Herbal cannabis

Just like all herbal medicinal preparations, C. sativa should be standardized if extracts or whole plant material are to be used for medicinal purposes. Basic requirements are that all detectable constituents should be known, but also a sustainable quahty control system must be established to achieve the same quahty over all batches. For industrial use of cannabis, standardization could also be necessary to equahze the quality of the product. However, it must be stated that cultivation for this purposes is mostly performed outdoors. Outdoor growth makes standardization of the product difficult due to the environmental changes. For this reason the Dutch medicinal C. sativa is grown under strictly controllable conditions, and therefore indoors, by the company Bedrocan. At this company clones are used for breeding to maintain high standards for quantity and quality. After a strictly selective breeding procedure a plant fine has been estabhshed fulfilhng all criteria as a herb for medicinal use. 

Long before the advent of modern pharmaceutical drugs, several herbal medications were employed for the alleviation of mental disorders. Some of these are considered impractical by today s standards for treatment of psychopathology. For a short time, Freud advocated the use of cocaine to alleviate depression. Cannabis and opium were used to treat agitation. Other herbal medications are being supported by scientific research and seriously considered by the medical community. Some are offered here more for historical interest, and yet others have only recently added psychotherapeutic value to their list of potential benefits. 

Hong, C. Y., D. M. Chaput de Saint-onge, P. Turner and ]. W. Fairbairn. Comparison of the inhibitory action of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and CS196 petroleum spirit extract of herbal cannabis on human sperm motility. Human... 

Herbal cannabis seizures, in contrast, were down in 2005, a trend seen across continents. The reasons for this decline are due to increased eradication and are occurring in the context of stabilised demand and may be related to decreased transnational trafficking due to a growing reliance on domestic cultivation. Cannabis resin seizures were also down, but this can be directly tied to the decline in hashish production in Morocco. 

Huo Ma Ren (Cannabis semen) 500 g Xing Ren (Armeniacae semen) 250 g Bai Shao Yao (Paeoniae radix lactiflora) 250 g Zhi Shi (Aurantii fructus immaturus) 250 g Hou Po (Magnoliae cortex) 250 g Da Huang (Fthei rhizoma) 500 g Feng Mi (Met) is added to the herbal powder to make the pills. 

At least 60 bioactive compounds are contained in herbal cannabis. A9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (A9-THC) (Mechoulam and Gaoni, 1967), cannabidiol and cannabinol are the major psychoactive or adjuvant ingredients. Cannabinoids act through at least two different G-protein coupled receptors named CBi and CB2 receptors. 

The Chinese emperor Shen Nung is believed to have produced the first written account of the medicinal properties of cannabis over 2000 years ago and various formulations of herbal cannabis have been used over the centuries to treat seizures, neuralgia, dysmenorrhoea, insomnia and even gonorrhoea. The hemp plant, Cannabis sativa, from which cannabis and... 

Leonard Fuchs woodcut of Cannabis sativa in an early herbal from 1543. This plant is the main source of marijuana, a mixture of its leaves and flowers, and of hashish, made from the resin in its flowers. This plant is also grown for its strong fibers, which have been used in producing hemp rope, fabrics and fine papers. 

The long history of marijuana use both as a recreational drug and as an herbal medicine for centuries has been reviewed (3). Cannabis sativa contains more than 450 substances and only a few of the main active cannabinoids have been evaluated. Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug. In 2001, 83 million Americans and 37% of those aged 12 and older had tried marijuana (4). 

A9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the active component in herbal cannabis, is very safe. Laboratory animals (rats, mice, dogs, monkeys) can tolerate doses of up to 1000 mg/kg, equivalent to some 5000 times the human intoxicant dose. Despite the widespread illicit use of cannabis, there are very few, if any, instances of deaths from overdose (9). 

The final type of cannabis product that is likely to be encountered is cannabis oil, more commonly known as hash oil which is obtained by solvent extraction of the herbal or resinous material. There is debate in the legal literature as to whether this constitutes a Class A or Class B drug, the key to which appears to be the presence of cannabidiol. If the latter is present, then the material is treated as a purified form of resin (Class B), while if it is absent, the material is considered to have been prepared, and therefore falls under Class A. 

The plant material can be used as herbal material, once dried, e.g. marijuana. Low-quality products, which contain stalks, seeds, leaves and flowering tops, may be compressed into blocks (West African and Caribbean material), it may occur as loose herbal material (from Central and Southern Africa), or it may be rolled into a so-called Com Bob , wrapped in vegetable fibre (again from Central and Southern Africa). Higher-quahty materials, composed of fruiting tops and flowers alone, may also be encountered. If tied around bamboo sticks, this material is known as Buddha Sticks or Thai Sticks , and arises from South-East Asia. A central bamboo cane is used, around which up to 2 g of herbal material can be tied. The materials can be seized in bundles of up to 20 sticks. An African equivalent is to wrap the material in a small roll of brown paper such rolls frequently contain less than 0.5 g of cannabis per roll. Sieved products may also be encountered. This process removes the stems and the leaves, producing Kif, a material derived from North Africa, for example, from Morocco. 

Finally, the cannabinoids can be extracted from the herbal material or the resin to produce hash oil. The latter is obtained from the extraction of cannabis plant material with a suitable organic solvent (for example, petrol or ether) by refluxing. Once a solution of the required strength has been obtained, the solvent is evaporated and the oil concentrated, giving a sticky green, olive or brown residue. 

The methods used to identify cannabis products depend upon the nature of the products themselves. Herbal material can be identified on the basis of its morphological characteristics alone, provided that certain of these are present. Where they are not, and in the case of resin and hash oil, the identification is made on the basis of phytochemical identification and the proof of the presence of A -THC (1), its precursor, cannabidiol (CBD) (3) and its breakdown product, cannabinol (CBN) (4). However, it should be remembered that the presence of the breakdown product, CBN, precludes the use of the sample for comparative purposes. 

On the basis of the availability of the retention time data and the mass spectra of these compounds, and comparison of these between the compounds in the sample and the standards, an identification can be made. An example of a chromatogram obtained from herbal cannabis material (Figure 4.6) and the mass spectrum of the derivatized THC (Figure 4.7) are presented to illustrate this point. 

Figure 4.6 Gas chromatogram of cannabinoids from a herbal sample of cannabis after derivatization with N,0-BSA.

Cannabis products can be found in a large number of forms, including herbal material, resin and oil. A wide variety of utensils associated with cannabis use may also be encountered by the forensic scientist. To determine whether or not cannabis products are present, a thorough physical examination of the material should be carried out. The next step is determined by the type of drug submitted for analysis. Herbal material may be identified directly by observation of the... 

At the present time, it is possible to carry ont identification and quantification of a wide variety of drugs, ranging from those which are entirely herbal or fnngal in origin Cannabis and its prodncts), throngh those which are semisynthetic (cocaine and diamorphine), to those which are entirely synthetic (the amphetamines). A wide variety of techniqnes can be applied for their analysis and it is rare that an issue of sensitivity becomes apparent. In terms of dmg identification and quantification, the dmg analyst is in a particnlarly strong position. 

Although there may originally have been an ancient Pen Ts ao attributed to the emperor, no original text exists. The oldest Pen Ts ao dates back to the first century A.D. and was compiled by an unknown author who claimed he had incorporated the original herbal into his own compendium. Regardless of whether such an earlier compendium did or did not exist, the important fact about this first-century herbal is that it contains a reference to ma, the Chinese word for cannabis. 

Although this is all Dioscorides had to say on the subject, it was the first time cannabis had been described as a medical remedy in a Western medical text. And since Dioscorides herbal continued to be one of the most important books in medicine for the next 1500 years, cannabis became a common household remedy for treating earaches throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. 

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