I mentioned yesterday that Doctor Thomas Vetter ha
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Posted On: 06/05/2020 11:43:33 AM
I mentioned yesterday that Doctor Thomas Vetter has very close ties with Eli Lilly. So lets take a look at the history of Eli Lilly and cannabis.
A century ago, Eli Lilly and Company grew one of the nation’s largest cannabis farms to supply a variety of pharmaceuticals.
Fred Pfenninger, a 69-year-old former attorney turned Eli Lilly and Company diversification analyst, doesn’t look like a marijuana evangelist. The navy-blazer-wearing Marion County Republican precinct committeeman works in a northside office where the walls are adorned with diplomas from Indiana University, University of Michigan Law School, and Harvard Business School. On a nearby bookshelf sits a photograph of him posing with former Senator Richard Lugar. But at the first mention of cannabis, Pfenninger transforms into a kind of sidewalk preacher, extolling the benefits of medical marijuana. “There’s a higher concentration of cannabinoids in mothers’ milk than anywhere else,” he says of the compounds also found in the plant. Pfenninger smiles in wonder. “They’re there for a reason!”
Pfenninger became interested in marijuana legalization around 2010, when a professional friend of his was arrested for possession. He studied the history of the plant and came away with a newfound appreciation of its medicinal powers. Along the way, he became a passionate advocate for pot, and he posts to no fewer than 40 marijuana Facebook groups weekly. Several years ago, he had 17,500 black-and-yellow bumper stickers printed that read “MARIJUANA—Safer Than Alcohol.” He hands out buttons supporting a group he founded: Indiana Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition. And while he claims he doesn’t smoke pot himself (“People automatically assume that,” he says), he’s playing an important role in exposing a surprising local connection to the drug that has been forgotten to history.
Two years ago, Pfenninger embarked on a crusade to unearth what he says is his former employer’s biggest secret. Lilly, he wants people to know, was once “a worldwide leader in the distribution of cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.” At a farm in Greenfield, it grew 156 acres of marijuana during the early decades of the 20th century. When Pfenninger makes these claims, few people around Indianapolis believe him. The multibillion-dollar, buttoned-down pharmaceutical firm seems like an unlikely ganja farmer. Even some employees are incredulous. While dining with a former Lilly vice president a few years back, Pfenninger casually brought up the subject and the retired executive scoffed in disbelief.
In 1850, the United States Pharmacopeia, the nation’s official drug-reference manual, listed cannabis as a legitimate treatment for a wide range of ailments. The United States Dispensatory, another reference book, advised doctors that it could serve as a medicine to “cause sleep, to allay spasm, to compose nervous disquietude, and to relieve pain.” It was a useful treatment for “gout, rheumatism, tetanus, hydrophobia, epidemic cholera, convulsions, chorea, hysteria, mental depression, delirium, tremens, insanity and uterine hemorrhage.” For decades, doctors prescribed it liberally.
For the most part, patients were using a strain of cannabis shipped from India known as cannabis indica. In the late 1800s, pharmaceutical companies such as Parke-Davis—a forerunner of Pfizer—and Squib imported the plant, according to Reefer Madness, Larry Sloman’s history of marijuana. And as Pfenninger says, Lilly did, too, selling 23 cannabis-infused medicines.
https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/...-marijuana
I know I said I had to go out and do yard work, but I just couldn't help myself.
Kgem
A century ago, Eli Lilly and Company grew one of the nation’s largest cannabis farms to supply a variety of pharmaceuticals.
Fred Pfenninger, a 69-year-old former attorney turned Eli Lilly and Company diversification analyst, doesn’t look like a marijuana evangelist. The navy-blazer-wearing Marion County Republican precinct committeeman works in a northside office where the walls are adorned with diplomas from Indiana University, University of Michigan Law School, and Harvard Business School. On a nearby bookshelf sits a photograph of him posing with former Senator Richard Lugar. But at the first mention of cannabis, Pfenninger transforms into a kind of sidewalk preacher, extolling the benefits of medical marijuana. “There’s a higher concentration of cannabinoids in mothers’ milk than anywhere else,” he says of the compounds also found in the plant. Pfenninger smiles in wonder. “They’re there for a reason!”
Pfenninger became interested in marijuana legalization around 2010, when a professional friend of his was arrested for possession. He studied the history of the plant and came away with a newfound appreciation of its medicinal powers. Along the way, he became a passionate advocate for pot, and he posts to no fewer than 40 marijuana Facebook groups weekly. Several years ago, he had 17,500 black-and-yellow bumper stickers printed that read “MARIJUANA—Safer Than Alcohol.” He hands out buttons supporting a group he founded: Indiana Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition. And while he claims he doesn’t smoke pot himself (“People automatically assume that,” he says), he’s playing an important role in exposing a surprising local connection to the drug that has been forgotten to history.
Two years ago, Pfenninger embarked on a crusade to unearth what he says is his former employer’s biggest secret. Lilly, he wants people to know, was once “a worldwide leader in the distribution of cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.” At a farm in Greenfield, it grew 156 acres of marijuana during the early decades of the 20th century. When Pfenninger makes these claims, few people around Indianapolis believe him. The multibillion-dollar, buttoned-down pharmaceutical firm seems like an unlikely ganja farmer. Even some employees are incredulous. While dining with a former Lilly vice president a few years back, Pfenninger casually brought up the subject and the retired executive scoffed in disbelief.
In 1850, the United States Pharmacopeia, the nation’s official drug-reference manual, listed cannabis as a legitimate treatment for a wide range of ailments. The United States Dispensatory, another reference book, advised doctors that it could serve as a medicine to “cause sleep, to allay spasm, to compose nervous disquietude, and to relieve pain.” It was a useful treatment for “gout, rheumatism, tetanus, hydrophobia, epidemic cholera, convulsions, chorea, hysteria, mental depression, delirium, tremens, insanity and uterine hemorrhage.” For decades, doctors prescribed it liberally.
For the most part, patients were using a strain of cannabis shipped from India known as cannabis indica. In the late 1800s, pharmaceutical companies such as Parke-Davis—a forerunner of Pfizer—and Squib imported the plant, according to Reefer Madness, Larry Sloman’s history of marijuana. And as Pfenninger says, Lilly did, too, selling 23 cannabis-infused medicines.
https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/...-marijuana
I know I said I had to go out and do yard work, but I just couldn't help myself.
Kgem
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