New Zealand Takes a New Look at Plant Medicine
The “Land of the Long White Cloud” would be a fitting nickname for any country that embraces cannabis, but that’s not how New Zealand came by its unofficial moniker. “Long white cloud” is the English translation of Aotearoa, the indigenous Māori’s name for the country. As legend has it, Kupe, the first Polynesian to set foot on New Zealand, thought he was approaching land after seeing a massive cloud hovering in the sky. His wife yelled out “He ao! He ao!” (“A cloud! A cloud!”), and things progressed from there. Prior to colonization by the British in the early 1800s, cannabis did not exist on any of New Zealand’s more than 700 islands. Plant material—but not plants themselves—arrived in the mid-1800s and immediately became popular with the population. “Cannabis cigarettes” were widely available and touted as a treatment for asthma and bronchitis. By the 1880s, cannabis was used as dental anesthesia and recommended to treat neuralgia, corns, and chilblains. Chlorodyne, which contained...