from Mexican seeds yielded 1.47 percent THC as compared with 1.31 percent for female plants.15 The female plant does, however, yield more resin or hashish. Laboratory tests of United States "weed" marijuana indicate that its THC content is very low. A 1971 study published in Science, however, suggests that the THC determinations as currently made are a poor index of the effectiveness of marijuana when smoked; the smoke may be considerably more potent than the THC determinations indicate. Between 1850 and 1937, marijuana was quite widely used in American medical practice for a wide range of conditions. Ile United States Pharmacopoeia, which through the generations has maintained a highly selective listing of the country's most widely accepted drugs, admitted marijuana as a recognized ' medicine in 1850 under the name Extractum Cannabis or Extract of Hemp, and listed it until 1942. The National Formulary and United States Dispensatory, less selective, also included monographs on marijuana and cited recommendations for its use for numerous illnesses. In 1851 the United States Dispensatory reported: Extract of hemp is a powerful narcotic [here meaning sleep-producing drug], causing exhilaration, intoxication, delirious hallucinations, and, in its subsequent action, drowsiness and stupor, with little effect upon the circulation. It is asserted also to act as a decided aphrodisiac, to increase the appetite, and occasionally to induce the cataleptic state. In morbid states of the system, it has been found to cause sleep, to allay spasm, to compose nervous disquietude, and to relieve pain. In these respects it resembles opium; but it differs from that narcotic in not diminishing the appetite, checking the secretions, or constipating the bowels. It is much less certain in its effects, but may sometimes be preferably employed, when opium is contraindicated by its nauseating or constipating effects, or its disposition to produce headache, and to c...
