Medical Marijuana

One of my earliest memories as a child was seeing a naked man for the first time. I was 5 years old.

The man was not the least ashamed as he rummaged through the contents of a tall heap of rubbish at the end of the street. He was of medium height, very dark complexion, sturdy. His hair was long and bushy, even from some distance we could see the dry leaves, twigs and other things hanging like little branches on his head. It was hard to see his eyes as his face was almost completely covered with an overgrown moustache and beards. He would have been stark naked except for the narrow strip of filthy cloth tied loosely around his waist.

My playmates and me stood there completely transfixed. The six of us, ages ranging from five to nine contemplated continuing our journey to the cashew tree in Dr Osula`s compound or to stand there and stare.

''So this man don crase?'' We heard a passerby ask with sarcasm.

" Na Igbo cause am o". Another passerby added.

While I was yet processing all this the man turned around suddenly and charged. That was the day I discovered the emotion called fear. I still don`t know what terrified me more, the fact that a mad man was chasing us or the fact that even the grown ups were fleeing.

As the story went, he used to be a student of a nearby University who got expelled due to what would later be known as cult activities, laced with armed robbery. He went down the road to self destruction when he discovered Igbo.

Marijuana or Cannabis or Igbo which some believe can cause insanity, and which in the US President Nixon had classified as a drug with “no accepted medical use” has now been legalized in four countries including ironically some states in the US. Possessing, growing, processing, selling, exporting, and trafficking of cannabis is illegal in Nigeria as in most countries, however, many countries including North Korea, Switzerland and Russia have decriminalized the possession of small quantities of cannabis.

Historically, medical marijuana dates as far back as 2,900 BC and its use in Chinese medicine, modern science had been reluctant to engage with the topic of marijuana as medicine, with evidence for its beneficial properties being largely anecdotal. In Africa, the marijuana plant is used for snake bite, to facilitate childbirth, malaria fever, blood poisoning, asthma, and dysentery.

Research by two scientists proved the existence of a cannabinoid receptor in the rat brain. This led to the discovery of the cannabinoid system in humans. Chemical components of Cannabis, called cannabinoids activate specific receptors found throughout the body to produce pharmacologic effects, particularly in the central nervous system and the immune system. This research was considered to be highly significant because it offered a scientific basis for explaining how pharmacological effects of marijuana might occur when cannabinoids - 66 naturally occurring compounds found in marijuana - bind with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. In 1992, the endocannabinoid system in humans was discovered. Endocannabinoids are the brain’s own naturally occurring equivalent to the cannabinoids found in marijuana; lipids that bind with our cannabinoid receptors in the same way that marijuana-derived cannabinoids do, and which produce similar effects.

Cancer, HIV/AIDS and multiple sclerosis are the most common conditions for which marijuana is approved as a treatment, with evidence from some studies suggesting that marijuana relieves nausea, improves appetite and eases spasms in patients with these serious conditions. Commercially available cannabinoids, such as dronabinol, nabilone, and marinol – the cannabinoid in marijuana that provides the psychotropic “high” to ease the side effects of chemotherapy in cancer patients, were approved.

Epilepsy, in particular, is a contentious subject. Patients who receive medical marijuana for epilepsy are passionate of its benefits.The intensity of the battleground over marijuana as epilepsy treatment is best surmised by the popular campaign for lawmakers to allow access to “Charlotte’s Web” - a strain of marijuana whose particular cannabinoid make-up was reported by Matt and Page Figi of Colorado to have reduced the 300 grand mal seizures a week their daughter Charlotte was experiencing to just two or three per month.

In Nigeria in 2009, the NDLEA confiscated 6.5 tones of marijuana from the home of a man in Ogun State who claimed to be 114 years old. Shuo, Marijuana may yet be the elixir of life!

Recreational use of Marijuana however, shows a clear link between its early use and later mental health but most especially in those with a family history of psychotic illness, or who have certain types of schizotypal personality, or possibly certain types of genes.

I believe no plant should be ruled out as having “no accepted medical use” after all ZMapp, the 'wonder' drug that is believed to possess the ability to cure Ebola, is grown in specially modified leaves of tobacco - a plant just like Marijuana which is better known for harming health than healing.