At the turn of the 20th century, American medicine was heavily based on homeopathy and herbal medicine. U.S physicians prescribed cannabis routinely to their patients. Between 1840 and 1900 over a hundred medical journals were published by American and European researchers on cannabis and its beneficial use. However, everything changed in 1937, when the US Congress passed the first federal law restricting access to cannabis, by passing the Marijuana Tax Act. This act essentially outlawed the use of cannabis both for recreational and medical purposes, including research.

Cannabis was once one of the top three most prescribed medicines in the U.S, however within a very short amount of time it went out of use due to heavy taxation, and the prosecution of doctors who prescribed it. In 1942 it was written out of the American pharmacopeia (official book of medicinal drugs). Later on, in 1970, U.S federal law classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which makes it extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, for researchers to obtain cannabis for research purposes. It is for this main reason that research on cannabis remains vastly understudied today.

The current federal laws in the U.S are ironic, as in-order to reclassify cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug, which would solve the access problems, research is necessary. However, the current laws constrain researchers’ ability to do the science necessary to determine cannabis’s medicinal benefits and their efficacy. Therefore, until federal laws in the U.S are not amended, research will continue to be lacking on cannabis and our knowledge and understanding of this complex plant will continue to be deficient. In the meantime, researchers in other countries where cannabis is legal, will continue to uncover the mysteries of this wondrous plant and its chemical profiling.