Jose Rizal and Medical Marijuana

Facsimile addressed letter  to Dr. Adolf  B. Meyer 


Today is the 158th Birthday of Jose Rizal. I am featuring one of his controversial letters. Dated March 5, 1890, and addressed to German naturalist and anthropologist Adolf B. Meyer. Yes, it is the one where Rizal mentioned, he experimented with "Hashish"-- a byproduct of the Cannabis plant (or in slang, "marijuana")... Tumira siya.

The three-page letter was actually written in Spanish and not in German as some earlier articles say. Rizal communicated with the Hamburg born Prof. Meyer in three languages, namely German, French, and also Spanish.

Translating the first two paragraphs, it goes:

"My distinguished friend: “I received your letter of the 27th of last month and excuse me for not having answered you before this, for I have had to consult some countrymen and books concerning your question about the hashish.

“No book, no historian that I know of speaks of any plant whose use is similar to that of the hashish. I, though, in 1879, used hashish, I did it for experimental purposes and obtained the substance from the drugstore. I do not believe that its use had been introduced before or after the arrival of the Spaniards. The Filipinos drank arak, nipa-palm, and coconut wine, etc. and they chewed buyo before the arrival of the Spaniards, but not hashish.".....

Rizal being a UST medical student at that time followed the trend of many in medical schools of America and Europe. There are substantial journals and literature of doctors, interns, and students experimenting and taking interest in cannabis, which was in the 19th Century, considered as medicine.

Actually, Hashish is not the marijuana leaves that users popularly smoke. Instead, Hashish is the extracted pollen from the flower of a female Cannabis plant Using various methods of extraction, pollens are collected and then pressed hard until it resembles a small brick-like material or even a chocolate bar.

How does one consume it? There was this method of mixing and smoking it with tobacco or even with dried marijuana leaves. Popular though was vaporization, using a glass smoke.

Hashish they say is more potent than the"weed" type. Mas malupet daw ang tama kesa sa damo. No wonder it was linked to Medieval Persian Islamists who fought the Crusaders - the Assassins or "Hashshāshīn (meaning hashish smokers). They were popularly reputed to use hashish before going on murder missions.

Indeed, we have come so far, look how cannabis is now seen again as a real wonder drug. The medical-scientific world claims it possessed these many kinds of receptors designed to combat different ailments and diseases... And a century ago Rizal experimented with it.

Happy Birthday, Joe!

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