MED01-P1 — Plain-English Claim Ledger (v1.0 — SIGNED OFF by Danny 2026-09-26; text = v0.2 after ChatGPT §M11 fidelity review)
What this is: the same 40 claims as the technical ledger (v1.0, signed off 2026-09-25, with correction #1 of 2026-09-26), written for a general reader. The language is simpler; the uncertainty is not. Every row keeps the same claim number, so you can look up the technical version and follow it back to the source. Period covered: 1960–1999, as the evidence stood then and as found through our search cutoff of 2026-09-20. Not medical advice. These are statements about old studies and the conditions they were done under. None of them says what cannabis does for any person today.
How to read “How sure”: Solid = the source says exactly this and we read it. Solid, with limits = true as stated, but the study was small, or we could only read the abstract, or one part is still being checked. Open = we could not settle it from the sources we found.
| # | In plain English | Who this does not tell us about | How sure |
|---|---|---|---|
| C001 | Depending on how you word the search, PubMed lists roughly 8,700 to 10,600 cannabis papers from 1960–1999. Whichever wording you use, the same pattern appears: a jump in the 1970s, a dip in the 1980s, and a bigger peak in the 1990s. | Research that PubMed doesn’t index well — older papers, non-English journals. The exact count is not a fact about the field, only about the database. | Solid, with limits |
| C002 | A 2022 study of the Scopus database found the United States was the biggest producer of cannabis research overall, and about 42% of the indexed records in the 1970s had a US affiliation. US government agencies were prominent funders. | Whether that research was about harms or benefits — the study didn’t sort papers that way. | Solid |
| C003 | Reading the record, the four decades fall into four phases: chemistry (1960s), first human trials (1970s), pharmaceutical drug development (1980s), and receptor biology (1990s). | Exact boundaries — this is our reading, not a measured fact. | Solid, with limits |
| C004 | The chemical structure of CBD was published in 1963. | Anything about what CBD does in people. | Solid |
| C005 | THC was isolated and its structure worked out in 1964; it was first fully synthesised in 1965, with more syntheses in 1967 and 1969. | Anything about effects in people. | Solid |
| C006 | Other cannabis compounds were identified in the 1960s–70s, and a 1980 review catalogued what was known. The often-quoted figure of “61 cannabinoids” in that review is not confirmed — we couldn’t read the text. | Whether the 1970 paper was the first to isolate THCV. | Solid, with limits |
| C007 | In 1988, scientists showed rat brain tissue has a specific binding site for cannabinoids — a receptor. | People. This was rat tissue in a dish. | Solid |
| C008 | In 1990, that receptor’s gene was cloned, and its distribution was mapped in animal and human brain tissue. | Any treatment effect in people. | Solid |
| C009 | In 1992, a molecule the body makes itself — anandamide — was found to bind the same receptor. | Any treatment effect in people. | Solid |
| C010 | In 1993, a second receptor was found, mainly in immune tissue, not brain. | Any treatment effect in people. | Solid |
| C011 | In 1995, two groups independently found a second body-made cannabinoid, 2-AG. | Any treatment effect in people. | Solid |
| C012 | In a 1975 trial of 20 chemotherapy patients, oral THC produced an anti-nausea/anti-vomiting response in 14 of 20 THC treatment courses and 0 of 22 placebo courses. | Anyone outside 1970s chemotherapy; long-term use; modern anti-nausea drugs, which didn’t exist yet. | Solid, with limits (small; abstract only) |
| C013 | In a 1979 trial of 15 bone-cancer patients, THC reduced vomiting compared with placebo, and more THC in the blood meant less vomiting. Smoked THC was offered as a backup, not tested against the pills. | Whether smoking works better than pills — this study didn’t test that. | Solid, with limits |
| C014 | In 1979, nabilone (a synthetic cannabinoid) beat the standard anti-nausea drug of the time in 113 patients — 80% vs 32% helped — but only 8% got complete relief, and side effects were about twice as common. | Anyone on today’s anti-nausea drugs. | Solid, with limits |
| C015 | A 2015 Cochrane review counted 23 randomized trials of cannabinoid anti-nausea drugs from 1975–1991, mostly crossover designs and mostly at some risk of bias. Two 2001 BMJ reviews had summarised the same era earlier. | The quality of any single trial — this is a count of the literature. | Solid |
| C016 | In 1975, ten cancer patients got 15–20 mg of oral THC and reported less pain than on placebo — with heavy sedation and mental fog. The researchers called the effect “mild.” | Anyone but those ten; any claim that THC equals a specific dose of codeine (not in the papers we could read). | Solid, with limits (10 people) |
| C017 | Smoking cannabis was reported to lower eye pressure in 1971 — but that report gives no numbers. A 1977 study of THC injected into a vein found a 37% average drop in ten people, with a big rise in heart rate. A 1998 review said it works in 60–65% of users but isn’t practical for glaucoma. | Glaucoma outcomes — lowering pressure for a few hours is not treating the disease. The widely quoted “25–30%” for 1971 has no source we could find. | Solid, with limits |
| C018 | In 1976, a single puff of THC aerosol opened the airways of ten asthma patients about as well as salbutamol after an hour. A 1973 study of smoked cannabis exists but we couldn’t read its results. | Asthma treatment — this was one dose, one hour. | Solid, with limits |
| C019 | In a 1980 Brazilian trial, 15 people with hard-to-control epilepsy added CBD (200–300 mg/day) or placebo to their usual drugs for up to 4½ months; 4 of the 8 on CBD were reported almost seizure-free and 3 more improved, against 1 of 8 on placebo. | Children; other kinds of epilepsy. | Solid, with limits (15 people) |
| C020 | In 1981, 10 mg of oral THC reduced muscle stiffness in nine patients — but the examiner correctly guessed who’d had THC 7 times out of 9, so the blinding was probably compromised. By 1998, all published MS trials together covered 41 patients. | MS treatment generally. | Solid, with limits (9 people) |
| C021 | In a 1995 trial of 139 AIDS patients losing weight, dronabinol improved appetite (38% vs 8% on placebo). Weight did not change significantly. | Weight gain — the trial didn’t show it. | Solid, with limits |
| C022 | The era’s studies used different things — smoked plant, THC pills, CBD, nabilone, and experimental synthetics — and results for one don’t transfer to another. | — | Solid |
| C023 | The US FDA approved dronabinol (Marinol) in 1985 for chemotherapy nausea that other drugs couldn’t control, added AIDS appetite loss in 1992, and it moved to Schedule III in 1999. | Any other country. | Solid |
| C024 | Nabilone was licensed in the UK in 1982 (hospital use, resistant nausea) and approved by the FDA in 1985. A Canadian approval around then is reported but we couldn’t confirm the year. | Canada’s date. | Solid, with limits |
| C025 | US government records from 1969–74 describe a research-cannabis supply programme at the University of Mississippi from 1968 and federal contracts for synthetic THC. We have not yet opened those records ourselves. | — | Open (checking) |
| C026 | Scheduling did not make cannabis research impossible — controlled human trials were done in the US after 1970 and in the UK under licence. It did mean regulated access and a single supplier. | How burdensome those restrictions were — this review did not find a quantitative measure. | Solid, with limits |
| C027 | We found no dataset that supports a reliable percentage of the era’s research that was about harms versus benefits. Both kinds existed; this evidence map cannot quantify the balance. | — | Solid, with limits (a statement about what we found) |
| C028 | Researchers found reports of a US government programme that supplied cannabis cigarettes to some seriously ill patients and was closed to new participants in 1992; the verifier has not yet been able to open the primary 1999 IOM passage. The often-quoted details — started 1978, 27 patients approved, 13–15 kept on — come from a memoir and second-hand accounts and are unresolved. | The exact dates and numbers. | Open |
| C029 | A 1972 petition to reschedule marijuana led to a judge recommending Schedule II in 1988, which the DEA Administrator denied in 1989, with a further denial and remand in 1992. It stayed in Schedule I. | The exact wording of the 1989 order — the document isn’t online. | Solid, with limits |
| C030 | A 1987 study followed 45,570 Swedish conscripts for 15 years: heavy cannabis users had 6 times the rate of schizophrenia. The authors described cannabis as an independent risk factor, but an observational study like this cannot by itself establish causation. | Whether cannabis causes schizophrenia — association is not cause. | Solid, with limits |
| C031 | Heavy smoking for two months slightly reduced lung function in 28 young men (1976). An 8-year study of 394 people found tobacco, not cannabis, sped up lung decline (1997). Bronchoscopy found airway inflammation in cannabis smokers (1998). These are three different findings, not one. | Cancer risk; long-term disease. | Solid |
| C032 | In 1980, very high doses of CBD (600 mg/day) slowed the breakdown of a sedative drug (hexobarbital) by 36% in ten people — early human evidence of a CBD–drug interaction. | Ordinary product doses; other drugs. | Solid |
| C033 | 1974 papers claimed cannabis broke chromosomes and suppressed immunity. One researcher says these were later refuted; we haven’t verified that. | Whether the refutation is sound. | Solid, with limits — the 1974 papers are documented; the claimed later refutation is still open |
| C034 | The 1997 WHO report reviewed health effects across the body and included a section on medical use. | — | Solid |
| C035 | The UK House of Lords (1998) said the evidence didn’t conclusively prove medical value, called urgently for MS and pain trials, and recommended letting doctors prescribe cannabis. The Government said no, pending trial evidence. | — | Solid |
| C036 | The 1999 US Institute of Medicine report found cannabinoid drugs had potential for pain, nausea and appetite, called smoked marijuana a crude delivery method, and asked for trials of non-smoked forms. Three readers report this; we have not been able to open the document ourselves. | — | Open — three independent reads agree; verifier reproduction pending |
| C037 | Four earlier official reports (US 1972, Canada 1972, US 1982, US NIH 1997) exist; we have summaries from one researcher only and haven’t checked the originals. | Everything in the summaries. | Open |
| C038 | The “disease-modifying” evidence we located from the era is in animals and cells: THC slowed a mouse lung tumour in 1975 (CBD didn’t), and CBD/THC protected rat neurons in a dish in 1998. No human study of cannabis treating cancer or brain disease was found. | Cancer or neurodegeneration in people. | Solid, with limits (“none found” isn’t “none exists”) |
| C039 | We identified no human disease-modification studies for cancer or brain disease from the era, and no human studies in the other areas we searched — children’s CBD epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, PTSD, or structured cannabis-for-opioid substitution. | Whether any exist that we missed. | Solid, with limits |
| C040 | The claim that there was almost no research before legalization is not supported by this record — the record above is large. What’s true is that controlled efficacy trials were much smaller than the basic and pharmacological literature. And results for THC pills are not results for cannabis. | — | Solid |