Maximum Yield Cannabis USA October/November 2018 | Page 52

by Sharon Letts
A nearly 50-year-old study showing cannabis
can ease the side effects for pregnant women
was covered up by the powers that be because
they didn’t want any positive scientific results
about marijuana made public at the time.
A
1994 study showing marijuana is beneficial to both pregnant
mothers and their babies in rural Jamaica was hidden by the
US National Institute on Drug Abuse because the results didn’t fit
with the negative stereotype of cannabis back then.
Melanie Dreher, Dean of Nursing at Rush Medical Center in
Chicago, facilitated cannabis studies in the early 1970s as a
medical student in Jamaica where the plant has been used and
accepted as a beneficial herb for generations.
As part of the study, published in Pediatrics (and available
at www.bestdoulas.com/marijuana.pdf), Dreher observed pregnant
women, focusing on the neonatal use of cannabis and its
effects on the mother, fetus, and subsequent birth.
Symptoms such as morning sickness, chronic nausea,
and edema were eliminated, with less complications
overall to the mothers. The babies demonstrated stronger
immune systems. There were also significant differences
noted in the Brazelton neonatal scale — an accredited
measurement of development in infants — with the
babies subjected to cannabis in the womb emerging
slightly larger and stronger than those without it.
A five-year follow-up study of the babies, funded by
none other than the US National Institute of Drug Abuse,
showed no difference in development between children
subjected to cannabis use by their mothers prior to birth,
and those that weren’t.
The studies did find that mothers who gave cannabis
tea to their children as they grew did so as a preventive
measure, and the children presented with less illness
than other children who did not. They were also stronger,
more capable of walking the four miles to school, had better
appetites, and better focus in the often-crowded classrooms.
As the results didn’t fit its negative viewpoint on cannabis, they were
buried until recently. Today within the cannabis community, there
exists a support system where information continues to be shared.
Initially, Dreher’s studies that ultimately led to her dissertation focused
on productivity in men, following sugar cane workers using cannabis
as a productivity tool. The consensus was it helped them work harder
and more effectively with no differences in the amount of sugar cane
cut over time by the non-users, and those who used cannabis regularly
before their work day.
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