I know, another generic article praising weed, but I think you might find an Indian perspective interesting. Sorry for the missing embedded links, but you can google the claims I mentioned, or duckduckgo.
Marijuana is a mind-altering (psychoactive) plant product. It is known by many names, pot, crack, weed, dope and भैलेनाथ का पृशाद (bhólénāŧh kā prašāđ) in India. Its plant variety though is called cannabis or hemp, both are names of two slightly different species of the same fauna. It is a wild plant and hence the name “weed” which is used to get “high” by people around the world. But it is much more than that for much of the human history. Here are my top five fascinating facts about marijuana.
1 . An Ancient Crop
Hemp is one of the oldest plant which has been grown by humans for over a millennia and not just for getting high. The Columbia History of the World (1996) sites that the weaving of hemp fiber started some 10,000 years ago. Henry the VIII, the king of England (1509-1547) encouraged the farmers to grow hemp richly to provide material for the the British Naval Fleet; Hemp was used widely to make ropes for which it is quite a sturdy material. Even Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America, had a hemp farm.
2 . Treatment of Glaucoma
In the US, smoking marijuana to cure glaucoma is a treatment accepted by the medical science experts there. Medical marijuana is legal in many states of America, especially California. According to The National Eye Institute, US. Studies in the early 70s showed that marijuana, when smoked, actually lowered the intraocular pressure (which means an increase in pressure in the eyeball) in people with normal pressure and the those with glaucoma.
3 . Controlling Epileptic Seizures
Seizures which are also known as 'mirgi’ in India can result in anyone, be it child, young or old of both genders. But recently in the US, many people are using marijuana to treat it and in some cases of child patients, the parents say that the seizures has stopped ever since they started treating it with marijuana. A Virginia Commonwealth University study done on rates states that after being induced with marijuana extract, the rat didn't experience a seizure for 10 hours.
4. Creativity
Most artists around the world does smoke or had tried marijuana in their lifetime. Marijuana relaxes the mind and in some cases, cause hallucinations. This is the ideal experience artists seek to spark their inspiration. In the book Creativity & Beyond by Robert Weiner, the author states that “a cannabis induced state of mind may lead to breaking free from everyday thinking and associations”. This increases the ability to generate new Ideas. Salvador Dali and William Shakespeare both smoked Marijuana. Even some scientists had been found to use it while working, if not marijuana than some other mind-altering drug. For example Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize winning father of modern genetics was under the influence of LSD when he first discovered the double-helix structure of DNA about 50 years ago.
5 . Boosts Your Senses
A University of Bordeaux study on mice revealed that people get “the munchies” after using marijuana because their sense of smell and taste is heightened and now the scientists are thinking about using these findings to develop better treatments to tackle obesity and appetite disorders.
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