1935: The non-review of Cannabis by
the Office International d’Hygiène
Publique
In 1933, although seizures of raw Cannabis , mostly imported from
Syria, had been cut by half in the 3 previous years (LoN, 1933, p. 12),
the Egyptian government sent a notification to LoN’s Health Section
(OIHP, 1935, p. 161; Supplemental materials Table S1) alerting of the
alleged widespread harms caused by five particular medicines sold by the
firm Parke, Davis & Co. (nowadays part of Pfizer, the Detroit-based
“Parke-Davis” was then already a global pharmaceutical company;
Hoefle, 2000, p. 33; Pfizer, s.d.). Alongside Merck in Germany,
Holtmann-La Roche & Co. in Switzerland, Eli Lilly in the USA, and many
other important or smaller pharmaceutical manufacturers (Frankhauser,
2002; Hamilton, 1912; Krawitz, 2006; OIHP, 1934b, pp. 104–110),
Parke-Davis was proactively marketing two classes of Cannabismedicines (Museum of Healthcare…, 2022b; Parke, Davis & Co.,
1911, p. 12):
- A wide array of specific (often proprietary) preparations, some
containing Cannabis herb or extract as main ingredient (pills,
tablet triturates), others compounded preparations containing it as an
additional, residual ingredient (elixirs, tablets, and “a number of
combinations”);
- Raw extracts (fluid and solid extracts of North American-grownCannabis), herbal parts (powdered Cannabis, dried tops),
and United States Pharmacopœia standardised products (fluid extract,
solid extract, and tincture of Indian-grown Cannabis), used for
compounding by local pharmacist –a mainstream practice at the time.
In a specific booklet dedicated to these medicines, Parke, Davis & Co.
(1908, p. 2) claimed that Cannabis
“has been used as an intoxicant in Asiatic countries from time
immemorial, and under the name of ‘hashish,’ ‘bhang,’ ‘ganja’ or
‘charas,’ is habitually consumed by upwards of two hundred millions of
human beings.”
The five preparations that Egypt notified did contain extracts ofCannabis , but, compared to so many other popular medicines at the
time, contained relatively minor amounts of Cannabis extract but
instead copious amounts of other particularly notable sedatives or
harmful substances[8] (Table 1; Fig. 4). As noted by
the OIHP (1934b, pp. 106–110), if someone wanted to get high with these preparations, the lethal dose of strychnine would most likely
be reached much before any narcotic effect could be felt.
Because they were not “pure” extracts of Cannabis , however,
these preparations did not fall under the terms of C25. Pursuing its
agenda started in 1925, Egypt saw this as something convenient to object
to. The reasons for the particular attention given to Parke-Davis
medicines, however, remain unclear, particularly since “the only among
these [preparations] that [was] being exported in appreciable
quantities to Egypt [was] the one called Compounded Damiana
Tablets,” which was only supplied on medical prescription (OIHP, 1934b,
p. 106).
As a matter of fact, the intention of Egypt was to extend international
controls “not only to the five preparations mentioned earlier, but all
preparations containing an extract or tincture of indian hemp” (OIHP,
1935, p. 162, author’s translation ) or at least to preparations
containing above a certain percent of Cannabis extract (OIHP,
1934, p. 23). On 12 June 1934 (OIHP, 1934, pp. 23–24) the Health
Committee of the LoN triggered the mechanism of Article 10, C25,
allowing the OIHP to convene its CEP, towards eventually
“recommend[ing] that the provisions of [C25] be applied to such
drug” in case it “is liable to similar abuse and productive of similar
ill-effects as the substances to which this Chapter of the Convention
applies” (LoN, 1925).