Cannabis Speaks Out

Abstract

In this issue, “Cannabis Speaks Out,” we find approaches that range from the international drug control regime’s analysis of the manipulation of psycho-tropical substances for their commercialization, prioritizing U.S. pharmaceutical industry interests to the detriment of non-hegemonic cultures that have been using psychoactive plants for thousands of years, to the promotion of private at-home cultivation as a form of resistance to the voracious corporate market. Other outstanding articles show through their authors’ experiences how important cannabis is in the lives of thousands of people: “The Queen of the Flowers. A Story of Love and Self-Discovery,” “From Vulnerability to Defending Cannabis Rights,” and “One Hundred Years of Clandestine Medicine in Mexico,” just to name a few. But we also find articles that take us to the problems and ways of dealing with them in places like British Columbia, Colorado, and others in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Finally, we cannot leave out the scientific and spiritual perspectives: the first, in the article “Cannabis Sativa L. Misunderstood,” and the second, documented in the experience in the use of “Saint Rose” among the Otomís of the Tepehua Otomí Mountains.