Perspective on Cannabis: Uses, Abuses and Control

Cannabis (Cannabis sativa) is one of the earliest known crop plants that humans have dispersed throughout the planet. It is known by various names such as hemp, industrial hemp, bhang (Hindi) etc. In India from Kashmir in the west to Assam in the east, the plant can be found growing wild along the foothills of the Himalayas and the surrounding plains.

It has adapted to the Indian plains and grows even in the warm weather of southern India, retaining all of its narcotic properties. The cannabis plant population is frequently observed around orchards, river banks canals, field channels, uncultivated wastelands, roadside ditches, and other locations. Unlawful use of cannabis by the addicts leads to health and social issues. Traffic, animal movement, and human mobility are frequently impeded by it.

Botanical description of Cannabis sativa

The plant is a member of the family Cannabaceae and order Urticales. The leaves are palmately compound or digitate, with serrate leaflets. Cannabis is a flowering, annual, dioecious herb that spreads by producing seeds in autumn that germinate the following spring. In contrast to plants that have both the male and female reproductive organs on the same plant (monoecious), "dioecious" plants have the male and female sexes on different plants.

The lower branches of C. sativa plants stretch out 4 feet or more from the central stalk, resembling the conical branches of a Christmas tree. The average height attained is between 8 and 12 feet, although it can range up to more than 20 feet in the areas where the conditions are conducive for its growth. Female plants are preferable for the generation of cannabinoids (phytocannabinoids) for a number of reasons. Female cannabis plants have unique glandular structures called trichomes that protrude out of their epidermal surfaces.

Trichomes yield and store a complex blend of resinous substances that are very desirable to consumers and cannabis lovers. The female inflorescence is mostly utilized to extract the prohibited substances. Up to 2,000 seeds can be produced by a single plant. In Kashmir, germination occurs in March and April and the plant remains in the vegetative stage until July. August is the flowering time, and the seeds mature in September-October.

Uses

It is believed that the use of cannabis started in central Asia or western China. Allelopathic in nature, it can prevent or reduce soil pathogens as well as weeds, making it a potential tool for soil phytoremediation. An extremely versatile plant, hemp can be used in agro-industrial domains such as agriculture, biofuel, biocomposites, textiles, papermaking, building, functional foods, skin care, and cosmetic applications.

It is a member of a significant class of medicinal plants that yields hundreds of physiologically active chemicals, including flavonoids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, terpenoids, and cannabinoids. Furthermore, hemp seeds lack the anti-nutritive properties commonly associated with many other oil seeds. For ages, the cannabis plant has been utilized in traditional remedies and as a recreational and entheogenic narcotic.

The primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the 483 recognized chemicals in the plant that also includes at least 65 additional cannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis can be consumed as an extract, smoked, vaped, or added to food. The fact that many governments classify cannabis as an illegal narcotic, those manufacturing limits have impeded the thorough scientific research of the plant as a therapeutic.

Research indicates that cannabis may help alleviate chronic pain and muscle spasms, enhance appetite in HIV/AIDS patients, and lessen nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy. There is evidence that cannabis or its derivatives can be used to treat multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain and muscle stiffness. In the year 2023 CSIR-IIIM, Jammu has initiated a cannabis research project, the first of its kind in the country, to exploit the plant for the extraction of drugs against neuropathies, cancer and epilepsy.

 Abuse

The Kashmir Valley has become a drug abuse hub in Northern India. According to a recent survey 600,000 individuals in Jammu and Kashmir—roughly 4.6% of the territory's total population—are involved in drug abuse. About 140,000 of these make illegal usage of cannabis.

According to a poll, majority of drug abusers fall within the age group of 17–33. Smoking cannabis induces, dizziness, red eyes, poor muscle coordination, delayed reaction times, and increased appetite. Further, cannabis impairs cognitive development, psychomotor performance, divided attention, impairment of cognitive functioning and exacerbates schizophrenia.

Prolonged consumption can cause epithelial injury of the trachea and bronchi, airway injury, lung inflammation, impaired pulmonary defence, chronic bronchitis and impairment in fetal development.

The sale, possession, transit, and cultivation of cannabis in any form is illegal in India unless authorized by the appropriate authority assigned for that purpose. The NDPS Act 1985 defines cannabis as "the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant," ganja, hashish (concentrated preparation), charas (resin), crude or purified, oil or liquid hashish, and so on. The NDPS Act 1985 does not completely outlaw cannabis; however, it may be utilized for horticultural, scientific, medical, and industrial reasons with the appropriate authorization from the concerned State Government.

Intoxicating drugs may not be grown, manufactured, transported, sold, or exported unless they have been done legally and their export is approved by a competent authority in exchange for payment of any applicable fees or duties. Since cannabis grows widely both in private and state lands, the law should fix the responsibility on the land owner to keep the non-cropped lands free of cannabis. Wherever the plant grows on the state land, the burden of clearing the land free from cannabis should be on the respective government agency who manages the land.

Control measures

Cannabis control requires a comprehensive approach that starts with germination but should end before seed set. Raising the public awareness about the detrimental consequences of these weeds through the press, media, field days in schools, colleges, and universities is very important.

Establishing competitive and improved grass species and the application of fertilizer to promote their growth and development in wastelands. Road maintenance staff can manage these weeds on roadside areas, from where they spread to neighbouring non-cropped lands. Sickling and mowing is another manual method of removing cannabis top growth to stop seed production and starving their subsurface plant parts.

In the initial stages of plant growth, the land can be ploughed using rotovators that cuts and chops the plant and incorporates them in soil. In uncropped areas, brush cutters are getting more and more common. Before seed sets, all mechanical weed control techniques must be finished. From a research project on the chemical control of cannabis conducted at SKAUST-Kashmir and sponsored by Jammu and Kashmir Department of Excise and Taxation under social responsibility corpus fund, it has been observed that paraquat and glyphosate herbicides are the most effective herbicides against cannabis.

It was further observed that no phytotoxicity occurred in the succeeding crop sown 50 days after the spray on the cannabis.

In conclusion the wild populations of cannabis where there is propensity of misuse by the miscreants, it should be destroyed by using all the means at disposal of the concerned agencies. Judicious use of herbicides seems to be more efficient and economical method of cannabis eradication.

Laws against unauthorized cultivation of cannabis by individuals should be more stringent. Surveillance of such areas can be made more efficient by the use of satellite data and drones. Commercial exploitation of cannabis for various products such as pharmaceuticals is possible under the strict monitoring and licensing by the law enforcing agencies.

Ashaq Hussain, Professor (Agronomy) at Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops, SKUAST-Kashmir, Khudwani Kulgam.