Peter Reynolds

Two days ago, I found this marvellous image of Hunter S. Thompson which reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to write about for ages.

Cannabis is a wonderful thing.  We spend so much time having to engage in intellectual, scientific, medical, moral and human rights arguments that we forget to tell the truth.  We forget to say what’s good.  We forget to advance the wonderful, beneficial, delightful, life-enhancing qualities of this amazing plant.   Cannabis is good.  It does you good.  It’s done so much good for me in my life and for so many people that I know.  It opens hearts and minds and understanding.  It reveals truth and beauty and music and conversation and the joy of existence on our beautiful planet.

Now, I can even substantiate this with science.   Cannabis has been treated with reverence and as a religious sacrement by some yet demonised and reviled by the forces of darkness and evil.  The positive benefits of God’s herb, known to mankind for thousands of years but shrouded in mystery and superstition,  are now revealed by science as an integral part of the universe.  The Endocannabinoid System (ECS), only discovered in 1988 but now known to be fundamental to life, is the reason that the natural supplement of the plant is a good, good thing.  A nutrient that can benefit us all.  See here.

The ECS, present in mammals, fish, reptiles and birds, is now known to be vital in pain relief, sensation, appetite, taste, weight control, mood, memory, motor skills and fertility.  Contrary to the idea that each pull on that joint kills millions of brain cells, in fact the ECS facilitates neurogenesis, the birth of neurons.  In 2003, the US government registered US patent no. 6630507 for cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants for limiting neurological damage following stroke or physical trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia.

Cannabinoids have been shown to have analgesic, anti-spasmodic, anti-convulsant, anti-tremor, anti-psychotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-emetic and appetite-stimulant or appetite-suppressant properties.

Is it any wonder that cannabis has been used as a medicine for thousands of years? Is it any wonder that millions of us have known instinctively for so long that cannabis is a wonderful, beneficial, health-giving plant?

Cannabis really is the wonder drug that the hippies rediscovered in the 1960s.  It really does offer so many benefits to mankind.  However much the prohibitionists lie and dissemble and spread fear, uncertainty and doubt, the truth is out.  Science now knows what we knew all along.  Cannabis is a wonderful thing!