The question as to whether cannabis sativa of the same origin planted in regions with different climates will adapt itself to the production exolusively - or mainly - of useful fibre or of resin gave rise to further lively discussion during the 1954 session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. the following observations and experiments may therefore be of interest:

Already many years ago, experimental trials were carried out in order to discover whether in climates favouring fibre production for industrial purposes, the cannabis plant also produced resin with narcotic properties. More recently, Hitzemann investigated at the Institute for Applied Botany and Colonial Plant Cultivation, Hamburg, whether the resin with narcotic effect was also produced in cannabis sativa from different sources planted at Hamburg. He attempted to develop the well-known Beam reaction into a quantitative colour test and made experiments - with Daphnia ("water fleas"), a few fish, two mice and two rats - which, in his opinion seemed to justify the conclusion that a strong colour reaction corresponds to a high content of resin with narcotic effect. If this parallelism proves true, it would certainly represent an advance; however, the author himself recognized that his observations were of a preliminary nature only. To the writer's mind, they do not permit any conclusions of the kind. Nevertheless it might be useful to repeat them on a larger scale.

However, without going too far in this study into the question of chemical analysis, the.investigations cf Jacob and Todd (published in the year before Hitzemann's paper) must be referred to; these authors stated that their finding "lends further colour to the view that the Beam test is not a specific test f.r the active principle in hashish". Apparently Hitzemann, who quoted some American papers of the sage year (to which Jacob and Todd also refer), had no knowledge of the paper by these two authors.

The view of Jacob and Todd has been confirmed by Llorens statement that tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the active substance in the resin, does not Five the Beam test, unlike inactive cannabidiol which does (at least the alkaline Beam reaction).

Comparisons of cultivation conditions were made by Hitzemann using cannabis plants from different sources. He found, briefly, that even the usual European plants, including the German one which is cultivated for its fibre content, are able to produce a considerable quantity of resin which, although not as much as in charas or ganja is at least equal to, if not higher than the amount in the North American ("marihuana") variety, which Hitzemann also planted. In order to obtain the rasin in these northern climates the principal requirement is to 'grow a quickly maturing variety in a warm and sunny field. Contrariwise, those varieties which mature slowly, for example the Indian, produce no resin at all in Hamburg, because they are not ripe before the winter starts, and their Beam colour reaction is very weak. This explanation of an, at first view, surprising finding seems to shed some new light on an old problem.

According to Hitzemannis Beam colour test, the rasin of the Rumanian plant had the greatest narcotic strength, followed by the German. But here also, the author found differences according to the place where he planted them in the Hamburg garden; this.apparently confirms older findings concerning the influence of climate on the production of narcotic resin.

In contrast to the results obtained with Indian plants, grown at Hamburg by Hitzemann - and therefore confirming his opinion - cannabis plants crown from Indian seed, at the experimental station of the Naples Botanical Garden ("Stazione Sperimentale per le Piante Officinali annessa all 'Orto Botanico dell 'Universita di Napoli"), in a climate very different from that of Hamburg, have been shown, in experiments on dogs, to be quite active (Covello).

In England also, the cannabis plant can produce resin with narcotic properties, as is shown by two illustrative cases.(3)  A young man, having read about hemp as an "increaser of pleasure" etc., planted in his garden during the month of June, hemp seeds separated from parrot food; in September he dried and chopped the leaves and tops and smoked them in cigarettes, experiencing loss of sense of time and space, vivid dreams or hallucinations and subsequent drowsiness. His fiancée inhaled two-thirds of such a cigarette and exhibited errors in appreciation of time and apace, exhilaration, apprehension, hallucinations and many P8riOUB corporal and mental symptoms of cannabis intoxication, even the hallucination of dual personality, and confused, often inarticulate speech.

In France, in 1947, and repeat-edV in later years, clandestine cultivation of the cannabis plant with a considerable content of resin has been detected.(40

In a Turkish region (South West Axatolia), where cannabis sativa is cultivated for fibre production, the pharmacological investigation of'369 samples showed that there were plants with resin of all degrees of activity, from absenee of effect to a strong action; the majority of the plants shoved an aVerage effect (pulewka). Apparently plants were not cultivated especially for their resin production. The tests were carried out on mice by a method devised by.the author.

Hasselmann and Ribeiro, comparing the effects of North American and Brazilian cannabis in a fish test, found that the Brazilian plant is probably about eight times as strong (toxic) as the North American. But this is apparently not the case for all Brazilian cannabis but depends on different regional origin.(54) Even plants cultivated in the same plantation did not have the same toxicity.

The above authors did not find the difference stated by earlier authors, i.e., that the leaves beneath tho fifth nodule of the plant are no longer toxic.

It is the writer's belief that a further follow-ap of the questions discussed above might shed more light on subjects of great interest for international work on cannabis.

A general conclusion might be drawn from these experiments and observations to the effect that the climatic theory of varieties is not so well founded as may formerly have appeared to be the case. °All varieties of cannabis ... produce physiologically active rasin in

varying quantities ... if the circumstances of habitat and climate provide the necessary conditions."4

But the recognition of this fact has yet other consequences. The choice of regions for growing hemp for fibre should depend also on the character of the population of that region, viz., whether the people would be inclined to use for narcotic purposes the small amounts of resin produced in addition to the fibre for there might be other regions where such misuse is less likely to occur.