Propagating Medicinal Plants Under Good Agricultural Practices (GAP): Cannabis sativa L. – A Case Study

Plants have been used since ancient times as medicine for the treatment of a range of diseases. In spite of the great advances in the recent decades, plant based medicine still plays a key role in modern health care industry. Even today, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 80 percent of the world's population still relies mainly on traditional remedies such as herbs in one form or another for their medicine. Over the past few decades there has been a great boom for phytomedicines in the health care industry. Quality, safety and efficacy of raw material, however, are the prime concern. A chemically defined and consistent source of raw material is very important to ensure the quality and the efficacy of a drug derived from plants and is very much in demand. Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) is meant to provide defined and reproducible conditions for medicinal and aromatic plant producers. In the present study, we describe the propagation of Cannabis sativa at the University of Mississippi following the Good Agricultural Practices. Acknowledgements: This work was supported in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services, USA, Contract No. N01DA-10–7773.