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Certified in The Cannabis and Medical Marijuana Industry.
In India as scientists are building a solid case on the basis of its therapeutic properties for conditions like diabetic neuropathy, cancer and in children with epilepsy and sickle cell anaemia.
Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO) co-founded by Mr Jahan Peston Jamas collaborated with CSIR and hosted a conference to promote the use of cannabis-based medicines in Delhi on 23 November 2018. The conference, called “Cannabis R&D in India: A Scientific, Medical and Legal Perspective”, was attended by Minister of State for PMO Jitendra Singh and MP Dharamvir Gandhi.[56][57] On the same day, the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM) of the CSIR announced that it was developing three cannabis-based medicines to treat cancer, epilepsy, and sickle-cell anaemia.[58][59]
The first medical cannabis clinic in India was opened in Koramangala, Bangalore on 1 February 2020.[60][61] The clinic, operated by Odisha-based HempCann Solutions, sells cannabis infused tablets and oils under the brand name Vedi Herbals.[62]
You can’t deny that India has some serious history with cannabis/marijuana/weed/pot/ganja/bhang (whatever you want to call it). With its traditional ayurvedic roots and the babas smoking it up, medicinal use of marijuana is not news for us.
“Shiv ji ki bhang toh humaare culture mein hai (Lord Shiva’s bhang is part of India’s culture),” Member of Parliament Dr Dharamvira Gandhi said at a conference to promote use of cannabis-based medicines held on Friday.
The conference titled “Cannabis R&D in India: A Scientific, Medical and Legal Perspective” had experts call for “liberal regulatory regime for cannabis-based medicine in India.” In simpler words, they hinted at wanting legalisation of medical marijuana.
On a pilot basis, the government has allowed the Indian Institute of Integrated Medicine in Jammu, to cultivate cannabis for medical research and drug development.
‘IIIM, Jammu will conduct a landmark study on cannabis possible the first of its kind, to explore its potential clinical benefits,’ Dr Jitendra Singh, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, said at a recent conference on ‘Cannabis R & D in India’.
‘Cannabis has therapeutic properties and is known to us since ages. But it has been banned in India due to its psychotropic properties. Cannabis could be used in treating cancer, epilepsy and sickle cell anaemia, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Government is providing necessary support and thrust to make cannabis-based drugs. IIIM, Jammu is the nodal center for the research on cannabis. Now all eyes are on the first human trials’, Dr K.K. Aggarwal, former president of the IMA (Indian Medical Association), told Sputnik.
Cannabis has been a part of Indian culture since ancient times. In the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, cannabis was regarded as a sacred plant and offered to Lord Shiva during religious ceremonies. Cannabis is believed to have immense medical benefits, Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the psychoactive component of cannabis, helps in reducing pain, easing risks of nerve damage and suppressing muscle spasms.
Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, helps in reducing seizure, kills cancer cells, stimulates bone growth and stops inflammation.
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report, completed in 1894, was an Indo-British study of cannabis usage in India.[1]
By 2 March 1893, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom was concerned with the effects of hemp drugs in the province of Bengal, India. The Government of India convened a seven-member commission to look into these questions, commencing their study on 3 July 1893. Lord Kimberley suggested modifying the scope of the investigation to be expanded to include all of India.
The report the Commission produced was at least 3,281 pages long, with testimony from almost 1,200 “doctors, coolies, yogis, fakirs, heads of lunatic asylums, bhang peasants, tax gatherers, smugglers, army officers, hemp dealers, ganja palace operators and the clergy.”[2] A sociological analysis of the report reveals that the commission’s visits to asylums all over India helped to undermine the then prevailing belief that consumption of ganja causes insanity.[3]
The President of the commission was Mr. W. Mackworth Young, and other members include H.T. Ommanney, A. H. L. Fraser, Surgeon-Major C.J.H. Warden, Raja Soshi Sikhareshwar Roy, Kanwar Harnam Singh, and Lala Nihal Chand. Serving as secretary was Mr. H.J. McIntosh.
This extensively well-prepared and thorough report summarised the effects (potentially negative) of cannabis in a chapter dedicated to that. Here is the end of that chapter:
The Commission have now examined all the evidence before them regarding the effects attributed to hemp drugs. It will be well to summarize briefly the conclusions to which they come. It has been clearly established that the occasional use or hemp in moderate doses may be beneficial; but this use may be regarded as medicinal in character. It is rather to the popular and common use of the drugs that the Commission will now confine their attention. It is convenient to consider the effects separately as affecting the physical, mental, or moral nature.
In respect to the alleged mental effects of the drugs, the Commission have come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs produces no injurious effects on the mind. It may indeed be accepted that in the case of specially marked neurotic diathesis, even the moderate use may produce mental injury. For the slightest mental stimulation or excitement may have that effect in such cases. But putting aside these quite exceptional cases, the moderate use of these drugs produces no mental injury. It is otherwise with the excessive use. Excessive use indicates and intensifies mental instability (1:264).
In regard to the moral effects of the drugs, the Commission are of opinion that their moderate use produces no moral injury whatever. There is no adequate ground for believing that it injuriously affects the character of the consumer. Excessive consumption, on the other hand, both indicates and intensifies moral weakness or depravity (1:264).
Viewing the subject generally, it may be added that the moderate use of these drugs is the rule, and that the excessive use is comparatively exceptional. The moderate use practically produces no ill effects. In all but the most exceptional cases, the injury from habitual moderate use is not appreciable. The excessive use may certainly be accepted as very injurious, though it must be admitted that in many excessive consumers the injury is not clearly marked. The injury done by the excessive use is, however, confined almost exclusively to the consumer himself; the effect on society is rarely appreciable. It has been the most striking feature in this inquiry to find how little the effects of hemp drugs have obtruded themselves on observation. The large number of witnesses of all classes who professed never to have seen these effects, the vague statements made by many who professed to have observed them, the very few witnesses who could so recall a case as to give any definite account of it, and the manner in which a large proportion of these cases broke down on the first attempt to examine them, are facts which combine to show most clearly how little injury society has hitherto sustained from hemp drugs (1:264).
It has been used in food and drink as early as 1000 BCE by Hindus in ancient India.
Atharvaveda (c. 1500–1000 BCE) mentions bhanga as one of the five sacred plants that relieve anxiety. Sayana interpreted bhanga as a type of wild grass, but many scholars identify bhanga with cannabis.[7] The relevant verse:
To the five kingdoms of the plants which Soma rules as Lord we speak.
darbha, hemp, barley, mighty power: may these deliver us from woe,— Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith[8], Atharva Veda 11.6.15
The five kingdoms of plants, having Soma as their chief, we address;
the darbha, hemp, barley, saha — let them free us from distress.— Translated by William Dwight Whitney[9], Atharva Veda 11.6.15
Sushruta Samhita (c. 600 BCE) again mentions bhanga, as a medicinal plant, and recommends it for treating catarrh, phlegm and diarrhea.[5]
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Psyindia 