Balm for the Soul
Skeptics often wonder how it is possible that marijuana can be so much help in so many different afflictions. Surely there must be some mistake, they think, some druggy delusion.
Speaking materialistically, the many chemical ingredients of cannabis can account for a wide variety of direct effects on the human mind and body. But the progress of disease is not all decided at the molecular level. A few authors recently have delved into the effects of cannabis on the psychological and spiritual aspects of healing.
San Francisco therapist Beverly Potter and journalist Dan Joy map the territory into states of relaxation, optimism, determination, faith, hope, and laughter. All are allies of healing, and ganja tends to evoke and reinforce all of them. The drug’s serene euphoria is intrinsic to its therapeutic action. The “scientific” view of the high as an objectionable side effect is, for the most part, ludicrously wrong-headed. All of the attitudinal allies just mentioned can be learned in meditation, visualization, and other practices for which cannabis can help focus the mind even under the gun of illness. Healing states entered with the herb then open more easily at times when it’s not available.
In addition, cannabis can disinter long-buried traumas or unconscious conflicts. These can be the source of an anxiety attack, but their emergence can also trigger a breakthrough. With a sensitive friend or therapist, such anxious moments can become chances to integrate walled-off feelings into a stronger, less defensive ego, thus removing another barrier to health.
Joan Bello, a psychologist and scholar of Eastern medicine, suggests that the varied healing properties of cannabis are, in a way, side effects. She theorizes that anandamide and cannabinoids work as homeostatic (balancing) substances in physiological processes throughout the body.
In particular, Bello notes, cannabis promotes balance between the stimulant sympathetic and the sedative parasympathetic sides of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is the collection of unconscious nerve pathways that regulate essential bodily functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and muscle tone. In sympathetic overload—known as fight-or-flight syndrome, or simply “stress”—the muscles tense, pulse and blood pressure rise, breathing is fast and shallow, and brain activity is dominated by beta waves, 14–19 cycles per second, which denote agitation. In parasympathetic overload—lethargy and depression—the muscles are flaccid, pulse and blood pressure are both low, breathing is slow and irregular, and the brain is full of theta waves, 4–7 cycles per second, which normally characterize deep sleep. Marijuana promotes a happy medium, an ANS equilibrium in which the muscles have relaxed tone, pulse rises but vessels dilate so blood pressure falls, breathing is deep and regular, oxygenation improves throughout the body, and alpha waves of calm alertness flood the brain at 8–13 cycles per second.
To sum up, cannabis prevents and heals illness in several ways, which mutually reinforce each other. Its biochemical effects cure or relieve some diseases directly. It works throughout the body to balance opposing forces. Its pain relief improves mood and outlook, and thus a patient’s condition as well. The high, an exalted state of awareness and harmony, indirectly bolsters the immune system and fosters a long-term improvement in one’s state of mind.
When talk comes around to such things, most users seem to agree that the plant’s ability to help a person see this blessed earth from a cosmic, truly religious viewpoint is its greatest gift of all. The very word religion means to “re-link” to eternal truths. Clay tablets make it clear that many ancient Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians sacrificed cannabis incense every day under a meditation tent to concentrate the fumes, in order to stay in touch with their “personal deity,” a sort of guardian angel who put in a good word for them with the big gods.
