the northeastern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.
One writer claims that cannabis was used as a religious sacrament by ancient Jews and Christians due to the similarity between the Hebrew word qunnabbos (cannabis) and the Hebrew phrase qene’ bo’sem (aromatic cane). It was used by Muslims in various Sufi orders as early as the Mamluk period (1215 to 1570).
Method of consumption and health issues:
Cannabis can be consumed in different ways. It can be inhaled through its smoke from an ignited plant or it can be administered orally. Because of ease, the former is more popular than the latter.
Smoking cannabis can also be done through screened bowls, bongs, paper-wrapped joints and cigar-leaf-wrapped blunts.
It can be taken through a vaporizer and can be leached in high-proof spirits (grain alcohol) to create a tincture called “Green Dragon.”
It can be consumed by first dissolving its active components in a fat such as milk, cream, or butter, and then mixed with hot water to make cannabis tea.
Of the above, smoking is the most harmful method of consumption since the inhalation of smoke from organic materials such as cannabis, tobacco, and rolling papers pause various health problems.
A 2007 study by the Canadian government found that cannabis smoke has more toxic substances than tobacco smoke. It has 20 times more ammonia and five times more hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxide.
Medical properties of cannabis:
The active chemical of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is used as a treatment for a wide range of medical conditions. Though the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) has not approved “medical marijuana,” it acknowledges that there has been considerable interest in its use for treating glaucoma, AIDS wasting, neuropathic pain, treatment of spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis and chemotherapy-induced nausea.
Western Europe, including the Netherlands, however has not approved smoked cannabis for any condition or disease.
In a collection of writings by 45 researchers, marijuana was found to be good in easing nausea and vomiting, anorexia and weight loss, treatment of spasticity, neorogenic pain, movement disorders, asthma and glaucoma. Less-confirmed treatments include that of treating allergies, inflammation, infection, epilepsy, depression, bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, dependency and withdrawal.
Effects of cannabis:
A minimum amount of 10 micrograms per kilogram of body weight can have psychoactive and physiological effects on a person. Aside from a subjective change in perception, the most common short-term psychical and neurological effects are increased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, impairment of psychomotor coordination, concentration and short-term episodic, working memory loss. The long-terms effects are less clear.
Cannabis and religion:
Wandering Hindu spiritual sadhus have been using cannabis for centuries and the modern-day Rastafari movement has embraced it as a sacrament. Elders of the Ethiopian Zion Church consider it to be the Eucharist (they don’t have any ties with Ethiopia or the Coptic Church though).
Some modern Gnostic Christian sects have asserted that cannabis is the Tree of Life and 20th century organized religions like the THC Ministry, the Way of Infinite Harmony, Cantheism, Cannabis Assembly and the Church of Cognizance treat cannabis as a sacrament.
Must be very interesting to observe them celebrate their masses.
Cannabis as a truth serum:
In the 1940s, the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of what is now the CIA, found cannabis an effective truth drug.
In the Philippines where truth always has three sides, i.e., my truth, his truth and the “I don’t care” truth of the majority, it would be nice to use cannabis abundantly to arrive at the real truth. That it is in psychedelic colors is a bonus. (sourced from Wikipedia)
