If you’ve ever delved into the world of cannabis, what was your first sliver of knowledge?

Chances are, it was steeped in social taboo. Some people’s initial experience with cannabis comes from the counterculture. A teenager might see a “bad-boy” friend roll up, take a big toke, and suddenly become a wise guru. While others might come from a more scientific point of view – learning of the cannabis plant’s cannabinoids or its endocannabinoid system.

In either of these cases, the world is seen through an interesting lens: one that is significantly divorced from reality.

People who learn through the counterculture lens might come to see cannabis as a way of rebelling or sticking it to The Man. In some cases, they might even see it as a “sacred herb.”

In more scientific circles, cannabis is often seen through the eyes of an enthused medical student whose professor has just given them their first glimpse into the raging cancer battle that is currently waging within our bodies. For them, cannabis is their first real introduction to how the human body works; its endocannabinoid system and those nasty cancer cells that need some hardcore cannabinoids thrown at them.

These lenses look at cannabis as something special: a topic to be explored and revered.

But there is another lens:

Looking through this particular lens, cannabis is criminalized due to the power of propaganda. History also shows us that when influential people want something outlawed for their economic gain, it’s generally not too difficult to do so. One of the most prominent examples in recent times is big tobacco, which for decades silenced research about the health risks of cigarettes while simultaneously spending millions on media campaigns aimed at convincing Americans that there was no credible evidence against smoking. This campaign successfully delayed any meaningful government regulation until the 1990s.

Why does cannabis remain a Schedule I substance? What is preventing us from exploring its actual value to modern medicine?

To answer these questions, we need to look no further than the history of this misunderstood plant.

The United States has been growing cannabis since before it was even a country. It’s been a staple crop in the American garden for years and was used for everything from rope to cloth long before the Revolutionary War. It’s likely that cannabis came to America with its early European colonists (many of whom also grew hemp) and even became an important cash crop up until the Civil War. Although cannabis was widely available throughout America at this time, it had already become a popular topic in Europe through an exciting series of events.

In 1841, a French mental patient named Jean-Pierre Chabloin became the first to describe cannabis as “smoking pleasure” and thought it could be an effective treatment for his condition (whatever that was).

Just ten years later, cannabis was widely available as medicine throughout Europe. By this time, European physicians were beginning to prescribe the plant for various conditions, including muscle spasms and epilepsy.

Around this time in Europe, new processing technology began to emerge. This gave way to the birth of an industrial cannabis product that would soon find its way across the Atlantic Ocean: hashish.

The word “hashish” originates from the Arabic word “Hashishin,” a derogatory term used to describe the first Muslims fighting against the Crusaders. Later, European travelers visiting India began to adopt this word, and it slowly spread through Europe as a euphoric drug associated with royal Orientalism.

In 1845, French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau published his study on the effects of hashish. He hypothesized that the plant was responsible for inducing a unique mental state, and it must therefore contain some special agent.

This theory ushered in a new era of cannabis research throughout Europe and gave rise to an even more potent version: hash oil. By boiling the cannabis plant, chemists could produce a thick oil that was much more potent than the hashish of old. This new product became immensely popular among European medical circles, and it wasn’t long before doctors across Europe began prescribing this hash oil for their patients.

It’s important to note that while these European physicians had great success using cannabis to treat their patients, they still had no real idea what was actually in the oil that made it work. European scientists isolated chemical compounds within cannabis and determined that they must be responsible for some of these medicinal effects. Still, there wasn’t a comprehensive understanding of how this worked until years later.

Around the same time European researchers were busy isolating chemical compounds from cannabis, American physicians began to experience their success with the plant. In the mid-1830s, a doctor named William O’Shaughnessy introduced cannabis to Western medicine after successfully treating rheumatism and muscle spasms in India.