A fascinating and often overlooked fact is that cannabis is one of the very few plants to have been officially integrated into modern allopathic (conventional) medicine not merely as a dietary supplement or traditional herbal remedy, but as a fully regulated prescription medicine available in pharmacies. This integration is supported by rigorous scientific evidence from randomized clinical trials and systematic reviews.
Key validating sources include:
• The 1999 Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Sciences, USA) report, later expanded and updated in the comprehensive 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, which found conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabinoids are effective for chronic pain in adults, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms.
• FDA-approved cannabis-derived pharmaceuticals:
◦ Epidiolex (highly purified plant-derived CBD), approved in 2018 in the USA and subsequently in the EU for Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes (two rare severe childhood epilepsies), based on phase III randomized controlled trials (e.g., Devinsky et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2017 & 2018).
◦ Sativex (nabiximols, a whole-plant extract containing roughly 1:1 THC:CBD), approved in more than 25 countries (including the UK, Canada, and most EU nations) since the early 2000s for multiple sclerosis spasticity and neuropathic pain, with pivotal trials published in journals such as Neurology (2006, 2010) and European Journal of Neurology (2011).
In most Western countries (Europe, USA, Canada), mainstream allopathic medicine overwhelmingly relies on synthetic or highly purified single-molecule drugs. Crude botanical drugs or complex plant extracts are almost never prescribed within hospital protocols or standard pharmaceutical channels. Notable exceptions of plant-derived single molecules include:
• Digoxin (from Digitalis lanata)
• Paclitaxel/Taxol (originally from Taxus brevifolia)
• Artemisinin (from Artemisia annua)
These, however, are isolated, semi-synthetic, or fully synthetic compounds, not complex botanical extracts.
Germany does allow certain standardized herbal medicines (e.g., St. John’s wort, valerian) as over-the-counter or prescription drugs under the 1976 AMG framework, but they are classified as “traditional herbal medicinal products” and are rarely used in hospital allopathic protocols.
Globally, the only major healthcare systems that structurally integrate entire branches of plant-based medicine alongside allopathy are:
• Japan’s Kampo medicine (standardized traditional Chinese-derived herbal formulas), covered by national health insurance and prescribed by ~80–90 % of Japanese physicians (Japan Society for Oriental Medicine surveys; Iwase et al., Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012).
• South Korea’s Traditional Korean Medicine (Hanbang), where dual-licensed physicians and dedicated TKM hospitals coexist, representing ~10–15 % of outpatient visits (Ministry of Health data; BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 2020).
In the rest of the world, crude plants or complex botanical extracts are essentially absent from allopathic hospital formularies — making cannabis a striking exception.
This re-integration reverses a century of prohibition. Cannabis appeared in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 to 1942 as a recognized treatment for pain, insomnia, and various neurological conditions.
Between 1840 and 1900, more than 100 scientific papers on its medical use were published in Western journals (Grinspoon, Marihuana Reconsidered, 1971).
Its removal in 1942 and subsequent global prohibition (starting with the 1937 U.S. Marihuana Tax Act) occurred largely for non-medical reasons.
Today, over 30,000 modern peer-reviewed studies (PubMed/PMC data as of 2023–2025) and multiple high-quality meta-analyses (e.g., Whiting et al., JAMA, 2015; National Academies 2017; Wang et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 2022) have led to its evidence-based re-acceptance.
Thus, after decades of marginalization, cannabis has become the first complex botanical drug to achieve widespread regulatory approval and integration into modern allopathic medicine — a rare and scientifically validated breakthrough for plant-based therapeutics.
