The Medicine Cabinet: The 1800s

In the 1800s, Western doctors and writers met cannabis through the colonies, then turned it into a medicine that nobody could dose. French soldiers met hashish in Egypt. A young Irish surgeon tested Indian hemp in Calcutta. Pharmacists put an extract on the shelf in 1850. The century ended with a British Indian commission that weighed the evidence and refused a total ban. Two famous stories fail the check: Napoleon did not ban hashish, and no source shows that Queen Victoria took it.

One rule for this chapter: a medicine that people used is not a medicine that worked. Every claim below is something a person said, sold or wrote in the 1800s. Where we know how it turned out, we tell you.

Did Napoleon ban hashish in Egypt?

No. General Jacques-François Menou banned it, and Napoleon was 3,200 kilometers away in Paris. The French army landed in Egypt in 1798 and stayed until 1801. Napoleon left in August 1799. By October 1800 the army was marooned, and historian David Guba argues that many soldiers, short of wine, had turned to hashish (Guba, Points).

Menou was a strange choice for a conqueror. He had converted to Islam and married the daughter of a bathhouse owner in Rosetta. On 8 October 1800 he issued an order banning the making, sale and use of hashish across Egypt. He said that people who drink and smoke it “lose reason and fall into a violent delirium, which often leads them to commit excesses of all kinds.” He ordered the cafés that served it closed and their owners jailed for three months.

Historian Mike Jay notes that the decree cites no testimony from soldiers. It fits better with a political goal: the new rulers wanted to side with Egypt’s Sunni elite, who linked hashish to the poor, to Sufi beggars and to troublemakers (Jay, Yale University Press).

8 October 1800 · , Cairo, French-occupied Egypt

General Menou bans hashish in Egypt

General Menou, not Napoleon, orders hashish banned across French-held Egypt. Napoleon left in August 1799. Historians read the order as aligning the regime with Egypt's Sunni elite. The French leave in 1801.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Guba, 'The Real History of France's First Anti-Drug Law', Points
• Mike Jay, 'Cannabis and Hashish in the West: The Colonial Origins' (from Psychonauts), Yale University Press

There is a second correction. The 1800 decree is often called the start of Egypt’s cannabis ban. It is not. The French left in 1801, and historian Liat Kozma dates Egypt’s lasting prohibition to about 1880. We come back to that at the end of the chapter.

Myth check False

The claim: “Napoleon banned hashish in Egypt in 1800, and that ban began Egypt's long prohibition.”

General Menou issued the 8 October 1800 order. Napoleon had left Egypt in August 1799. The French left in 1801. Historian Liat Kozma dates Egypt's lasting ban to about 1880.

Sources (3)

• Guba, 'The Real History of France's First Anti-Drug Law', Points
• Mike Jay, 'Cannabis and Hashish in the West: The Colonial Origins' (from Psychonauts), Yale University Press
• Kozma, 'The Criminalization of Hashish Consumption in the Middle East', Journal of Levantine Studies

What did O’Shaughnessy actually test in Calcutta?

He tested animals, then a few hospital patients, and he reported what he saw with unusual care. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy was an Irish doctor. He arrived in India in 1833 as an assistant surgeon for the East India Company. He taught chemistry at the Medical College in Calcutta (see the byline in the 1839 paper). He did not discover Indian hemp. People around him had used it for centuries. He thanked a long list of Indian scholars and a Calcutta hemp-house keeper named Ameer for what they taught him (Mukherjee, Public Domain Review).

His method started with caution. An old Arabic author named a dose of 48 grains of churrus, a hemp resin. O’Shaughnessy thought that dose “so enormous” that he “deemed it expedient to proceed with much smaller quantities.” Then he tried ten grains, dissolved in spirit, on a dog. In half an hour the dog was “stupid and sleepy,” and soon wore “a look of utter and helpless drunkenness.” Six hours later it was lively again. Fish, cats, pigs, vultures and crows reacted. Horses, deer, goats, sheep and cows barely noticed (JASB, vol. 8, 1839).

Next came patients at the Medical College hospital. On 6 November 1838 he gave one grain of resin to each of three rheumatism patients. One man grew talkative and sang, then fell silent. At 8 p.m. the clinical clerk on duty sent an urgent note. O’Shaughnessy hurried to the ward and found the man lying on his cot, deeply unresponsive. He lifted an arm. It stayed where he put it. “A waxen figure could not be more pliant or more stationary in each position.” A second patient woke, laughed, and shouted that “four spirits were springing with his bed into the air.”

2 October 1839 (paper read; printed 1839) · , Medical College, Calcutta

O'Shaughnessy reports his Indian hemp trials

Irish surgeon William Brooke O'Shaughnessy tests hemp resin on animals and hospital patients. He claims it can arrest tetanus. His cases had no control group. A later pamphlet calls his cholera cases inconclusive.

Evidence Scientific study Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (4)

• O'Shaughnessy, 'On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah', Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 8 (1839), pp. 732-747 and 838-851
• Mukherjee, 'W. B. O'Shaughnessy and the Introduction of Cannabis to Modern Western Medicine', The Public Domain Review
• O'Shaughnessy, revised paper, Provincial Medical Journal, 4 Feb 1843 (PMC)
• O'Shaughnessy, On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah (1842 pamphlet), Project Gutenberg

Then he tried tetanus, a painful, deadly lock-jaw disease. His first patient, a man named Ramjan Khan, received two-grain doses of resin from 26 December 1838. By 6 January the tetanus symptoms had gone. The man died on the night of 23 January, worn out after the wound’s mortification spread. O’Shaughnessy wrote that hemp, “given boldly and in large doses,” could arrest tetanus. In a later pamphlet (1842) he called his cholera cases “inconclusive” (Gutenberg). He published, in his words, “be it true or false,” because he thought doctors needed to know.

Look at what is missing. There were no control groups. There were only a handful of patients. Nobody could measure the strength of the resin. He read the paper to the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta on 2 October 1839. It was printed that year in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. A revised version reached British readers in the Provincial Medical Journal in February 1843 (PMC).

O’Shaughnessy made one more point that shapes later debates. European hemp, he wrote, seemed to lack the sticky resin that caused the “extraordinary symptoms.” Botanists had already argued over whether Indian and European hemp were two species. Linnaeus named a single species, Cannabis sativa, in 1753. Lamarck named a second, Cannabis indica, from Indian plants in 1785 (Pollio, 2016, PMC).

Who really met at the Paris hashish club?

A small group of artists and doctors met at one Paris mansion from 1845 to 1849, and the guest list has grown in the retelling. First the doctor. Jacques-Joseph Moreau was a young French psychiatrist. Between 1837 and 1840 he travelled to Egypt, Turkey and Syria as a junior doctor, escorting wealthy patients from an asylum near Paris. He questioned his translator about dreams and spirits. He met Louis Aubert-Roche, a French doctor in Cairo who supplied hashish in a sweet paste called dawamesc. Aubert-Roche reasoned: “If this plant has intoxicating powers, it must have some medical power over the nervous system.” (Jay, Yale University Press).

1837 to 1840 · , Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor

Moreau travels the Middle East and meets hashish

French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau escorts asylum patients to Egypt, Turkey and Syria. In Cairo, Dr. Aubert-Roche gives him dawamesc, a hashish paste. Moreau returns to Paris with new questions about the mind.

Evidence Written record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (1)

• Mike Jay, 'Cannabis and Hashish in the West: The Colonial Origins' (from Psychonauts), Yale University Press

Moreau took the question home. In 1845 he published Du hachisch et de l’aliénation mentale, “Hashish and Mental Illness.” His idea was bold. Hashish, he argued, gave doctors a brief, experimental madness, so they could study insanity from the inside. “I challenge the right of anyone to discuss the effects of hashish,” he wrote, “if he is not speaking for himself” (translated by Jay).

1845 · , Paris, France

Moreau publishes Du hachisch et de l'aliénation mentale

Moreau argues that hashish gives doctors a brief experimental madness, a way to study insanity from the inside. He writes that nobody may discuss hashish unless speaking for themselves.

Evidence Scientific study Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Gautier, 'Le Club des Hachichins', Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 Feb 1846 (annotated excerpt, OpenEdition)
• Mike Jay, 'Cannabis and Hashish in the West: The Colonial Origins' (from Psychonauts), Yale University Press

The experiments moved to the Hôtel Pimodan, also called the Hôtel de Lauzun, on the Île Saint-Louis. The painter Fernand Boissard de Boisdenier lived there. He held dinners and concerts, and sometimes tastings of green hashish jam. Historian Erwan Pointeau-Lagadec confirms that real cannabis sessions took place at the hotel between 1845 and 1849 (ISOR, Sorbonne).

1845 to 1849 · , Hôtel Pimodan (Hôtel de Lauzun), Île Saint-Louis, Paris

Hashish sessions at the Hôtel Pimodan

Painter Fernand Boissard hosts dinners and hashish tastings at the Hôtel Pimodan from 1845 to 1849. Gautier, Boissard and Moreau form the core. Long guest lists of famous names are partly myth.

Evidence Written record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Pointeau-Lagadec, 'Le Club des hachichins, du mythe à la réalité' (ISOR, Sorbonne)
• Yvorel, review of Pointeau-Lagadec, Le Club des hachichins: du mythe à la réalité, Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle 62 (2021)

The best-known account is by the writer Théophile Gautier. On 1 February 1846 the Revue des Deux Mondes printed his essay “Le Club des Hachichins.” He describes a first visit on a foggy December night, a doctor spooning out thumb-sized portions of green paste, and a joke. In French: “Ceci vous sera défalqué sur votre portion de paradis.” Green’s English translation: “This will be deducted from your share in Paradise” (Green, The Guardian; French text). Gautier wrote a story, not a minute book. The “secret club” is partly a literary device.

1 February 1846 · , Paris, France

Gautier prints 'Le Club des Hachichins'

The Revue des Deux Mondes prints Théophile Gautier's account of a hashish evening. It is part report and part story, and it makes the 'club' famous.

Evidence Written record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (3)

• Gautier, 'Le Club des Hachichins', Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 Feb 1846 (annotated excerpt, OpenEdition)
• Yvorel, review of Pointeau-Lagadec, Le Club des hachichins: du mythe à la réalité, Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle 62 (2021)
• Green, 'Spoonfuls of paradise', The Guardian (page dated 11 Oct 2002; URL 12 Oct), translation of Gautier

So who came? Popular lists name Dumas, Hugo, Nerval, Balzac, Baudelaire and Delacroix, as in Jonathon Green’s 2002 Guardian extract. A scholarly review of the French study sets out a smaller circle. The core is Gautier, Boissard and Moreau. Regulars include Baudelaire, the writer Alphonse Karr and the painter Ernest Meissonier. About ten visitors came now and then, including Aubert-Roche and Balzac. Delacroix is uncertain (Yvorel, review in Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle). Gautier’s essay names none of the guests. Green adds that Baudelaire “rarely, if indeed ever, indulged” (Green, The Guardian).

Myth check Exaggerated

The claim: “Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, Baudelaire, Delacroix and Nerval were all members of the Paris hashish club.”

Real hashish sessions met at the Hôtel Pimodan in 1845 to 1849. Gautier's essay names no guests. A scholarly review lists a core of Gautier, Boissard and Moreau, regulars including Baudelaire, and visitors including Balzac. Delacroix is uncertain. Dumas, Hugo and Nerval are not on that list.

Sources (3)

• Yvorel, review of Pointeau-Lagadec, Le Club des hachichins: du mythe à la réalité, Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle 62 (2021)
• Pointeau-Lagadec, 'Le Club des hachichins, du mythe à la réalité' (ISOR, Sorbonne)
• Green, 'Spoonfuls of paradise', The Guardian (page dated 11 Oct 2002; URL 12 Oct), translation of Gautier

How did ganja reach Jamaica?

A ship brought 261 Indian contract workers to Jamaica on 10 May 1845, and the Jamaican word ganja matches the Hindi word they knew. How far the plant itself came with them is still debated. The ship was the Blundell, also recorded as the Blundell Hunter. After a 17-week voyage, it landed 200 men, 28 women and 33 children at Old Harbour Bay on 10 May 1845 (Jamaica Information Service; Jamaica National Heritage Trust). About 36,000 Indian workers arrived over 76 years. At first, a contract tied each worker to one plantation for a year and to Jamaica for five years (East Indian heritage brief, PDF).

10 May 1845 · , Old Harbour Bay, Jamaica

Indian contract workers land in Jamaica

The ship Blundell lands 261 Indian indentured workers at Old Harbour Bay after 17 weeks from Calcutta. The Jamaican word ganja matches the Hindi gānjā. Scholars still debate how the plant reached the island.

Evidence Written record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (4)

• Jamaica Information Service, 'More Funds for Indian Arrival Day Celebrations'
• Jamaica National Heritage Trust, Atlas of Cultural Heritage (Indians section)
• Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. (1903), entry GUNJA
• Moorsom 2025, 'A history and social anthropology of the African origins of Jamaica's cannabis'

The word first. In Hindi, gānjā means “the flowering or fruiting shoots of the female plant of Indian hemp … used as an intoxicant,” according to the 1903 edition of the Hobson-Jobson dictionary (archive.org). O’Shaughnessy spelled it gunjah in Calcutta in 1839. The Jamaican word ganja matches it.

Now the plant. Many writers say Indian workers brought cannabis use to Jamaica. Others disagree. A 2025 chapter by Toby Moorsom calls the tie between Jamaica’s cannabis history and the East Indian arrivals a “dominant mythology” and argues for African and Maroon roots (Elgar). We cannot settle that here. The word has a clear Indian source. The plant’s full Jamaican story is still an open question. For the later story of cannabis and Rastafari, read our guide.

How did cannabis reach the pharmacy shelf?

The official US drug book listed it in 1850, on the secondary list of less-established medicines, a section that held some drugs “undergoing trial.” The Pharmacopoeia of the United States was printed in Philadelphia in 1851 by authority of a medical convention held in Washington in 1850. Its entry reads: “Extractum Cannabis. Extract of Hemp. An alcoholic extract of the dried tops of Cannabis sativa — variety Indica.” It sits on the book’s “secondary list.” The preface explains that list. It holds medicines “of less estimation,” some “undergoing trial, without having been generally adopted.” Doctors put them there “to await the decision of experience for or against them” (USP 1850, archive.org).

Read that twice. The first US listing was a waiting room, not a stamp of approval.

1850 (printed 1851) · , Washington, DC (convention); Philadelphia (printing)

Extract of hemp enters the US Pharmacopoeia

The 1850 US Pharmacopoeia lists Extractum Cannabis on its secondary list, for medicines 'undergoing trial.' The preface says such drugs await 'the decision of experience.' Listing was not approval.

Evidence Written record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• The Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America (1850; printed Philadelphia 1851)
• Medicinal Cannabis: History, Pharmacology, and Implications for the Acute Care Setting (PMC)

Seven years later a young writer described this kind of shelf. In 1857 Fitz Hugh Ludlow published The Hasheesh Eater in New York. In its first chapter he visits a friendly doctor in his office, sees a new row of vials of “extracts prepared by Tilden & Co.,” and finds one labelled “Cannabis Indica.” The doctor calls it “a powerful agent in cases of lock-jaw.” Those words echo O’Shaughnessy’s tetanus claim. Ludlow notes an “olive-brown extract, of the consistency of pitch.” The doctor warns: “That stuff is deadly poison.” Ludlow checks the Dispensatory, then swallows a pill that balances a ten-grain weight (Ludlow, 1857). The rest of the book is his story of the visions that followed.

1857 · , New York, United States

Ludlow publishes The Hasheesh Eater

Fitz Hugh Ludlow's book opens in a doctor's office, with a shelf of Tilden & Co. extracts. The doctor calls cannabis 'a powerful agent in cases of lock-jaw' and 'deadly poison.'

Evidence Written record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (1)

• Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater (Harper & Brothers, 1857)

Cannabis also moved into patent medicines. Chlorodyne was a British brand. An army surgeon, Dr. John Collis Browne, developed it to treat cholera in India. The National Army Museum lists its ingredients as laudanum, cannabis and chloroform. The museum adds that its addictive nature and the risk of overdose led to its end (National Army Museum). The maker, J. T. Davenport of London, promised “an invaluable remedy in coughs, colds, consumption, asthma, bronchitis, croup, fever, neuralgia, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, etc.” (Smithsonian label record). Laudanum is a solution of opium. With opium in the bottle, nobody can credit any relief to the cannabis. Other firms sold smoked remedies. The Paris firm Grimault & Co. marketed “Indian cigarettes” of tobacco, cannabis, datura and belladonna as a “sovereign remedy” for asthma from the 1850s to the 1930s (Guba, Points).

Mid-1800s (launch year not confirmed) · , London, England

Chlorodyne: a cholera drug becomes a cure-all

Army surgeon John Collis Browne develops Chlorodyne in India for cholera. London firm J. T. Davenport sells it for more than ten ailments. It holds laudanum, cannabis and chloroform. Addiction and overdose risk end its run.

Evidence Press report Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• National Army Museum, medicine bottle 'Compound Tincture of Chloroform and Morphine (Chlorodyne)'
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Dr. J. Collis Browne's Chlorodyne (J.T. Davenport Ltd.)

Select a bottle to see what each product promised and what we know now.

Dawamesc, the hashish jamTincture and resin of Indian hemp (gunjah)Extractum Cannabis (Extract of Hemp)ChlorodyneExtract of Cannabis IndicaIndian cigarettes (Cigarettes Indiennes)

Select a bottle to read its label.

Why could nobody dose it?

Because strength changed with the season, the field and the maker, and nobody knew which molecule did the work. The clearest witness is Sir John Russell Reynolds. In The Lancet of 22 March 1890 he wrote that Indian hemp, “when pure and administered carefully, is one of the most valuable medicines we possess.” He was responding to a letter from a reader who had suffered after a dose. Reynolds blamed the drug’s “great variations in strength”: extracts, “as well as tinctures made from the extract or from the plant, cannot be made uniform; because the hemp grown during different seasons, and in different places, varies in the amount that it contains of the therapeutic agent.” He began adult patients on one-fifth of a grain or less (The Lancet, pp. 637–638).

Now compare. Ludlow’s pill in 1857 balanced a ten-grain weight. Strength differed by batch and by maker, so the numbers are not directly comparable. That is exactly Reynolds’s point.

Reynolds also disagreed with O’Shaughnessy. In tetanus, he wrote, Indian hemp “has proved in my experience absolutely useless.” He found it useless in true epilepsy and “worse than useless” in mania. He still praised it for other uses. Two trained doctors, fifty years apart, saw opposite results with the same plant. That is what uncontrolled case reports and uneven doses produce.

22 March 1890 · , London, England

Reynolds writes on Indian hemp in The Lancet

Sir J. Russell Reynolds praises Indian hemp but says its strength varies by season and place. He finds it useless in tetanus and true epilepsy. His article names no royal patient.

Evidence Scientific study Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Reynolds, 'On the therapeutical uses and toxic effects of Cannabis indica', The Lancet, 22 March 1890, pp. 637-638
• Berridge 2003, 'Queen Victoria's Cannabis Use', Addiction Research & Theory 11: 213-215

The missing piece was chemistry. In 1890 Reynolds noted that the active principle “has not been separated.” In 1896 three chemists published a paper titled “Charas. The resin of Indian hemp” (Wood, Spivey and Easterfield). The main active molecule, THC, had its structure worked out only in 1964 (Gaoni and Mechoulam). Doctors in the 1800s dosed a plant, not a compound.

One more story clings to Reynolds. The tale says he gave Queen Victoria a cannabis tincture for period pain. His 1890 article names no royal patient. His title on the page is “Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty’s Household,” a post in the royal household, not proof of a private prescription. Historian Virginia Berridge traced the “fact” to the late 1990s, when it helped the case for medical use (Berridge, 2003).

Myth check False

The claim: “Queen Victoria took cannabis tincture for period pain, prescribed by Sir J. Russell Reynolds.”

Reynolds wrote about Indian hemp in The Lancet on 22 March 1890 and was Physician in Ordinary to the royal household. His article names no royal patient. Historian Virginia Berridge traces the story to the late 1990s.

Sources (2)

• Reynolds, 'On the therapeutical uses and toxic effects of Cannabis indica', The Lancet, 22 March 1890, pp. 637-638
• Berridge 2003, 'Queen Victoria's Cannabis Use', Addiction Research & Theory 11: 213-215

What did the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission find?

It found that moderate use caused little harm, that heavy use did harm, and that a total ban was “neither necessary nor expedient.” The story starts in London. On 2 March 1893 W. S. Caine put a question in the House of Commons. In answer, the Secretary of State for India said he would ask the Government of India for a commission. His despatch of 16 March set its task: study the hemp plant, the drug trade, the effects on people, and whether to ban ganja. On 3 July 1893 the Government of India appointed the commission. The president was W. Mackworth Young, and the six members were three officials and three Indian non-official gentlemen (Report, vol. 1).

3 July 1893 · , Government of India (Calcutta)

India commissions an inquiry into hemp drugs

After a question in the House of Commons on 2 March 1893, the Government of India appoints a seven-member commission to study hemp cultivation, trade and effects, and whether to ban ganja.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (1)

• Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-94, vol. 1 (Wellcome Collection copy)

The Commission heard 1,193 European and Indian witnesses. Its report is long, and it is an official record we can still read. Here are its words from Chapter XIII, paragraph 552. “The moderate use of hemp drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all.” Then: “The excessive use does cause injury.” It also reported a striking absence: “It has been the most striking feature in this inquiry to find how little the effects of hemp drugs have obtruded themselves on observation.”

In its final summary, paragraph 740, the Commission wrote that “total prohibition of the cultivation of the hemp plant for narcotics, and of the manufacture, sale, or use of the drugs derived from it, is neither necessary nor expedient in consideration of their ascertained effects …” It proposed “control and restriction, aimed at suppressing the excessive use and restraining the moderate use within due limits,” with taxes, licensed farming and limits on the number of shops.

1894 · , British India

The Commission rejects a total ban

After 1,193 witnesses, the Commission finds moderate use of hemp drugs 'practically attended by no evil results at all' and excessive use harmful. It calls total prohibition 'neither necessary nor expedient.'

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (1)

• Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-94, vol. 1 (Wellcome Collection copy)

Read it with open eyes. It is one inquiry, from 1894, by a colonial government that also cared about revenue. It does not tell you what is safe for you today. It does show that an official body, after a vast hearing, chose regulation over prohibition.

Under the same empire, Egypt went the other way. Kozma writes that in about 1880 Egyptian authorities outlawed growing, selling and using cannabis. They burned fields and raided coffee houses. Smuggling grew up to feed demand. After Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, British officials kept the ban, though without much enthusiasm, while cannabis stayed legal and taxed in India (Kozma, Journal of Levantine Studies; Kozma, Middle Eastern Studies). One empire, two policies. That split matters in the next chapter.

Check your understanding

3 questions. Pick an answer in your head, then open the question to check it.

1 Who issued the October 1800 ban on hashish in Egypt?

1. ANapoleon Bonaparte
2. BGeneral Jacques-François Menou
3. CWilliam O'Shaughnessy
4. DQueen Victoria

Answer: B. General Jacques-François Menou

Menou issued the order on 8 October 1800. Napoleon had left Egypt in August 1799.

2 Why could 1800s doctors not dose cannabis extracts reliably?

1. AStrength varied with the season and place the hemp grew, and the active molecule was unknown
2. BEvery bottle held the same fixed amount of THC
3. CDoctors had measured THC in 1850
4. DPharmacists had to dilute it by law

Answer: A. Strength varied with the season and place the hemp grew, and the active molecule was unknown

Reynolds wrote in 1890 that extracts and tinctures 'cannot be made uniform.' THC's structure was worked out in 1964.

3 What did the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission recommend in 1894?

1. ATotal prohibition of all hemp drugs
2. BControl and restriction instead of total prohibition
3. CFree, untaxed sale
4. DA ban on bhang only

Answer: B. Control and restriction instead of total prohibition

It called total prohibition 'neither necessary nor expedient' and urged control and restriction. It also said excessive use does injure.

1. 1Who issued the October 1800 ban on hashish in Egypt?

   ANapoleon BonaparteBGeneral Jacques-François MenouCWilliam O'ShaughnessyDQueen Victoria
2. 2Why could 1800s doctors not dose cannabis extracts reliably?

   AStrength varied with the season and place the hemp grew, and the active molecule was unknownBEvery bottle held the same fixed amount of THCCDoctors had measured THC in 1850DPharmacists had to dilute it by law
3. 3What did the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission recommend in 1894?

   ATotal prohibition of all hemp drugsBControl and restriction instead of total prohibitionCFree, untaxed saleDA ban on bhang only

0 of 3 answered

The century that began with a general’s ban in Cairo ended with a medicine cabinet full of bottles nobody could measure. The next step was the law. In 1906 the United States passed its first Food and Drug Act, and it required labels that named cannabis indica when it was an ingredient (Smithsonian National Museum of American History). In Chapter 6, labels give way to bans.