The Whanganui ecclesiastical community is all abuzz at the prospect of the much revered Suzanne (aka Mary Joseph) Aubert's seemingly imminent canonisation. Mary Joseph herself was all abuzz with the medicinal properties of a favourite herb she incorporated into her celebrated patent medicines -- Cannabis sativa, aka Mary Jane.
Yes, shock horror -- Saint-in-waiting Suzanne is thought to be New Zealand's first commercial cannabis grower, and an energetic drug dealer to boot.
Mind you, she is in good company. Noted philanthropist and art patron Sir Henry Kelliher, the late Sir Douglas Myers, late billionaire liquor baron Michael Erceg -- rampant drug dealers all. It's just that their drug of commercial choice had been spared the wrath of arbitrary legal demonisation.
Sister Aubert's patent medicines were a big fundraiser for the Sisters of Compassion community at Jerusalem. Her training as a nurse in France, had included studies in botany, chemistry and medicine. In New Zealand, a kuia mentored her in indigenous herbs and traditional remedies, on which she later based her popular nostrums.
Saint-in-waiting Suzanne is thought to be New Zealand's first commercial cannabis grower.
The medicinal properties of cannabis were widely recognised in Europe -- and elsewhere -- at the time, so no surprise that Suzanne's portable pharmacopoeia included a few seeds of the weed.
Self-serving interests in the US managed to demonise cannabis use (Reefer Madness!) and criminalise it towards the middle of last century -- coincidentally, not too long after alcohol prohibition was repealed, with an entrenched drug enforcement bureaucracy now looking for new work. Ironically, too, as stronger opiates were also progressively criminalised, their derivatives mainly remained legal for medicinal use, unlike their hapless, more benign cousin cannabis.
Sister Mary Joseph Aubert made patent medicines using herbs.
As we speak, our hospitals and pharmacies are still awash with opiate derivatives, but it's taken New Zealand the thick end of a century to re-recognise the therapeutic properties of what many regard as a wonder plant, especially given the manifold practical and economic benefits of marijuana's low-THC relative, hemp. The American Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.
The especial irony is that alcohol and tobacco are still in a league of their own as the planet's pre-eminent legal recreational demon drugs, albeit much beloved of manufacturers, marketers, legislators and tax-gatherers. Alcohol has medicinal uses, too -- modern cough elixirs still contain a solid hit, but nothing compared to back when the whole family was medicinally drugged up.
Stickney and Poor's Pure Paregoric for newborns contained 45 per cent pure alcohol, with a bonus one and a half grains of opium per fluid ounce. No parental sleep deprivation then.
Along with tinctures of cannabis, heavy duty narcotics also featured in common curatives. The Victorian mother's little helper was opium-enriched laudanum, while the Bayer company's popular household medicine proudly bore its honourable brand name -- "Heroin". Between 1890 and 1910 it was sold as a non-addictive pain reliever, also effective for treating coughs in children.
We're all familiar with the original Coca-Cola's cocaine content, but it started life as a patent medicine based on coca wine formulations. Metcalf's Coca Wine, for example, was made "from fresh coca leaves and the purest wine", a "pleasant tonic and invigorator", and recommended for "neuralgia, sleeplessness, despondency, etc".
Oh yes, and the most noted coca wine of its time -- Mariana wine -- was personally recommended by Pope Leo XIII, who kept a bottle handy at all times. He even awarded its producer a Vatican gold medal. Mary Joseph would no doubt have approved of the plonk's papal imprimatur.
When Pope John Paul II visited this country in 1986, His Holiness was lucky he didn't have the zealous New Zealand drug squad busting down his hotel door looking for stray bottles of Pope Leo's Mariana coca wine. Perhaps a spectral Mother Aubert was standing guard.
Hopefully, the passage of the medicinal cannabis bill will help remediate some of our hypocritical past.
