MARIJUANA AND HASHISH Marijuana or pot is a mixture of all the parts of the plant Cannabis indica. Its active principle is the tetrahydrocannabinol. Hashish is produced by the distillation of the resin extracted from flowers, offering a superior concentration of tetrahydrocannibol to marijuana.( A 40 % instead of a 10 % in the leaves). Marijuana is used as a drug by smoking it in cigarettes or pipes, whereas hashish has to be burned a little in order to release it from its ordinary form, some brownish tablets. Then it has to be mixed with tobacco to smoke it. Derivatives from cannabis are used all throughout the world. There some several varieties, for example: - Chastri: a variety used in Egypt, produced by the combination of hashish, fermented rice, sugar and herbs. - Madjoum: a variety of Far East, made by mixing hashish with opium,thorn apple and nux vomica. HISTORY There are clear historical hints of cannabis use in china almost 3000 years b. C. where it was used as a medicinal plant to heal rheumatoid diseases and malaria. Almost every culture of the past used it, but is was mainly utilized and spread by the Arabs. From a scientific point of view, It was studied first at the end of XVIII century in France, where it was very fashionable within the cultural world of Bohemia.In the first half of XX century it scattered among intellectual society and in the Sixties or Seventies marijuana consumption competed with that one of LSD within what was known as the " Hippie movement". From then on , its consumption has been decreasing, being substituted by hashish which has extended itself among circles of different social status and has become widely outspread.(it is estimated about 300 million of hashish consumers all over the world ) EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA AND HASHISH. Marijuana and hashish are considered soft drugs. Differently to opium derivatives ( morphine, heroine, etc. ) and another drugs (LSD, cocaine, etc.) they do not cause . "abstinence syndrome" nor physical need to consume them although they capture you psychologically. In opposition to most of the drugs which lead the consumer to isolate himself from the world, they produce a socializing effect which makes the consumer open to people. Any person, even though much accustomed to consume them, can leave the habit , although for a week or so it will have some symptoms as sleepiness, lost of appetite and anger. Among the positive effects can be mentioned the increase of imagination, euphoria, sense stimulation, feeling of welfare and hallucinations. Being consumed in excess produces a series of negative effects: loss of memory, anxiety, mouth dryness, hypertension and tachycardia. It causes another negative consequences such as hair and nail weakness, loss of teeth because of caries, intellectual and physical neglect. It has been unsuccessfully attempted to prove that the consumption of these drugs may suppose a bridge to consume harder ones. Cultivation