Time To Review Taxonomy and Nomenclature

Cannabis = Hemp = Marijuana or Not?

By David Bearman, M.D.

As cannabis is reintroduced to its rightful place on the world stage, the topic of nomenclature and taxonomy is more important now than ever to make sure that we are clearly communicating. What, if anything, do we mean by the terms sativa and indica and what are marijuana, hemp and cannabis anyway? Are they the same plant, different plants, or what? We need to answer this question so we can understand what we are talking about the easier to stay on the same page.

This communication confusion is no accident. It played a key role in the long campaign to marginalize hemp. Donald J. Trump is definitely not the first businessman or politician who uses verbal tactics to sow chaos and confusion. The field of drug policy has many who have used this ploy including but not limited to William Randolph Hearst, a wealthy anti-Hispanic newspaperman and extremely well-heeled son of a very wealthy silver baron, Harry Anslinger, a racist, ambitious federal bureaucrat, first head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and Lamont Dupont, head of DuPont, and Nazi sympathizer. So when it comes to cannabis it’s easy to get confused by the vocabulary and efforts to demonize one of the most useful plants that has ever grown on this planet.

Medical Cannabis: The History

One of the first people to demonize cannabis was Pope Innocent VI in the fifteenth century. This was a part of the Inquisition and the witch hunts. In a famous papal bull he demonized cannabis as a tool of the devil. This was aimed at midwives, so-called witches. In point of fact they were herbalogists and lay healers. Their “sin” was to know and use plants to treat medical conditions. This use of plant-based medicine was in lieu of faith. Their worst sin was knowing that cannabis could ease the pain of childbirth. According to the clergy of the time this pain was punishment for Eve eating the apple from the tree of knowledge.

Cannabis appeared in every major materia medica since the first, the Ping Ts’ao Ching in 2637 BCE, in an Ayervedic Medicine Pharmacopeia dated between 1000-1700 BCE, Descordes in Rome 70 CE, the Ebers Papyrus 1500 CE, down to and including being in the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) from the 1850s until 1942. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century cannabis was the third most common ingredient after alcohol and opium in prescriptions and patent medicine. And in the 1920s American physicians wrote three million cannabis containing prescriptions per year.

Notwithstanding the Pope’s opposition for 1,000 years, hemp was the most profitable agricultural plant in the world until the late nineteenth century. In the Middle Ages hemp was widely used as an ingredient in the breakfast cereal business as gruel. It was also used to make beer which is perfectly reasonable since it is a cousin to hops. With the rise of the steamship, hemp was no longer much needed for sail and rigging, but it was still a valuable crop. In the 19th century Kentucky was the center of hemp growing in the U.S. but in the early twentieth century Wisconsin and Minnesota were prime hemp growing states. Hemp was still used for rope and fiber, the oil was used in making paint, and the seeds are what was in birdseed that made the birds tweet happily.

So What Happened?

Here we have a plant with nutritional value, medical utility and industrial use. How did such a useful plant fall on hard times. It was through a combination of economic competition, racism, superstition and religiosity that cannabis was demonized and this remarkable plant was attempted to be marginalized.

A Tool To Marginalize Immigrants

In the mid-19th century with the influx of Irish immigrants (a result of the potato famine in Ireland), a large number of Irish Catholics came to the U.S. The English had long discriminated against the Irish and particularly Irish Catholics. This animosity led the Temperance Movement to morph into a prohibition movement. This made the concept of prohibition more popular amongst anti-immigrant factions by the U.S. population.

Soon in the mid-19th century, millions of Chinese arrived on the West Coast. This was due to a devastating flood in China, destroying tens of thousands of acres of farmland. It was a matter of survival to come to the U.S. where there were plentiful jobs in and around the gold fields. A decade later the Chinese, along with the Irish and others, were pivotal in building the Transcontinental Railroad.

The Economic Factors

In 1873 the U.S. faced its first depression. Xenophobia was in full bloom. These Chinese not only worked too hard, they worked cheap, so they were accused of “taking our jobs” but that wasn’t enough. The Rabel accused the Chinese of luring virginal, white, Protestant women into their opium dens. Soon opiates were added to alcohol as a substance that should either be prohibited or at the very least highly regulated.

The Seeds of Cannabis Prohibition

Okay, I’m setting the stage and getting to cannabis, so hold on. Cannabis likely entered the U.S. through the port of New Orleans in the 1890s; brought there by sailors from South America and the Caribbean. Many historians suggest that cannabis for smoking was introduced into the Americas by Angolan slaves brought to Brazil in the 16th century to harvest sugar cane and that the slaves used cannabis after the hard work of the harvest to relax and celebrate the harvest being over.

The origin of the word ‘marijuana’ is lost in antiquity. Cannabis is said to be found in the Bible as Kaneh Bosn. Some theorize that Jesus of Nazareth used tincture of cannabis as one of his emollients to cure the leper and stop the seizures. David Ables in his excellent book, “Marijuana The First 12,000 Years” spends a page or two speculating on the origin of the word marijuana or marihuana.

Ables suggests that the origin of the word marijuana could be Spanish, Moroccan, Chinese or Portuguese. My guess is it was based on the Portuguese word maryerona or maran griago which connotes intoxication. In the eighteenth century  Swedish botanist Linaeus developed the standardized plant nomenclature still used today. He gave cannabis its proper name (cannabis sativa).

Soon after being introduced in New Orleans cannabis, referred to by such appellations as muggles, reefer, Mary Jane was being used by the jazz musicians who provided the background music for the houses of ill repute (bordellos) in the red light district of New Orleans, called Storeyville named after City Councilman Story who had designated that area of town for these bordellos with jazz accompaniment.

Now the Confusion Goes Into High Gear

But the real confusion between cannabis, hemp and marijuana came with the Mexican Revolution. It started in 1910 and sent millions of Mexicans were fleeing to the U.S. and bringing with them, not only cannabis but the word marijuana. Hearst owned a string of newspapers. He had previously shown his anti-Hispanic colors by using his newspapers to gin up hysteria and support for starting the Spanish-American War, the war that propelled  America’s entry into colonialism.

It was Hearst who popularized the word “marijuana” in his effort to play to the anti-immigrant sentiments of the American public. It was also a tool to marginalize Mexican immigrants seeking refuge from the ravages of war.

What Is in a Name? Well, Everything and Nothing

For the next three decades we had the odd situation of over half the states in the U.S. declaring marijuana as illegal. Strangely cannabis was available in over 25 over the counter patent medicines. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century it was the third most common ingredient in prescription and patent medicine, after alcohol and opium. In 1906 with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, it was mandatory that cannabis be on the label of every patent medicine which contained it as an ingredient. Also in the 1920s American doctors were writing three million cannabis containing prescriptions a year. The American public knew hemp and they knew cannabis, but not marijuana.

Don’t Anger Big Oil

In the 1930s the petrochemical industry entered the name game. They were concerned about competition from hemp. Why is that, you ask. For two reasons: (1) improved efficiency of hemp harvesting. George Schlichten’s Decorticator patented in 1916 (prompting the Department of Agriculture to release Bulletin 404 urging farmers to grow hemp), patent had run out. It already had cut the labor in half to harvest and prepare hemp for industrial use. Now other investors were making further improvements. The stage was set for cannabis/hemp to become an economic juggernaut.

Cannabis posed a competitor to the petrochemical industry. In the 1920s and 30s it was not clear that fossil fuel would be the fuel of choice for automobiles and the internal combustion engine. Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on peanut oil. Henry Ford, himself, always thought that the internal combustion engine would run on plant-based ethanol. His choice was hemp ethanol. In the late 1930s, Ford developed a prototype car that not only ran on hemp ethanol, but whose upholstery was made of hemp and whose acrylic body was embedded with hemp.

Marijuana Tax Act

There is strong circumstantial evidence that Lamont DuPont of Dupont Corporation was the petrochemical point man here. Dupont made many products that would be threatened by competition from more affordable hemp. Hemp was now competitive due to a harvesting machine (decorticator) patented in 1916 that cut the labor in half necessary to harvest and prepare hemp for industrial use. By 1933 the original patent ran out and large agricultural interests (agribusiness) could see profits in the near future from growing hemp. In fact, in 1938, only months after the Marijuana Tax Act was passed, Popular Mechanics ran an article entitled “Cannabis the New Billion Dollar Crop.” As Jack Herer pointed out in “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” hemp is very versatile. It has been used in building materials, fiber, as a medicine, a food, as well as a social lubricant. Herer said that cannabis had 25,000 industrial and medical uses.

The inner core of hemp, the hemp hurd, and if you were growing hemp for fiber, food or oil from the seed, it was basically a waste product. The hurd was cellulose. Dupont, a munitions maker, used cellulose not only for munitions, but to make the synthetics cellophane, nylon and rayon. Dupont also made sulfites used to make paper from both wood pulp and hemp. Wood pulp however requires four times as much sulfites to make paper as hemp. Dupont also made the gasoline additive tetraethyl lead which would fall by the wayside if cars were powered by hemp ethanol.

Henry Ford always thought cars would run on ethanol, most likely hemp ethanol. In the late 30s Ford had a prototype car whose acrylic skin 15 times stronger than steel was made from hemp, as was its upholstery, and it ran on hemp ethanol. Finally Dupont was the largest shareholder in Ford’s major competitor, General Motors. The clincher in this pile of circumstantial evidence is that the MTA was introduced in the house by Robert Doughton of North Carolina (D). He was a long-time water carrier for Dupont and had previously introduced legislation at Dupont’s behest. While there is no smoking gun, there is ample circumstantial evidence that Dupont was the driving force behind the MTA.

Harry Anslinger, the first director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) was arguably the greatest bureaucrat of all times. By demonizing cannabis, he created a problem where none existed. Well, he couldn’t actually demonize cannabis because way too many people knew what cannabis was but he could demonize marijuana, and did.

It’s hard to comprehend today, but in the 1930s few Anglos used cannabis recreationally and cannabis was, well, cannabis. While jazz musicians of all skin hues and some African Americans used cannabis recreationally they usually referred to cannabis as muggles or Mary Jane as the great trumpet player Louis Armstrong refers to it in his autobiography. Mr. Armstrong wrote that his daily use of muggles was the only thing that allowed him to deal with the rampant, virulent racism in America at the time. And of course the Mexican American population constituted a much lower percentage of the U.S. population than it does today. The American populous knew what hemp was. They knew what cannabis was but marijuana was a word that was foreign to the ears of the vast majority of Americans of the 1930s.

AMA Says Even If You Pass This Act, Don’t Call It “The Marijuana Tax Act”

The AMA in their vigorous 1937 testimony AGAINST the Marijuana Tax Act (MTA) said that they almost didn’t show up to testify because they had no idea that the MTA was about cannabis. They testified that should the MTA pass over the AMA’s opposition, it should be renamed the Cannabis Tax Act so the American public knew what the law was talking about. Clearly the medical establishment testimony was ignored. Dr. William C. Woodward, past president of the APHA, testified for the AMA. He testified that “The AMA knows of NO dangers from the medical use of cannabis.”

Richard E. Schultes, Ph.D. Weighs In

In the mid-1990s Michael Krawitz, a drug policy reform activist, communicated with the pioneering entheobotanist Dr. Richard Schultes, and long time Harvard Professor. In a letter to Krawitz, Shultes explained that hemp and marijuana were the same plant. He went on to say that the less than .3% THC demarcation as a red line between hemp and marijuana was an arbitrary bureaucratic fiction. It had no basis in botany. Hemp and marijuana are and always have been one and the same. They are cannabis.

Twenty-First Century

So let’s get to Sativa, Indica and Ruderalis. These are the classical names for three different hemp cultivars. Over the past number of years the terms Sativa and Indica have become more imprecise. With cross breeding and creative marketing, variety and strain names and definitions have become ambiguous. The conventional wisdom is that, “Indica plants have higher THC and lower CBD content than Sativa.”

Here is another standard description of an Indica: “Indicas are lower in THC, and higher in CBN/CBD. They can combat anxiety and stress.” Compare this with a standard definition of cannabis Sativa, which are generally considered to be the opposite of the Indica strains in their THC and CBD content (e.g., high CBD and low THC).

Sativa plants are said to grow tall and thin with narrow leaves. They are described as generally a lighter shade of green than their counterpart, the Indica strain. Medicine produced from cannabis Indica plants has lower CBD and higher THC concentration, while the THC content in Sativa is both higher than the CBD and lower than the THC found in an Indica.

According to Jeff Raber, former owner of WERC labs, there has been so much cross breeding of cultivators and misuse and inaccurate use of variety names for marketing purposes that the old standby labels (i.e. sativa and Indica), no longer have much real meaning. What is important is the content of THC, CBD and/or any other constituents listed on the product label in either mg or percentage. 

Indica is an imprecise term. Here is what one dispensary had to say about Indica:

Lower THC, higher CBN/CBD. Indica strains are known for a more pronounced body sensation with less cerebral stimulation, through a heavily “medicated” mental state of ten comes with Indica strains. Indica’s are best for later in the day/night time use, and are optimal for pain relief and relaxation. Relieves headaches and migraines; spasms, reduces seizures; reduces inflammation; combats anxiety and stress; reduces nausea; pain reducer; sleep aid; appetite stimulator; muscle relaxant. 

In a 2016 interview for the Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research Journal, noted neurologist Dr. Ethan Russo said, “There are biochemically distinct strains of cannabis, but the sativa/indica distinction as commonly applied in the lay literature is total nonsense and an exercise in futility. One cannot in any way currently guess the biochemical content of a given cannabis plant based on its height, branching, or leaf morphology. The degree of interbreeding/hybridization is such that only a biochemical assay tells a potential consumer or scientist what is really in the plant.”

Dr. Russo adds that some people believe in a single species, while others describe up to four (sativa, indica, ruderalis and afghanica or kafiristanica). He suggests it’s futile to apply simple descriptions to complex botanical systems.

Russo says, “I would strongly encourage the scientific community, the press, and the public to abandon the sativa/indica nomenclature and rather insist that accurate biochemical assays on cannabinoid and terpenoid profiles be available for cannabis in both the medical and recreational markets. Scientific accuracy and the public health demand no less than this.”

So what’s the solution?

Modern botanists, herbalogists and clinicians say let’s keep it simple and use the nomenclature of Type I, Type II and Type III. Type I higher THC, type II 1:1 THC to CBD ratio and Type III high CBD. This will present the tragedy of a fatal accident in San Diego where a patient had been using a hi CBD low THC which was called an Indica, and when the dispensary she had been using was closed over a licensing dispute at the new dispensary she asked for an Indica which turned out was not labeled with its THC and CBD content. After the accident when tested it was indeed high THC low CBD 25.6% THC and .12% CBD. Suffice it to say the driver had an extremely different affect than what she had been using.

The lessons are many for education, pharmacy, nursing, and medical schools and the cannabis industry. Treat cannabis as the medicine it is and use a vocabulary that we all understand.

Glossary

Here are some other cannabis, hemp, and marijuana-related terms:

2-Arachidonoylglycerol (2AG) – an endogenous ligand endocannabinoid of CB1 receptor.

Anandamide – One of two naturally occurring endocannabinoids found in the brains of all mammals. Also known as AEA – arachidonoylethanolamide (anandamide).

Bhang – a traditional Indian tea made with cannabis leaves and/or roots.

 

Cannabinoids – Cannabinoids are 21 carbon molecules that block or stimulate CB1 and/or CB2 receptors. (These include: CBC, CBCV, CBD, CBDA, CBDV, CBG, CBGV, CBN, CBV, THC, THCA, THCV)

—Phytocannabinoids are those cannabinoids (about 113) found within the cannabis plant.

—Endocannabinoids are cannabis like molecules produced by the human body. They are 2AG and anandamide.

—Both phytocannabinoids and endocannabinoids act upon the body’s endocannabinoid receptors.

Endocannabinoid System (ECS) – All mammals have an ECS. It is essential for homeostasis. It consists, at a minimum, of two neurotransmitters anandamide and 2 AG, two receptors CB1 and CB2, and two enzymes FAAH and MAGL.

Ganj/Ganja/Ghanja – In India cannabis is categorized as Bhang, Ganja or Charas. Ganga – the resin and leaves usually smoked in a clay pipe called a bide.

Indica – One of three varieties of cannabis along with sativa and ruderalis low in THC and higher in CBD and CBN. Recent lab studies have demonstrated that most strain names including sativa and indica are inconsistent and/or are inaccurate. They are largely marketing tools.

Joint (see also: cone, spliff, doobie, reefer, mary jane, number, “J”) – Cannabis rolled in cigarette rolling papers.

Kief – Kief is the traditional term for cannabis in Morocco.

Mary Jane – One of the numerous slang terms for cannabis. It is a play on “marijuana.” Was once a somewhat discreet way of talking about cannabis. As cannabis enters the mainstream these slang and code names are declining in use.

Muggles – Popular 1920’s name for cannabis, particularly used by jazz musicians.

Reefer – Possibly a version of the Mexican Spanish “grifa”. Reefer became popularized in the 1920’s as a term for a marijuana cigarette. It’s best known for the Harry Anslinger supported propaganda film “Reefer Madness”.

Sativa – Sativa is generally a high THC low CBD plant. One of three major varieties of cannabis along with Indica and Ruderalis. Sativas can treat depression and fatigue because they are euphorogenic; they can decrease intraocular pressure, are anti-nauseants, can treat ADD/ADHD, PTSD and help with sleep. Their effects can definitely vary from user to user.

Spliff – A combination of tobacco and marijuana rolled together, that can at times be a cone shape, more often used in Europe. It can add a nicotine buzz to the high, but many people who don’t smoke find it off-putting.

THC – Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is one of the main cannabinoids, along with CBD, found in the cannabis plant and is responsible for the majority of the plant’s euphorogenic properties. THC has medical benefits including analgesic properties, though perhaps its most defined quality is its tendency to increase appetite.