Under the name cannabis, 19th century medical practitioners sold the drug, (usually as a tincture) popularizing the word amongst English-speakers. It was rumored that Queen Victoria's menstrual pains were treated with cannabis, because her personal physician, Sir John Russell Reynolds, wrote an article in the first edition of the medical journal The Lancet about the benefits of cannabis. Cannabis users included nineteenth century literary figures Robert Louis Stevenson, and Le Club des Hashishins members Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas[3] Eli Lilly and Company and others sold cannabis tinctures over the counter for a variety of maladies. By the end of the 19th century, its medicinal use began to fall as other drugs like aspirin took over its use as a pain reliever.
In 1894, the Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission commissioned by the UK Secretary of State and the government of India, was instrumental in the decision not to criminalize the drug in those countries. From 1906 different states in the United States started to implement regulations for sales of Cannabis indica. In 1925 a change of the International Opium Convention banned exportation of Indian hemp to countries that have prohibited its use, and requiring importing countries to issue certificates approving the importation and stating that the shipment was required "exclusively for medical or scientific purposes."
In 1937 the F.D. Roosevelt administration crafted 1937 Marihuana Tax Act the first national US law making cannabis possession illegal in the US via an unpayable tax on the drug. Hollywood supported that effort with the release of "misinformation documentaries" such as the iconical "Reefer Madness" (1937) and Nathanael West wrote about it in his Hollywood novel, The Day of the Locust.
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