Cannabis spp.
Schultes and Hofmann (with Rätsch), the authors of Plants of the Gods, write of a relationship between Cannabis and humanity that “has existed now probably for ten thousand years—since the discovery of agriculture in the Old World.”
They document ancient uses of this multi-purpose plant in India, China and elsewhere.
Cannabis was taken to many regions throughout the world, eventually arriving in the Americas: “Rarely is an introduced foreign plant adopted and used in Indigenous ceremonies, but it seems that the Cora of Mexico and the Cuna of Panama have taken up the ritual smoking of cannabis, notwithstanding the fact that, in both areas, it was brought in by the early Europeans.”
We are also delighted to include a series of images of Cannabis taken by Jill Pflugheber with the Zyla, a fluorescence camera used, in this case, with a lower power objective given the thickness of the slide. These highly-selective results broaden the definition of Microcosmic Phytoformalism to include a visual experience based on out-of-focus fluorescence, a more impressionistic depiction of light and form.
A CNN interview (September 28, 2024) by Dr. Sanjay Gupta with Dr. Staci Gruber (also known as the “Pot Doc”), an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core, as well as the Marijuana Investigation for Neuroscientific Discovery program, emphasizes some remarkable discoveries about Cannabis and its medical benefits. According to Dr. Gruber: “It’s really helpful again to take a step back and to acknowledge that the plant is this miraculously complex structure with, you know, again, over 500 compounds, and it does appear in pre-clinical work and some of the basic experiments that have been done that certain cannibinoids, in combination with other cannibinoids and other compounds, appear to allow things like tumor progression to either slow, halt, or even be reversed. That’s extraordinary!” About the current efforts to move Cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 to the less restrictive category of Schedule III that recognizes the medicinal value of Cannabis and facilitates new scientific research, Gruber says that it is important to note that “reschedule is not deschedule.” Schedule III would mean changes in security requirements, monitoring and surveillance for scientists that could result in more studies that reveal medicinal benefits as astonishing as the treatments that were derived from Cannabis to alleviate pediatric onset intractable seizure disorders in children. As Gruber puts it: “There’s a lot of work to be done for folks who are experiencing mild cognitive impairment and different neurodegenerative disorders.” (See also Staci A. Gruber in the Microcosms Bibliography for a reference to an academic study of the impact of medical cannabis treatment on chronic pain and Gary Richter et al. for an overview of Cannabis sativa as a nutraceutical.)
