The taste is very slight and the odour somewhat heavy and narcotic. The ash is about 15 per cent. Tinctures of cannabis, prepared from African, American, German, and Indian varieties of the drug, when examined by oral administration to cats appear to possess about the same degree of activity, and this activity is not destroyed by long storage of the drug in a dry condition. Acid-insoluble ash, not more than 5 per cent. Cannabis indic herba I.A. consists of the tops, in flower and in fruit, of the female plant cultivated in the East Indies.
Cannabis acts chiefly on the central nervous system.
It first produces excitement with hallucinations, a feeling of happiness and indifference to surroundings, this stage being followed by deep sleep. The hallucinations include inability to estimate time and space. In the East the hemp is smoked and almost immediately produces symptoms of pleasurable excitement, followed by depression and lethargy. Cannabis is used as an anodyne sedative or hypnotic in mania, spasmodic coughs, phthisis, asthma, and dysmenorrhoea. It has been used in the treatment of chorea and paralysis agitans.