The History of Medical Marijuana
2727 BC First recorded use of cannabis as medicine in Chinese pharmacopoeia. In every part of the world mankind has used cannabis for a wide variety of health problems.
1937 Cannabis withdrawn from the American public against the advice of the medical community. Hemp excluded from "Class II" drugs (having demonstrated medical value) by Nixon administration in 1970. Dispite all evidence to the contrary, hemp was retained as Class I by the Bush administration in 1989.
http://paranoia.lycaeum.org/marijuana/medical/timeline
The Chinese don't allow cannabis as medicine now- why did they stop? What did these wise people learn?
They also, with the help of Great Britain, used lots and lots of opium. That does not make it a good idea now, just because they used to do it.
Yup, people die from opium withdrawal. And cannabis, like DDT, has never killed anyone (except perhaps for momentary lapses of reason leading to accident or mishap, but ethanol, salvia, and LSD can lead to that too).