tempt within the power structures of society at the time.
The first laws against LSD in the United States were passed in 1966.
By 1971 it was illegal throughout the world, even though most of the
world had never heard of it. Concurrently, all clinical research with
psychedelics taking place at hospitals and medical centers came to
a halt. After years of being off-limits, beginning in the 1990s and
continuing to this day the therapeutic utility of psychedelics is again
being investigated by biomedical and clinical scientists. There is
ample reason to believe that, when used with therapeutic intent in
carefully controlled settings, they can be of extraordinary value. Such
great power is worthy of our very highest respect.
Cannabinoids. Plants of the genus Cannabis are believed to have orig-
inated in central Asia but now grow everywhere in the world. (The
Latin genus name Cannabis has been widely adapted as acommon
name for the plant—thus, cannabis.) Wherever people have gone,
cannabis has followed. Some say the cannabis plant may have been in
domestic relationship with humans for longer than any other plant
—perhaps more than ten thousand years—predating by thousands
of years the domestication of cereal grains and other food plants.
Cannabis has long been appreciated for its fiber properties, useful
for making strong rope and durable cloth, and for its powerful and
diverse medicinal and psychological applications: analgesic, muscle
relaxant, appetite stimulant, sedative, stimulant, psychedelic-like
changer of consciousness. When used to make fiber, cannabis is often
referred to as hemp; when used for psychoactive and other medicinal
effects, the plant or preparations from it bear many names—mari-
juana, pot, hash, ganja, and bhang, to name a few.
Cannabis, like any plant, contains hundreds of different kinds of
molecules, dozens of which are likely to possess physiological activity