This essay explores the nature of cannabis as resource and medicine. Part One examines the cannabis-human relationship and the nature of co-evolution. Part Two looks at the historical use of cannabis for fuel and fiber, early uses in ritual contexts, and associated myths. Part Three investigates the medical uses of cannabis in Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and Homeopathy, while also examining modern issues of indoor vs. outdoor cultivation, sativa vs. indica, flower vs. concentrates, and the value of terpenes. In Part Four, we conclude by examining cannabis in a spiritual context with caveats and cautions from modern spiritual masters. Cannabis is a paradoxical plant and this quality is reflected in the contradictory perspectives encountered in this essay. My hope is to provide a broader context for understanding cannabis, culturally and medically, so we can approach it consciously and intelligently. The contents of this essay are for educational purposes only, those seeking medical advice should consult their physician.
I. Cannabis and Humanity
Fire and flower are the archetypal basis of civilization. We are domesticated by fire, and we domesticated flower. Our vitality is projected into the flame of nature, held in our navel, crafted in our hands. The green fuse is the fire in the flower, the blossom held in the eye of forms. We keep the fire and fertilize the flower, until it feeds us again and again. Flower is the archetype of all materia medica, the upward growth and shooting nectar of nature’s body-form. Fire is the archetype of all change, the horizontal center of ingestion and change, the cauldron that renders toxin into medicine. Fire is the medicatrix, flower is the medicant.
Medicine began in nature, with fire at side, flower in hand. Therapy began with cooking, the intentional fire, the sacrifice for power, the extraction of essence. It has never been the thing-in-itself that we are after, not noumenon but phenomenon. The medicant is not a thing, but an emergence. Thus, medicine has no objectivity, even while it apprehends a world of forms for its uses. The meaning of the medicant is its spontaneity, its reflection of time and place, of climate and season, of substance and quality. We need the medicant born of fire, living in the medicatrix. If medicine began in nature, then its sacrament is visionary. Our substance is a metaphor we ingest, an image we imbibe, an archetype we inhabit.
Human beings have co-evolved with fire and flower. Our bodies are forged by fire, our mind altered by flower. Co-evolution is a biological concept that describes reciprocal evolutionary changes engendered via interspecies relationships. According to ethnobotanists, humans and cannabis have co-evolved over millions of years. One aspect of the human-cannabis relationship becomes obvious when we examine the active constituents of cannabis: cannabinoids. Cannabis and mammals are the only species in the natural world that produce cannabinoids. The cannabinoids produced by cannabis are termed phytocannabinoids while the cannabinoids produced by mammals are termed endocannabinoids. Cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2) pervade the human nervous system, connective tissue, glands, and organs? A receptor is, as the name implies, an interfacing mechanism. Cannabinoid receptors do not exist merely for endocannabinoids—they lock-and-key with phytocannabinoids.
Cannabis is the primeval flower emerging at the red dawn of civilization. Thus, it becomes impossible to speak of cannabis in isolation, as object, as substance, as thing-in-itself. We can only seek to understand the human-cannabis relationship, historically and presently. The origins of cannabis have been placed in the general region of Central Asia, but in the recent publication of Cannabis in Asia (2019), the authors present fossil and archaeobotanical evidence for cannabis in the Tibetan Plateau, roughly 28 million years ago.1 We know that cannabis originated in the old world a long time ago, and that humans have been interacting with it all the while. Today, we can hardly see cannabis for what it is—it hides in politics and stigma. Drug, that awful pejorative, a useless substance that only addicts its user to the empty and shallow habit of high and low. The only acceptable drug is the one produced and prescribed, the consumable official “medicine”, socio-politically acceptable, but which too often leaves us withered and empty.
We have to deal with the question head-on: is cannabis a drug? It depends on what we mean by drug. If we mean drug pejoratively, as in “narcotic”, then no, cannabis is not a drug. If we mean a substance with observable physiological effects, then yes, cannabis is a drug. “Drug” ultimately fails us as an apt definition of cannabis. Is a drug any substance with an effect or is a drug defined by its medicinal effect? Where do we draw the line between medicinal effect and toxic effect? What is medicinal in one moment can easily toxify in another, depending on who is ingesting it, why they are ingesting it, and in what dose they are ingesting it. The Greek word, pharmakon, is more suitable for our purposes. Pharmakon means “remedy, poison, and scapegoat”. Within pharmakon is the union of contradictory realities—substances are not classifiable into binary categories of medicine or poison, and the most powerful medicinal substances are poisonous. Cannabis is nectar, poison, and scapegoat—it provides, it toxifies, and it endures the stigmas alloyed upon it.
Nature has become anathema. We cannot take nature as a whole, we only want plants for what we can isolate from them. We would rather re-create and chemically synthesize in white laboratories what is naturally made in the fires of the Earth, for profits and patents. Even while cannabis remains federally illegal in the United States, it holds pharmaceutical interest and synthetic cannabinoid medicines are already being produced. Doctors can give these chemical pills to their patients without concern, but if a doctor handed them a joint to smoke, they become deceivers and drug dealers, the serpent in the garden again, bringing our Eden to ruin. We cannot accept what nature gives—we are its takers, weapon in hand. We repress what we cannot understand, and the legal history of cannabis in the United States is inextricable from racism. “Reefer madness” is prejudice in another guise, xenophobia in another context, racism masked as anti-drug propaganda. We ban nature in order to control it, to divide it into jurisdictions, provinces, contexts of appropriateness, legality, and criminality. In all of this, we are Prometheus with stolen fire in hand, forever guilty of our crimes.
The trouble with cannabis is its mind-altering effects. Cannabis can lift our mood, clear the clouds of angst, and re-ignite our creative instincts—effects that are viewed by the establishment as nothing more than intoxication. The root of intoxication is the medieval Latin intoxicare, “to poison”. Why does culture view euphoria as pathological and toxic? And what exactly is sobriety? Are we prejudiced against sobriety or against changes in consciousness? Why can’t we not be sober? The yogis, saints, and sages have spoken of religious and spiritual life in ecstatic language. Sufi poets compare their exalted states of being to a state of drunkenness. Spiritual life is also anathema, unless it is sold as a “New Age”—no drink, only water. But we are not only washed in the purity of water, we are also baptized by fire.
Fire is the maker of change, its flowery fusion is an opus contra naturum. Fire is the determining principle. In Āyurveda and Tibetan medicine, mercury is regarded as the poison of poisons. Fire transforms poison into nectar; fire burns the poisonous mercury to an ashen state of nectarous purity. Therefore, once mercury has been alchemically transformed, it becomes the king of medicines. We take the gift of the gods and we offer it back to them in a ritual fire, our soma thrown into the agni, our consciousness transformed into ecstasy. Thus, the question is not of substance, but of fire and its use.
II. Fuel and Flower
When we think of cannabis, we mostly think of its psychoactive inflorescences. Yet, not all cannabis is psychoactive. Cannabis has been used historically as a multi-purpose and renewable resource, at once fiber and food, fuel and flower.
Cannabis was among our earliest cultivated plants, and for centuries it ranked as one of our most important agricultural crops. For more than 7,000 years, Cannabis was utilized to produce necessities of life such as fiber, fabric, food, lighting oil, and medicine, and it has become one of the most widely cultivated plants in the world.2
In Cannabis, Clarke and Merlin explore an ethnobotanical perspective of cannabis, noting its varied use throughout time and across cultures. All parts of the cannabis plant were utilized as a resource: the stalk provides fiber for fabric and rope, the seeds provide oil, and the flowers provide medicine. Cannabis has been used throughout Eurasia for its psychoactive properties, for ritual and recreation. But Clarke and Merlin also note the extensive use of non-psychoactive cannabis in shamanic rituals across the Eurasian continent:
Hemp smoke is still used among some cultures to fumigate and purify, hemp cordage is used by some to tie and protect souls, hemp cloth provides a bridge or gateway for the spirits during some healing practices, and hemp clothing is still used as the final attire of the corpse piety in some areas of the world.3
Such non-psychoactive ritual uses of cannabis suggest a larger relevance for the plant beyond its effects. Cannabis as provider is an archetype of sustenance, a symbol of the Great Mother. Cannabis is soma, the flower in the fire, a rope between worlds, a smoke offering to the gods. The search for soma is in vain, as there is no single plant that is the soma of the Vedas. The Vedic concept of soma is an archetype of essence and sustenance. There may not be a single soma plant, but many plants and substances are soma-genic. Cannabis is similar to the cow whose milk provides butter and ghee and whose dung provides fuel and dwelling. The Vedic fire-ritual requires the cow’s dung for its fuel, and the cow’s essences for its offerings. Cannabis and cow are both soma—they provide the essential material for the ritual offering, the fuse for the fire.
Cannabis as Herb and Deity
“The essence of all beings is Earth. The essence of the Earth is Water. The essence of Water is plants. The essence of plants is the human being”. (Chandogya Upanishad 1.1.2)
In Indian culture, plants are seen as the dwelling places of gods and goddesses. These deities are the spirit of the plant, the archetype living within it, the symbol communicated by it. In Ayurvedic medicine, such “divine plants” are known as divyauṣadhi. Divya means “sacred” or “divine”, and oṣadhi means “herb” or “plant”. Some variants include oṣadhīśa, meaning “Moon”, the celestial ruler of the plant kingdom, and oṣadhihomna, meaning “a kind of oblation”. These linguistic connotations reveal the Indian view of plants as medicine (herb), as conduits of lunar energy (Moon), and as ritual offerings (oblation). The Moon is known as soma because it governs fluids—the ebb and flow of the ocean tides, the sap and juice of plants, the nectar and resin of flowers. In The Yoga of Herbs, Lad and Frawley offer another interpretation of oṣadhi:
The Sanskrit word for the plant osadhi means literally a receptacle or mind, dhi, in which there is burning transformation, osa.4
This definition adopts an alchemical view of plants as receptacles of cosmic energies that likewise feed an inner fire when taken internally. We do not merely ingest plants then, we offer them to the agni within, feeding the fire of vitality. If plants are alchemical agents of “burning transformation”, then they can all be understood as being psychoactive. “Psychoactive” simply means “affecting the mind”. In Asian medical systems, herbs are viewed as therapeutic catalysts for the body and mind, not one or the other. Some herbs have a stronger affinity for the mind and are employed for that purpose, but the scope of their affect remains holistic and comprehensive. What do we mean then, when we differentiate psychoactive and non-psychoactive? What makes cannabis different than tulsi?
In myth, tulsi is regarded as an earthly manifestation of the goddess by the same name. The goddess, Tulsi, is regarded as an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu. Similar to cannabis, every part of the tulsi plant is used. Its leaves are offered in ritual worship and it is traditionally planted in the center of a courtyard. As a deified plant, tulsi is regarded as a guardian, a provider and a protector. She guards against evil spirits, clears the air of pollutants, and emanates a sāttvic quality. Indians often grow tulsi indoors for these reasons as well.
Cannabis is associated with the goddess Kālī and the god Śiva, the wrathful deities of alchemical transformation. Cannabis gains association with Śiva through a variation of the Purānic myth of “churning the ocean” (samudra manthana):
In a Vedic account, the celestial nectar Amrita was produced when the gods and demons caused Mount Mandara to churn the primordial Sea of Milk. When something was needed to purify the nectar, Shiva created bhang (Cannabis) from his own body.5
On the holy day of Śivarātri (“the night of Śiva”), devotees celebrate and worship lord Śiva by consuming bhang, a psychoactive drink made from cannabis. Śiva is the archetype of transformation—he is the one who holds the poison in his throat without becoming poisoned. Similarly, his devotees consume cannabis as a devotional sublimation that transforms its earthly poison into divine nectar.
As Kālī, cannabis becomes the destructive goddess, a necklace of skulls strung around her neck, her teeth gnashing with blood, her feet standing on the chest of Śiva. Kālī symbolizes the death of the ego and the birth of spirituality. The forbidden fruit is a serpentine whisper, waiting for communion.
However, cannabis is not only Kālī—cannabis holds the archetype of the Goddess in all her forms. The male cannabis plant has no psychoactive properties, it is only the female flowers that are psychoactive. Thus, the Goddess becomes the archetype of “intoxication”. While we can divide cannabis plants into male and female, we also need to note the plant’s hermaphroditic tendencies. A cannabis plant can produce male pollen and female flowers at the same time. The hermaphrodite is an archetype of great psychological importance. Jung considers the hermaphrodite “a unifying symbol” that “expresses wholeness”, the hermaphrodite “is an image of the archetype of the ‘self’”. As a union of opposites, cannabis is an image of the prima materia, the undifferentiated substance which is refined into the nectar of immortality. Jung writes that the hermaphrodite “is composed of opposites and is at the same time the uniting symbol . . . It is on the one hand a fatal poison . . . on the other a panacea and a saviour”.6
We find all of these statements to be simultaneously true about cannabis: it is poison and panacea, god and goddess, giver and destroyer, devil and savior. Earlier we saw how tulsi was regarded as a guardian plant, and the same recognition is given to cannabis in the Hindu tradition:
To the Hindu the hemp plant is holy. A guardian lives in the bhang leaf . . . so the properties of the bhang plant, its powers to suppress the appetites,7 its virtue as a febrifuge, and its thought-bracing qualities show that the bhang leaf is the home of the great Yogi or brooding ascetic Mahadev [Śiva].8
III. Cannabis and Medicine: Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and Homeopathy
Cannabis is featured in the pharmacopeia of India, Tibet, and China, where it is largely employed in the context of herbal formulas rather than as a single herb. This fact is an oft-repeated caveat from practitioners who cast a critical eye toward the modern use of cannabis as a single herb. The function of an herbal formula is to create a synergy of effects, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Formulas have internal compensations, where one herb counteracts the undesirable effect of another herb. Formula architecture is given detailed consideration, where each formula is comprised of a hierarchy of ingredients, often described in an imperial metaphor of king, queen, and minister herbs.
While Tibetan and Chinese herbal traditions rely heavily on formulas, Ayurveda frequently utilizes single herbs. An Ayurvedic practitioner may prescribe ashwagandha, tulsi, guduchi, or amla entirely on their own. Herbs that are classified as rejuvenatives (rasāyana) are commonly prescribed as single herbs. For example, shilajit (mineral pitch) is used in herbal formulas but it is more frequently prescribed as a single remedy, usually in liquid form. Rejuvenatives are rich substances that function effectively on their own, without negative side-effects.
Cannabis in Ayurveda
Cannabis is first mentioned in the Atharva Veda, a text dated between 500 CE - 1600 BCE. Cannabis is referred to as bhanga and is described as having anxiolytic effects. Cannabis is mentioned again in the Suśruta Samhita (ca. 800 CE) as a cure for mucus accompanied with diarrhea and biliary fever. The medical benefits of cannabis are mentioned in a number of later texts, including Dhanwantari nighantu, Sharagandhara Samhita, Madanapala nihagntu, Rajanighantu, Dhurtasamagama, and Bhavprakash. In folk medicine, cannabis has been used to increase endurance amidst physical labor. “For centuries, Indian foot bearers transporting goods high into the Himalaya Mountains have relied on Cannabis to relieve fatigue”.9 Cannabis juice is used to remove dandruff and parasites from hair, to alleviate earaches, and in the treatment of constipation / diarrhea. “Other significant applications include its use for relieving headaches, acute mania, whooping cough, asthma, and insomnia”. Cannabis was used by the Meena and Garasia tribal groups in the form of a paste made from cannabis leaves, applied topically on bleeding hemorrhoids.
In Ayurveda, cannabis is valued for its ability to expel negative spiritual influences. These effects are typically discussed in the context of “fever” which includes physical fevers but also “angry influences”. “If a person stricken with fever poured bhang on a Shiva lingam, ‘he was pleased, his breath cooled, and the portion of the breath in the body of the sufferer ceased to cause fever”.10 Visions of cannabis in dreams is considered an auspicious omen:
To see in a dream the leaves, plant, or water of bhang is lucky; it brings the goddess of wealth into the dreamer’s power. To see his parents worship the bhang-plant and pour bhang over Shiva’s lingam will cure the dreamer of fever. A longing for bhang foretells happiness; to see bhang drunk increases riches. No good thing can come to the man who treads under foot the holy bhang leaf.11
Cannabis is viewed as the “penicillin of Ayurvedic medicine” and has long been regarded as a panacea in India. In the Himalayan region, there is a “widespread belief . . . that a concoction of young Cannabis leaf powder and honey keeps youth, vitality and virility”. In Nepal, cannabis leaf juice is used to “heal wounds, control bleeding, and relieve stomachaches, while leaves are smoked and taken internally to relieve discomfort and inflammation”. In Nepali folk medicine, cannabis was mixed with sweets and given to children in order to sedate a child—cannabis “keeps him less active and less likely to get into trouble while [the mother] is occupied in other ways”. The pediatric use of cannabis in Nepal has been compared to the use of opium extracts for the same purpose in America: “The use of hashish is quite parallel to the use of opiates in soothing syrups given to fretful or teething babies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America”.12 In Bhutan, cannabis grows in the wild and can be found growing in common areas. However, in Bhutanese culture, people do not smoke cannabis, they feed it to their pigs!13
In Nadkarni’s Indian Materia Medica, cannabis is given a thorough entry with an Ayurvedic classification and a scientific description of its constituents. The entry is listed under “Cannabis Sativa” and begins with a list of Sanskrit names for the plant: vijaya, siddhapatri, ganjika, bhanga, etc. The text describes the native habitat of cannabis as “Persia, Western and Central Asia”, noting that it is “now cultivated all over India and is found on the Western Himalayas from Kashmir to east of Assam”.14 The text states that cannabis achieves its “highest therapeutic power when grown in tropical or sub-tropical climates” where resin production is maximized.
This brings us to another modern conundrum: cannabis is mostly cultivated indoors. The ability of the plant to thrive in a wide variety of growing conditions around the world, including indoors, is a testament to its adaptogenic qualities. In Asian herbal traditions, much attention is given to where an herb is grown, its climate, its location, with planting and harvest cycles astrologically determined. Indoor cannabis benefits the grower by creating a controlled environment of growth that is not dependent upon seasonal cycles and that is largely free of pests. Indoor flower can be produced year-round and at will. In the world of recreational cannabis, indoor flower is regarded as superior quality, because the buds appear “perfect”. Craft cannabis is an indoor game. However, from a medical standpoint, outdoor-grown cannabis is far superior because it has grown under the sun, moon, and stars, rather than behind walls and under artificial lights. Even more, a medical view would give relevance to the grower’s consciousness as an influence. The legalization of cannabis in twenty-four States has at least partially released cannabis from prohibition, but it has also recognized cannabis as a cash crop, farming as a profession, and dispensaries as a business.
The text continues to describe the “action and uses in Ayurveda and Siddha” as follows (translation in parenthesis is mine): tikta rasam (bitter taste); ushna veeryam (heating potency); lagu (light); tikshanam (sharp); pachanam (digestive); produces pittam (bile); sukra sthambanam (restrains semen); aphrodisiac; grahi (absorbing fluids), grahani (preventing dysentery).15 The text stops short of a doshic analysis, but the bitter taste and heating potency along with light, sharp, digestive, and bile-promoting qualities tell us that cannabis primarily increases pitta, secondarily increases vāta, and reduces kapha. This means cannabis can be used therapeutically in cases of pitta deficiency / kapha excess. If cannabis is prescribed in the proper dosage, at the right time, and for an appropriate duration, then aforementioned conditions / patterns can be helped. However, if cannabis is mis-used, taken in too high of a dosage, or for too long a period, then these conditions / patterns will manifest even if they were absent prior to use.
Returning to the text, the final section describes the uses of cannabis in detail, differentiating between the drink, flowers, leaves, and resin:
Bhang and ganja are prescribed by Hakims and Vaidyas in bowel complaints and recommended as appetisers, as nervous stimulants and as a source of great staying-power under severe exertion or fatigue. Leaves make a good snuff for deterging the brain; their juice applied to the head removes dandruff and vermin; dropped into the ear it allays pain and destroys worms; it checks the discharge of diarrhoea and gonorrhoea. Powder of the leaves applied to fresh wounds promotes granulation; a poultice of the plant is applied to local inflammations, erysipelas, neuralgia, haemorrhoids, etc., as an anodyne or sedative . . . The concentrated resin exudate extracted from the leaves and flowering tops . . . is used to produce sleep in cases of sleeplesness, in which opium is contraindicated; it is valuable in preventing and curing sick-headaches, neuralgias, migraine (malarial and periodical), valuable in acute mania, whooping cough, asthma, dysuria and in relieving pain in dysmenorrheoea and menorrhagia and pain of the last stages of phthisis; it increases appetite. It does not produce loss of appetite or constipation like opium.16
Cannabis is also mentioned in the sixteenth-century Ayurvedic classic on herbal medicine, Bhavaprakasha, where it is listed as bhangā in an entry preceding opium. The entry is very brief and notes the following:
Bhanga removes kapha, bitter in taste, water absorbent, digestant and is light in action. It is penetrating and heat generating. It enhances Pitta, causes a state of semiunconsciousness and drowsiness, induces delirium, increases appetite.17
This passage is so similar to Nadkarni’s description that we can be certain he referenced Bhavaprakash. The text notes that cannabis powder is used as an astringent in a dosage of 250-500mg and that the juice or powder is used with aphrodisiacs for “mood elevation”. The text concludes with a commentary from the translator, Dr. Bulusu Sitaram:
The drug Bhānga entered the Ayurvedic field in around 11th cent, A.D. This drug is available in the market in three forms depending upon the part of the plant concerned. The first form Charas is a resinous substance that is collected in the early hours of the day. The second one gāñjā is the female inflorescence from the cultivated varieties. Bhāng is the collection of leaves from both male and female plants.18
In Ayurveda, cannabis is prepared and administered as a medicinal ghee. When cannabis is cooked with ghee, it is “purified” of its toxic qualities. Ayurveda favors the edible form over smoking, because when a substance passes through the digestive system, it is subjected to the body’s fire, and thus purified. Smoking bypasses the digestive system and is looked upon less favorably. Medicated ghee helps counteract the drying effects of cannabis, qualities which are exacerbated by smoking. However, edible cannabis is difficult to dose, and its effects vary greatly per individual metabolism. The Ayurvedic purification of cannabis into medical ghee is described by an Irishman, William O’Shaughnessy, after observing a practitioner named Ameer performing the procedure in Kolkata:
Four onces of siddhi [bhang] and an equal quantity of ghee are placed in an earthen or well-tinned vessel, a pint of cold water added, and the whole warmed over a charcoal fire. The mixture is constantly stirred until the water all boils away, which is known by the crackling noise of the melted butter on the sides of the vessel. The mixture is then removed from the fire, squeezed through cloth while hot, by which an oleagnious solution of the active principals and coloring matter of the hemp is obtained; and the leaves, fibers, etc., remaining on the cloth are thrown away. The green ouly solution soon concretes into a buttery mass and is then well washed by the hand with soft water, so long as the water becomes colored. The coloring matter and an extractive substance are thus removed and a very pale green mass, of the consistenty of simple ointment, remains. The washings are thrown away; Ameer says that these are intoxicating, and produce constriction of the throat, great pain and very disagreeable and dangerous symptoms.19
Cannabis in Chinese Medicine
In Chinese medicine, cannabis is known either as ma, mafen, or mabo. Textual references are ambiguous in terms of which part of the plant is being discussed. Mafen is interpreted to mean female cannabis flowers, and is the reference used in a passage from the Divine Farmer’s Classic of Materia Medica:
Flavor: acrid; balanced. Governs the five taxations and seven damages, benefits the five viscera, and descends blood and cold qi; excessive consumption causes one to see ghosts and run about frenetically. Prolonged consumption frees the spirit light and lightens the body. Another name is mabo.20
In Chinese herbal medicine, the acrid taste benefits circulation of qi and blood, but overuse of acrid substances results in dryness. Cannabis is not only acrid, but “balanced”, meaning that it also secondarily contains the other four tastes. The “five taxations” refer to pathologies caused by overwork: excessive use of the eyes injures blood, excessive lying down injures qi, excessive sitting injures flesh, excessive standing injures the bones, and excessive walking injures the sinews. The seven damages refer to the injurious effects of the seven emotions: grief, melancholy, fear, fright, anger, joy, and worry. The action of descending blood and cold qi is another way of describing free-flow of blood and qi. “Cold” naturally descends, but when it fails to descend it stagnates in a channel or invades an organ. If cold qi is helped to descend, then cold can be eliminated. The comment about excessive consumption causing hallucinations and uncontrolled behavior suggests psychoactivity and resultant mania. However, this concern seems alleviated by the idea of “prolonged consumption” which “frees the spirit light” and “lightens the body”, a comment seeming to reference Daoist alchemy.
The Divine Farmer’s Classic lists cannabis as a “first class” drug, which are non-toxic. Clarke and Merlin state that “no matter how much [first class drugs] were utilized they were believed to be harmless”. Ma fen is described in this text as a powdered preparation of female cannabis flowers, thought by the Chinese “to contain the greatest amount of yin energy”. Clarke and Merlin write that ma fen was prescribed for “loss of yin, such as in menstrual fatigue, rheumatism, malaria, beri-beri, constipation, and absentmindedness”.21
In the sixth century text, Collection of Commentaries on the Classic of the Materia Medica (Ben Cao Jing Ji Zhu), the author notes: “adepts take cannabis flower (mabo) with ginseng and know of things that have not yet come”. An adept is an alchemist, suggesting that Daoist alchemists used cannabis for divinatory purposes and/or clairvoyance. This text also describes cannabis to “relieve impediment”, a reference to “painful obstruction” (or bi) disorders which roughly correlate to arthritic conditions.
In the seventh century text, Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold by Sun Si-miao, cannabis is indicated in the treatment of “wind-withdrawal”, a traditional category of disease that encompasses mental illness and epilepsy. The seventeenth century text, Reaching the Source of Materia Medica (Ben Jing Feng Yuan) lists cannabis flower (mahua) as a treatment for itching, to expel pathological wind and blood, and for menstrual disorders due to stagnation.
Dr. Leon Hammer was a psychiatrist and acupuncturist who wrote about the connections between cannabis use and Liver pathologies, specifically Liver yang deficiency, Liver qi deficiency, and the separation of Liver yin and yang.22 This suggests that the main action of cannabis is upon the Liver. In Ayurveda, pitta means “bile” and its humoral seat is in the Liver. Thus, we can see how cannabis has an affinity with the Liver—humorally as pitta and pathologically through Liver deficiency patterns. Perhaps the most obvious sign of the cannabis-Liver relationship is the classic symptom of the “munchies”. The munchies are signaled by a marked increase in appetite, especially with a desire for fatty foods, owing to increased bile production and flow. However, if cannabis is the only impetus for this flow, then when its influence is absent, stagnation results: stimulus ends in deficiency. Cannabis temporarily smooths the Liver qi resulting in a free-flowing feeling of relaxation, a release in euphoria. Liver qi stagnation is our primary cultural pathology, epitomized in the fast-paced high-stress lifestyle, the modus operandi of modernity. The cannabis-Liver relationship also explains why cannabis has been favored by creatives—artists, musicians, visionaries, writers, intellectuals.
We can also examine the pathophysiology of the Liver through the sub-doshas of pitta: alocaka pitta is the fire in the eyes, bhrajaka pitta is the fire in the skin, ranjaka pitta is the fire in the Liver, sadhaka pitta is the fire in the Heart, pachaka pitta is the fire of the Stomach. Liver pathologies can manifest in eye symptoms, skin disorders, digestive symptoms, and mental-emotional symptoms. If we correlate these with Chinese medicine, then we can see how Liver pathologies lead to patterns of Liver Fire, Heart Fire, and Stomach Fire. We can think of anger, irritability, acid reflux, skin rashes, and mania.
Cannabis and Homeopathy
Cannabis can create the very symptoms it alleviates. Such is the nature of pharmakon—it is the context of use that determines the effect. According to Paracelsus, dose is the determining factor between nectar and poison. If cannabis creates in a healthy person the very pathologies it alleviates in a sick person, then it is ripe for homeopathic examination.
In the Essence of Materia Medica, classical homeopath George Vithoulkas writes a remedy portrait of cannabis indica. He notes that cannabis is indicated in “cases where symptomatology is focused in large part on the mental and emotional planes”. Vithoulkas continues to describe two types of people for whom cannabis is an appropriate remedy:
One type is by nature a primarily emotional, ethereal person—someone who relates to things generally through the emotional realm rather than the mental. The other is primarily a mental type over stimulated in the mind, and governed by the fear of loss of control.23
We translate these types into Ayurvedic language—the emotional type corresponds to vāta and the predominance of the ether element; the mental type corresponds to pitta and the predominance of the fire element. We noted earlier that these are the two doshas that cannabis increases. “Like cures like”. Therefore, in homeopathic thinking, cannabis is appropriate for vāta and pitta people.
Vithoulkas also notes the utility of cannabis “in patients who have had a so-called ‘Bad trip’ which has left a lasting effect on the mental sphere”.24 He adds a sub-category to this, where cannabis is indicated in “people whose constitutions have broken down into a dull, hazy, scattered mental state after using many such drugs over a period of years”.25
The homeopathic prescribing of cannabis, however, looks very different from going to a local dispensary. Homeopathic remedies only contain the “essence” of the substance. By delivering the subtle energetic imprint of the substance, homeopathy uses the law of similars to create a resonance in the patient. Resonance is intelligence and regulation. Resonance is the nature of homeostasis. Pathologies are not eliminated, they are brought into a condition of resonance, and thus converted from etiological factors to balancing factors.
A homeopathic perspective of cannabis raises important considerations of its clinical use. In the Western medical context, cannabis is gaining value for its palliative effects. Palliation has its purpose, but if palliation becomes our primary clinical strategy, then we are chasing symptoms rather than treating conditions. Pain, spasms, nausea, and poor appetite can all be temporarily relieved by cannabis, but symptomatic relief is not the same as cure. According to Hering’s Law of Cure, symptomatic treatment suppresses cure. By treating the surface, we push the pathology deeper into the body. Symptoms are the body’s intelligence, communicating its distress signals. We need to listen to symptoms and understand what is causing them. If we use cannabis only for symptom relief, then its application becomes entirely allopathic, and its therapeutic value becomes reduced to nothing more than first-aid.26
On the Issue of Cultivars
Cannabis may be a single herb, but its hardly singular in function or quality. Cannabis is a genus, and within it are three recognized species: cannabis indica, cannabis sativa, and cannabis ruderalis. Only the first two produce psychoactive flowers, with the third being used for hemp production. Within the first two species—indica and sativa—we face the issue of cultivars. Cannabis is no longer simply cannabis, it has a multitude of varietals (or “strains”) that produce a diverse spectrum of effects. This makes cannabis challenging to classify.
In my view, a medical understanding of cannabis should focus on specific strains. While landrace varieties can still be found, most cannabis has been bred. This domestication of the plant coupled with breeding practices have changed the landscape of cannabis and its medical implications. Michael Pollan compares the genetic revolution of cannabis with the introduction of the China rose in Europe in 1789:
Marijuana’s genetic revolution recalls an earlier horticultural watershed: the introduction of the China rose (R. chinensis) to Europe in 1789, an event that made it possible for the first time to breed roses that would flower more than once a season. This ultimately led to the development of the ever-blooming hybrid tea rose. For both the rose and marijuana, human mobility coupled with human desire—for a rose that would rebloom in August; for sinsemilla that would grow in the north—led to the reunification of two distinct evolutionary lines for a plant that had diverged thousands of years before. In both cases, the introduction of a set of plant genes found halfway around the world created undreamed-of new possibilities.27
The undreamed-of possibilities have become the real substance of waking life, as there are currently over 700 strains of cannabis in existence. How do we begin to differentiate these strains in a clinical context? Terpenes may be one way to understand the differences between strains with a clinical sensibility. Terpenes are the primary constituents of essential oils, and cannabis is full of them. The essential oil of a plant is its soma, its nectarous sap, its essence. Therefore, by understanding terpenes, we grow to understand the subtler range of cannabis therapeutics.
Terpenes are especially abundant in aromatic plants, such as spices. My Ayurvedic teacher, Vaidya Mishra, emphasized the important of spices in one’s diet. Ayurvedic dietetics and herbal medicine make significant use of spices for their therapeutic effects. Vaidya would always say to cook with a lid on the pot to preserve the aromatics in the food. Similarly, he advised crushing spices fresh rather than buying powdered spices, because the therapeutic effect is in the aromatics.
Myrcene is an herbal aromatic found in hops, mangos, and lemongrass—substances with sour and astringent tastes. Myrcene is known for its relaxing effects and has a cooling energetic. Strains that are dominant in myrcene should be favored for its vāta and pitta pacifying effects. Strains dominant in myrcene include Blue Dream, OG Kush, Blueberry, and Northern Lights.
Pinene is an herbal aromatic found in rosemary, basil, and dill. These herbs have an affinity for clearing the mind. Pinene can clear kapha from the mind, pacify vāta in the mind, and support the intelligence of pitta. Pinene is thus tridoshic in its effects. Strains dominant in pinene will be clear-headed, anxiolytic, and have less pronounced short-term memory loss. Pine-dominant strains are less common but include landrace Jamaican varieties, Northern Lights #5, and LA Confidential.
Caryophyllene is a spicy aromatic found in black pepper, cloves, and cinnamon. In Ayurveda, black pepper is used to reduce kapha and increase pitta, and we saw earlier how cannabis has been classically understood to foster this very dynamic. Cloves are used to open the channels without aggravating pitta. Cinnamon aids digestion, enhances circulation, and clears excess kapha. Strains that are dominant in caryophyllene should be favored for its anti-inflammatory and kapha-reducing effects. The spicy and warming qualities of this terpene increase pitta, but its anti-inflammatory effects safeguard against pitta imbalance, making it especially appropriate in cases of deficient heat or low agni / high pitta conditions. Strains dominant in caryophyllene include Sour Diesel, Chemdawg, and Bubba Kush.
Limonene is a citrusy aromatic, found in citrus peels, rosemary, juniper, and peppermint. Its effect is sour, astringent, and ascending. These plants remove kapha from the head, open the nose and sinuses, and are emotionally uplifting. Limonene clears pitta but its lightening quality can aggravate vāta. In pitta and kapha predominant constitutions, the effects of limonene-dominant strains will give a calm and creative effect, but in vāta individuals, limonene strains can cause paranoia. Limonene-dominant strains include MAC, Kush Mints, Dosidos, and Banana Kush.
Terpinolene is a floral and citrusy aromatic found in nutmeg, cumin, tea tree, and lilacs. Nutmeg and cumin are revered in Ayurvedic medicine for their medicinal benefits—nutmeg is a sedative that calms vāta and promotes sleep; cumin is a carminative that aids digestion. Leafly’s chart places terpinolene at the peak of the “energizing” spectrum, but its energizing effect is closer to a calm alertness. Terpinolene-dominant strains are vāta-pacifying, providing a well-paced motivational effect. Strains dominant in terpinolene include Jack Herer, Durban Poison, Super Lemon Haze, Trainwreck, and Lilac Diesel.
Forms and Methods: Flower vs. Concentrate, Smoking vs. Vaping vs. Edibles
Cannabis comes in many forms, variances we can classify in two categories: flower or concentrate. Cannabis flower are the ripe and dried inflorescences of the female plant. Concentrates are a broader category that includes hashish and modern extraction methods. Hashish is a traditional cannabis concentrate, extracted in various ways. In Himalayan regions, ripe cannabis flowers are rubbed between the palms, leaving behind a dark resinous material called charas. Charas is typically rolled into a ball, described by connoisseur as “Nepalese Temple Ball Hash”.
Hashish is cannabis in essence form, leaving behind all plant material, and concentrating the resinous trichomes responsible for psychoactivity. Moroccan and Lebanese hash are the most common traditional forms. Rosin is a form of high-tech hashish, made by pressing flowers between 300-1000 psi.
Solvent-based extraction methods yield “honey oil” that is used to fill cartridges. Live resin is the only solvent-based method that preserves terpenes. While concentrates are purified of solvents, solvent-based extractions are less preferable to hashish forms. If we recall Nadkarni’s description, hashish (especially charas) has greater medicinal value than the flowers. Since hashish is only resin and thus free of plant matter, it produces a clean, vaporous, and incense-like smoke that is gentler on the lungs and throat than cannabis flower.
Sativa, Indica, and THC
Cannabis is sub-divided into sativa and indica varietals. Sativa plants are native to equatorial regions. The plants are very tall, have a lengthy flowering cycle, and produce thin, fluffy, and pointy flowers that give an uplifting and energizing effect. Indica plants are native to the mountainous regions of Central Asia. The plants are short and stocky, and the flowering cycle is faster than sativa plants. Indica plants produce dense flowers with soporific effects. Sativa plants have vāta and yang characteristics, indica plants have kapha and yin characteristics.
We can think of sativa / indica as up / down, but not all sativa is “up” and not all indica is “down”. Cannabis breeder, DJ Short, considers “up” and “down” to be more accurate descriptors for strain effects than the oversimplified “sativa” and “indica”. Aside from landrace strains, all cannabis represents a hybridization of sativa and indica plants, as growers bred indica plants into sativas to shorten the flowering cycle. I find it more useful to see strains in terms of directionality. In Chinese medicine, herbs are given directionality—ascending or descending. Strains that have an ascending directionality are appropriate for pitta and kapha, but contraindicated for vāta. Strains that have a descending directionality are appropriate for vāta and pitta, but contraindicated for kapha.
Lastly, we have the issue of increased potency. DJ Short notes that the strains of yesteryear had only 7% THC and were “head and shoulders above what we’re smoking now”. Today, THC levels are as high as 30%, averaging around 20%. The fact that cannabis has been bred with higher potency is voiced as a concern among critics. We need to remember that THC is only one of 100+ phytocannabinoids in cannabis. THC is regarded as the scientific cause of psychoactivity, but an herbal view appreciates the effect of cannabis as a consequence of a unique synergy—not only of compounds, but of conditions as well. Cannabinoids, terpenes, climate, grower, growing conditions, harvesting, and processing are all factors that shape cannabis, its effects, and its uses—therapeutic or otherwise. We need cannabis breeders who are growing for therapeutic purposes, who appreciate the synergy of these factors, and who will breed for medicinal cannabis, rather than high THC content.
IV. Cannabis and Spirituality
We have established cannabis as a plant of historical and modern significance, a pharmakon with established therapeutic value and clinical cautions. A medical view acknowledges a context of appropriate use, where poison can become nectar in the right place at the right time in the right person for the right purpose. But what of spirituality? Do psychoactive plants have spiritual significance? How can we understand cannabis in the context of psychedelic therapy?
Different traditions view cannabis differently. For Rastafarians, cannabis is a sacrament. For Saivites, cannabis is a gift from Śiva. For physicians, cannabis can treat certain conditions. In religious and spiritual traditions around the world, we find justification for cannabis as sacrament, as offering, as oblation, but we also find a cautionary tale.
J.R. Worsley, father of the 20th century five-element acupuncture tradition, cautioned against cannabis use. His view was resonant with the homeopathic axiom that whenever we ingest something we do not truly need, it functions as a toxin. Health is seen as a natural state and imbalance as a disruption of this condition. Treatment should represent the minimal intervention necessary to recover homeostasis. From this view, recreational cannabis would be seen as detrimental to one’s health. In Traditional Diagnosis, Worsley writes:
Given the strictures about drugs that are largely unnecessary, the same applies, with far greater emphasis, where totally unnecessary drugs are concerned. As I mentioned earlier, I have strong feelings about so-called recreational' drugs because I have often seen the terrible toll such drugs have on people. No patient should be allowed to think that he can safely take any form of non-prescribed drug, not even the so-called 'soft' ones. It is possible to tell immediately from someone's pulses if he has been taking marijuana. Its potential to create havoc is so great that it will cause greater imbalances than drinking half a bottle of whisky and smoking thirty cigarettes a day. This comes as something of a shock to people who argue that marijuana is less harmful than drinking alcohol.
While Worsley’s view is that cannabis is more harmful than alcohol, cannabis is significantly less habit-forming than alcohol and it does not impact the physiology in nearly the same way. Can we really compare alcoholics to cannabis smokers? This view is difficult to justify, but I believe Worsley is pointing to the effect of cannabis on a subtler spiritual level. Worsley continues:
If we have a patient who takes drugs, we need to know what kind, how much and how often. We must try to discover why they are being taken, just as we look for the reason behind a person's drinking heavily. No one reasonably healthy in body, mind, and spirit would touch drugs knowing the irreversible damage they can do to the officials. If the person is seeking beautiful experiences, or God, or Nirvana, we need to know why his officials28 are preventing him finding it through his own natural powers in the beautiful and bounteous world in which he lives.29
Worsley’s point is that the search for experiences via substances is the symptom of a deeper spiritual need that can only be satisfied from within, rather from without. Worsley viewed the human physiology through the classical Chinese lens, where the organs are not only functional entities, but “officials” working in hierarchical tandem to provide the being with its physical, mental, and spiritual resources. Worsley often spoke of the Heart as the “God within”, a phrase that evokes a modern term used to describe psychedelics—entheogen. “Entheogen” comes from the Greek entheos, meaning “becoming divine within”. In Worsley’s system, acupuncture is a therapeutic paradigm that restores access and connectivity in body, mind, and spirit where it has been lost, blocked, or severed for one reason or another.
We can appreciate Worsley’s view when we consider that the human body produces its own cannabinoids. Why do we need cannabinoids from cannabis when we can make our own? This view can be turned on its head to say: if cannabis and the human being both produce cannabinoids, then why not use cannabis? Do psychedelics actually give us anything that we do not already have or do they simply act as alchemical catalysts for the resources already existing within us?
Worsley’s criticism is echoed by Rudi, a teacher of Kundalini Yoga in the 60s and 70s. In his autobiography, Spiritual Cannibalism, Rudi discusses extended drug use as counter-productive to spiritual growth:
Drugs can do nothing for a student seeking spiritual growth. It is never of any benefit to use artificial means to relax or force the psychic system to open. Drugs have a purpose only under certain rare conditions; even then, natural means are usually better. Many people open to their spiritual nature during a drug experience. This is like coming to a promised land. Why risk losing it by burning out the mechanism using drugs again? The extended use of drugs has a weakening effect on the psychic system. To force the muscles open artificially weakens them and they become progressively less able to carry the force. In time the whole system becomes dependent on the artificial agent. The result can be a chronic muscular breakdown and the total muscle mechanism can be badly damaged.
The use of artificial means in a fully developed physical system has bad results. The psychic muscular system, which is weak in function to start with, has no chance of resisting external influences. This is why drugs produce such spectacular effects and gather enthusiastic supporters. They offer an indication of the great psychic riches within a man. But why dynamite a gold mine that lies just below the surface? The slow, thorough work of a responsible and disciplined individual will produce rich rewards his whole life through. Tearing into the psychic tissue may produce a few golden nuggets, but this is only fool’s gold.
Building and working for long-range results is not only the best way but the only way for you to achieve realization. It is to a full and happy life that you should aspire, not to thrills.30
Rudi was speaking to students at the height of the counter-culture movement, beckoning them to real spiritual practice rather than external substitutes. Rudi does not specify which “drugs” he is referring to, but it seems clear that he is commenting on psychedelic substances. He does not completely eschew the value of such substances, but points to the value of spiritual practice for cultivating sustained conductivity of spiritual energy rather than temporary peak experiences stimulated by substances that ultimately exploit and drain the psychic mechanism.
A similar sentiment is found in Chögyam Trungpa’s disposition regarding cannabis. Trungpa famously asked his students to bring their stashes of cannabis to a gathering at his house. Students were excited, thinking they would get stoned with the Vidyadhara. But Trungpa threw their stash into his fireplace instead! This act is interpreted by his students as a symbolic burning of self-deception.31
In an account detailed by Stanislav Grof, Swami Muktananda discusses LSD and the proper sacramental use of cannabis:
Muktananda knew that I had worked with LSD and initiated a discussion about the use of psychoactive substances in spiritual practice. He expressed his belief that the experiences induced by them were closely related to those sought in Siddha Yoga.
“I understand you have been working with LSD,” he said through his interpreter, Malti, a young Indian woman whom he many years later appointed as his successor under the name Swami Chitvilasananda. “We do something very similar here. But the difference is that, in Siddha Yoga, we teach people not only to get high, but to stay high,” he stated with confidence. “With LSD you can have great experiences, but then you come down. There are many serious spiritual seekers in India, Brahmans and yogis, who use sacred plants in their spiritual practice,” Swami Muktananda continued, “but they know how to do it properly.”
He then talked about the need for a respectful ritual approach to cultivation, preparation, and smoking or ingesting of Indian hemp (Cannabis indica) in the form of bhang, ganja, or charas and criticized the casual and irreverent use of marijuana and hashish by the young generation in the West. “The yogis grow and harvest the plant very consciously and with great devotion,” he said. “They first soak it in water for fourteen days to get rid of all the toxic ingredients and then dry it. They put it in a chilam (a special pipe) and smoke it. And then they lie naked in the snow and ice of the Himalayas in ecstasy.” Talking about smoking the chilam and the ecstatic rapture of the yogis, Baba acted out the appropriate facial expressions, movements, and postures as if remembering what it was like.32
Swami Muktananda’s comments resonate with Rudi’s emphasis on “staying high” via genuine spiritual practice but he also adds a nuance on the value of sacramental use. It would seem that Swami Muktananda considers sacramental use compatible with spiritual practice—he at least points to an authentic tradition of it.
Adi Da, who studied with both Rudi and Swami Muktananda, is equally critical of using psychedelics on the spiritual path:
Marijuana and the hallucinogenic drugs (LSD, mescaline, etc.) may provoke illusions of bliss, heightened energy, and psychic expansion, but they actually, or by reaction, contract the entire nervous system and severely distort the natural alignment of the physical body to the etheric and astral dimensions. They lead to the dominance of the psychic over the truly spiritual (or self-transcending) disposition—thus promoting a craving for "visions" and other psychic and mental distractions, rather than allowing the natural disposition of Love-Communion with the All-Pervading and Transcendental Divine Reality.33
From a spiritual perspective, the sacred flowers are found in the chakras of the human body, and their soma is released in yogic practice. In Indian yoga, the chakras are described as lotus flowers. In the Narayana Sooktam, the Heart is described as union of fire and flower, itself an inverted lotus bud, the seat of spiritual fire. Thus, there is no edible deity, only an in-dwelling source and substance. Adi Da elaborates on the nature of “true soma” being native to the body-mind:
Just as today certain rejuvenating herbs are fairly commonly known, herbs were also used in the ancient cultures in conjunction with symbols and archetypes and religious observances.
Modern researchers are trying to discover what the ancient herbs might have been. One of the famous herbs, or "Edible Deities," of ancient times was called "soma." There are a number of plants and mushrooms that have tentatively been identified as this soma. But the true soma is not anything external to the body-mind, not a plant or a mushroom or an elixir or one's own urine. The true soma is like the true practice—it is native to the body-mind. It is a substance secreted in the brain core by the glandular centers associated with the pituitary gland when the body is in a purified, harmonious condition, and its energies are rightly polarized.
This nectar pervades the entire body and enlivens it, but it also tends to pass out of the body through grosser activities that eliminate the Life-Force. Among the activities of the usual body-mind that tend to eliminate the Life-Force are emotional reactivity, eating, overeating, and degenerative habits of all kinds, including conventional sexuality.
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika and other similar yogic texts speak of the soma as "the nectar of the moon." By pressing the tongue up through the roof of the palate and closing off the passage in the head above the sinuses and above the mouth, and entering into meditation, the yogis prevent the nectar of the moon from burning up in the "sun," which is the lower body or digestive region, the digestive fire of the navel.34
Adi Da’s commentary likens soma to a yogic substance that corresponds to the “higher chemistry” of the endocrine system. He criticizes the search for the “edible deity”, soma as object, consumable sanctity, the displaced Mother.
The true “soma” is not something that you can eat. Of course, there are good things to eat and do. But the true "soma" is the transforming internal secretion of the whole body in its natural state. The secret is to get the whole bodily being into its natural state, in which it is naturally secreting all those substances that rejuvenate it, enliven it, keep it psychically awakened and aware in the fullest possible sense.3536
Our true sustenance is not edible or external—it is internal and imbibed with breath and fire, flowering in secret a golden dawn.
IV. Toward a Green Age
Red fire, green fuse. Will the force that drives the flower drive a green age? Cannabis re-ignites interest in herself, time and time again. Cannabis becomes an archetype of psychological femininity, an offering from Mother Earth, an image of sustenance and sustainability, the fostering of an ecology. Exploited, she takes her wrath upon us; abused, she strings our heads around her neck; worshipped, she becomes the sacramental communion. Cannabis is a message from the old world to its offspring. Cannabis should inspire an interest in the therapeutic value of plant medicines and the worth in all that is green and grows. We need not the primal trust of Eden, we need a garden of consciousness, of intentional fire and organic flower.
McPartland, J.M., Hegman, W. & Long, T. Cannabis in Asia: its center of origin and early cultivation, based on a synthesis of subfossil pollen and archaeobotanical studies. Veget Hist Archaeobot 28, 691–702 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-019-00731-8
Robert C. Clarke, Mark D. Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013), 365.
Ibid., 393.
David Frawley, Vasant Lad, The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine (Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Light Publications, 1993), 5.
Robert C. Clarke, Mark D. Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013), 221.
C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 399.
This statement seems paradoxical, since cannabis is renowned for increasing appetite. One possible explanation is in the terpene, limonene, which has appetite-suppressing effects. Cannabis strains that are limonene-dominant may prove this statement true.
J.M. Campbell, “The Religion of Hemp”. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission 1893-1894, vol. 3 (Simla, India: Government Printing Office), 250-252.
Robert C. Clarke, Mark D. Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013), 244.
Ibid.
Ibid., 228.
Ibid., 245.
See John Wehrheim’s film, BHUTAN: TAKING THE MIDDLE PATH TO HAPPINESS.
A.K. Nadkarni, Indian Materia Medica. Second edition (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1927), 256.
Ibid., 259.
Ibid., 262-263.
Dr. Bulusu Sitaram, Bhāvaprakāśa of Bhāv Miśra (Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia, 2020), 185.
Ibid.
Robert C. Clarke, Mark D. Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013), 226.
Brand EJ, Zhao Z. “Cannabis in Chinese Medicine: Are Some Traditional Indications Referenced in Ancient Literature Related to Cannabinoids?” Front Pharmacol. 2017 Mar 10;8:108. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00108. PMID: 28344554; PMCID: PMC5345167.
Robert C. Clarke, Mark D. Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013), 242.
Leon I Hammer, M.D., “Marijuana, Apathy, and Chinese Medicine”, Part 1 and 2. Acupuncture Today (2015). https://acupuncturetoday.com/article/33026-marijuana-apathy-and-chinese-medicine-part-1
George Vithoulkas, Essence of Materia Medica. Second edition (Noida, UP: Jain Publishers, 1990), 47.
Ibid., 50.
Ibid., 51.
While I’ve focused on medical applications of cannabis in Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and Homeopathy, its uses are also documented throughout Egyptian, Middle Eastern, African, South American, and European medical traditions. See Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (2013), 241-256.
Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World (New York: Random House, 2002), 132.
The “officials” are a classical Chinese medical reference to the twelve organ networks.
J.R. Worsley, Worsley Five-Element Acupuncture, Volume II: Traditional Diagnosis (Miami, FL: Worsley Inc., 2012), 133.
Swami Rudrananda (Rudi), Spiritual Cannibalism (Cambridge, MA: Rudra Press, 1973), 57-58.
A full account of this story is given by Jim Lowrey: https://www.chronicleproject.com/burn-self-deception/
Stanislav Grof, When The Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities (Boulder: Sounds True, 2006), 50-51.
Bubba Free John (Adi Da), The Eating Gorilla Comes In Peace (Middletown, CA: Dawn Horse Press, 1979), 97.
Ibid., 515-516.
Ibid., 48.
For an account of Adi Da’s experiences of cannabis, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin mushrooms, see The Knee Of Listening (2004), 71-87.