Civil War

Cannabis in Civil War medicine and botany

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), medical cannabis was used to treat soldiers for a variety of conditions. 

Applications for soldiers

• Pain Relief: Cannabis was used as an analgesic, particularly as an alternative to opium, which was known for its addictive properties.
• Dysentery and Diarrhea: Doctors reportedly prescribed cannabis, sometimes in conjunction with opium, to combat these common and deadly ailments.
• Tetanus and Gangrene: One instance involved a Union soldier who, after an amputation and developing tetanus and gangrene, was treated with cannabis tincture and survived.
• Headaches, Insomnia, and Cramps: After the war, during the 1920s, medics of the American Expeditionary Force were taking medical cannabis to Europe and using it to treat these conditions in troops, according to nationalbotanicals.com. 

Role of doctors and botany

• Pharmacopoeia and Dispensatory: Cannabis was listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia and the Dispensatory of the United States of America, comprehensive guides to medicinal drugs for pharmacists and doctors.
• Formulations: Cannabis was typically administered as an extract or tincture, not smoked as is common today. Tilden's Extract was a notable commercial preparation of the time.
• Botany's Importance: The Union naval blockade of Southern ports limited the Confederacy's access to conventional medicines. This prompted the Confederate Surgeon General to commission botanist and surgeon Francis Porcher to compile "Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests" in 1863, which documented medicinal plants of the South, including remedies used by Native Americans and enslaved Africans. This highlights the role of botanical knowledge in finding alternative treatments during wartime.

Recreational Use

Some of the earliest reports of recreational cannabis use in the military came from the Panama Canal Zone in 1916, where troops were noted to be using the drug.[3][4] Also in 1916, thousands of US troops used marijuana while in Mexico on General John Pershing's punitive expedition against Pancho Villa (1916–1917).[5] In 1921, the commanding officer of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, prohibited the use of cannabis on the base.[