THE FLOWERS OF GOOD

A Brazilian neurobiologist recounts the joys of weed.

If it took forever for marijuana to be accepted for its medicinal and recreational possibilities in the U.S., it took even longer in Brazil—in part, writes Ribeiro, because, with its cultivation illegal, experimental marijuana had to be imported, and then with great reluctance on the part of the bureaucracy. Yet, Ribeiro points out, for all the recent work on such things as epilepsy in mice, research into marijuana’s therapeutic values is nothing new; in 1839, he notes, a British doctor in India “demonstrated the use of marijuana preparations for treating convulsions, spasms, and rheumatism,” something the ancients had known for millennia. Yet scientific knowledge has proceeded apace, though it may come as a surprise to some readers that THC was identified as marijuana’s chief active ingredient only in the 1960s. The science in Ribeiro’s book begins to soften as it moves along: Ribeiro allows that being baked can tamper with a person’s short-term memory, though not the long-term form, and he explains why it is that a good bong hit requires an Oreo or 10: “In promoting the healthy balance between energy expenditure and food ingestion, cannabinoids act directly on bodily regeneration.” (Thus it is, he suggests, that eating disorders might just find a remedy in toking up.) Despite the echo of Baudelaire in the title, there’s not much poetry in these pages, though there’s plenty of hippie-ish good feelings about “plant teachers” as Ribeiro exalts “wandering the paths of the improbable, that which perhaps will never be, and yet maybe, it might, who knows, it just might be…and may even grow for all to see.” It ain’t quite Jerry Garcia, but the point is made.

You don’t have to be stoned to read this, but it couldn’t hurt.