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Cannabis
Published in S.J. Mulé, Henry Brill, Chemical and Biological Aspects of Drug Dependence, 2019
Cannabis sativa is one of man’s oldest cultivated plants.7 World-wide dissemination is largely a result of the plant’s value as a source of fiber. Grown as hemp, it was mainly used to make rope, but biologically active constituents in some varieties of plant were recognized thousands of years ago and used for both medical purposes and as a social intoxicant.4 The general term, cannabis, refers to a variety of preparations derived from the herbaceous plant cannabis sativa. Marijuana or marihuana (grass, pot, weed in North America) usually consists of variable proportions of crushed cannabis sativa leaves, flowers, and stems. Similar preparations are known as bhang in India. The relatively pure resin from the plants is called hashish or charas and is about five times as potent by weight as marijuana. Ganja is somewhere between bhang and charas in potency and consists of resinous masses of small leaves.
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Published in Anton Sebastian, A Dictionary of the History of Medicine, 2018
Charas, Moses (1618–1698) Apothecary from Languedoc in France who wrote a pharmacopoeia in two volumes in 1673. This was translated into Chinese for the use of the Emperor. Charas was also known for his work on poisons.
Abies Spectabilis (D. Don) G. Don (Syn. A. Webbiana Lindl.) Family: Coniferae
Published in L.D. Kapoor, Handbook of Ayurvedic Medicinal Plants, 2017
Charas, the resinous exudation that collects on the leaves and flowering tops of plants, is the active principle of hemp; it is of great value in malarial and periodical headaches, acute mania, insanity delirium, whooping cough, cough of phthisis, asthma, nervous vomiting, nervous exhaustion, and dysuria.
An exploratory study of clinical profile, stigma and pathways to care among primary cannabis use disorder patients in India
Published in Journal of Substance Use, 2022
Arpit Parmar, Prashant Gupta, Roshan Bhad
In India, the use of cannabis is mostly in the form of either cannabis leaves (known as bhang), marijuana (known as ganja), or hashish (known as charas/sulfa). Bhang is generally consumed by the oral route, while ganja and charas are used by the smoking/inhalational route. A recent national survey reported that cannabis is still the most common illicit drug used with a past-year prevalence of 2.8%. About 2% of the users reported using bhang, while around 1.2% reported using ganja/charas. Of these, 0.66% are problem users, while 0.25% are dependent cannabis users (Ambekar et al., 2019). Thus, the number of dependent cannabis users (2.5 million) is similar to dependent opioid users (2.8 million). The past year prevalence of cannabis use is significantly higher in the North Indian states of Delhi-NCR, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh (Ambekar et al., 2019).
Do neurocognitive functions in cannabis induced psychosis groups differ from schizophrenia with cannabis use? A controlled cross-sectional study
Published in International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 2021
Raghav Shah, Abhishek Ghosh, Ajit Avasthi, Ritu Nehra, Chirag K. Ahuja, Niranjan Khandelwal
The mean age at initiation (CIP- 15.4 years and SZC- 15.85 years; p = .966) and duration of cannabis use (CIP-8.2 years and SZC- 10.2 years; p = .206) had no significant difference among the CIP and the SZC (Table 4). There was no significant difference between the CIP and SZC with regard to the frequency of cannabis use during six months prior to onset of psychosis (p = .170) and preparation of cannabis used (‘Charas’, ‘Ganja’ or ‘Bhang’; p = .098).