Yesterday I wrote an article about the 2013 High Times Cannabis Cup, a combination festival and trade show celebrating marijuana. After 25 years of being held in Amsterdam it was held in Seattle this September 7-8.
Whether this is a positive or a negative development is a subject for debate, as it has been since William Randolph Hearst sought to protect his newsprint interest from competition from the hemp industry. Because marijuana use in America was associated with African Americans, Mexicans,and Hindus it was easy to bring race into the debate. Much of the debate in Congress centered on the color of the skin of marijuana smokers and the need to "protect our children from exposure to dark-skinned people."
Extracts from the cannabis plant have a long history in healing practices (medicine) of many different cultures. Cannabis products also have a long history in religion. Marijuana has a very complicated chemical composition. Two chemicals, cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol, are the primary drug and psychoactive components of marijuana.
Cannabidiol, known as CBD, has become of interest in medical marijuana circles because strains of marijuana high in CBD and low in THC (tetrahydro-cannabinol) are very effective in treating pediatric epilepsy. Because these strains do not have strong psychoactive characteristics, they are considered more suitable for treating children.
It is interesting to note that the only negative side effect to marijuana based medicines ever mentioned is "a mild feeling of euphoria." Other medicines may list such things as death, paralysis, heart attack, blindness, sterility, impotence, hallucinations, or any number of very undesirable consequences. As long as they don't make you feel good, they get approved.
An interesting observation is that the one technologically advanced nation fostering serious medical research on cannabis is Israel. It has been suggested that the phrase "a land flowing with milk and honey" means "a land with much marijuana" since milk and honey refers to a common way of consuming cannabis and early Palestine is known to have had abundant cannabis. Go to the site of the Zion Coptic Church for more on this subject.
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