Cannabis has a long history in the U.S. as both a commercial fiber, hemp, and an intoxicant.
For a while in colonial America it was mandatory to grow the cannabis plant in some areas if you had a farm above a certain acreage.
https://worldhistory.us/american-history/hemp-and-our-founding-fathers.php
https://www.hemp.com/hemp-history/
https://www.history.org/foundation/journal/Winter15/hemp.cfm
When the U.S. started to industrialize, powerful individuals like William Randolph Hearst were able to steer public opinion, as well as laws, to favor their interests. The marijuana plant was outlawed as a result. The public reason was that marijuana was a dangerous substance but it has since become clear that the actual reason for restricting cannabis was financial.
https://www.massroots.com/learn/the-man-responsible-for-marijuana-prohibition/
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Does marijuana actually have medicinal value?
Western medicine has developed to the point where many diseases evolve, and are treated, based on the interests of large commercial medical and pharmaceutical giants. According to those interests, marijuana does not have any major medicinal value until there is a way to patent and gain profitability rights to either that plant or a derivative of it.
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Alternatively, many people claim to have benefited from marijuana as a medicine.
Benefits include relief from seizures, insomnia, anxiety and other symptoms, depending who you ask.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol
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The fact that marijuana has been approved in the U.S. for certain seizure disorders indicates that not only does it treat certain specific seizure disorders, but it is effective enough to steamroll any opposition to its approval. In other words it is unusually effective in certain kinds of seizure disorders.
Seizures are commonly associated with a physical root, such as a birth problem, a head injury / brain damage etc.
But seizure activity also correlates to a wide range of 'mental illnesses' or psychological diseases. In fact the correlation is strong enough that 'seizure activity' could be described as part of many psychological illnesses. Whether it causes, is caused by, or correlates for another reason, would not be easily clarified accurately, but a person with certain 'mental illnesses' will generally benefit from any anti seizure medication to some extent. Some anti seizure medicines, though, are far superior to others.
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Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, CRS, is what some people call the reaction to MSG that some people get when they eat food heavily laced with MSG. Western autopsy based science has examined Chinese Restaurant Syndrome and determined that it is a fictional disease.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/50-years-ago-msg-chinese-restaurant-syndrome
Is Chinese Restaurant Syndrome called a 'fictional disease' because it doesn't exist, or because it isn't profitable?
"We demonstrated that Treatment with MSG induces a dose-dependent swelling and death of mature neurons (12-14 days in culture) with little effect on young immature neurons. The threshold concentration of MSG for neuronal injury is 3 µM; MSG only injures neurons with little effect on glial cells; Boiling MSG does not affect its toxicity but the addition of Vitamin C provides significant protection against MSG toxicity".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802046/
People who are sensitive to MSG react to it in much the same way as marijuana. It produces an intoxication that shortens the attention span considerably. In other words it produces seizure activity, but at a higher level than physical seizures. An 'awareness' seizure.
Why do some scientists believe Chinese Restaurant Syndrome is fictional? Chinese restaurants are often noisy, lots of nearby conversations, lights, etc. In other words an environment that magnifies the effect of an intoxicant that reduces attention span. Laboratories though are quite the opposite. They need to be quiet, with minimal distractions, especially if they are doing important work like testing Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. In other words a restaurant environment, with lights and noises magnifies the effect while a lab environment masks it.
MSG occurs naturally in some foods, just as THC occurs naturally in marijuana. Both MSG and THC cause a sort of 'seizure' at the level of 'awareness', they make it difficult to have a long train of thought, but THC is usually consumed with balancing chemicals as part of the marijuana plant. In other words THC in marijuana 'causes' a problem that some people want, 'awareness seizure' intoxication, but it includes other substances that balances that, CBD, etc.
MSG within the foods in which it naturally occurs also has balancing chemicals. It is still an intoxicant, it shortens the attention span, like THC, but it has a balancing chemical, something that is removed when MSG is added by itself.
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Many indigenous medical systems focus on polarities, e.g. hot/cold etc in Ayurveda.
In this case, a plant has a natural balance of 'things that decrease attention span and things that increase attention span', in other words 'convulsants and anticonvulsants, but the 'balance' isn't visible if you only look, for example, at the effects of one chemical in the plant, or effects of the plant on only one species, etc.
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Interesting to note that whole tobacco and isolated nicotine produce a completely different intoxication. Smoking tobacco can lead to a very thorough intoxication, while nicotine by itself has an interesting effect but is not really an intoxicant.
Tobacco obviously has a chemical that balances nicotine the way cbd and other chemicals balance thc.
~In Progress~