Leaves That Heal

The city of Bengaluru welcomed the country’s first medical cannabis store, possibly opening the door for many more such centres

- Rajeev Mathew

The medical properties of cannabis are not a new-found discovery. Today, countries like Canada and Uruguay have recognised that and decriminalised marijuana, while countries like USA and New Zealand are seriously considering going down the same path. In India, this plant’s unique properties were recognised thousands of years ago in the Atharva veda. But fast forward a few thousand years, and we haven’t made complete use of the plant that we helped discover. A man and his company want to change that, keeping in mind to stay within the boundaries of the law.

Sourab Agarwal is the founding trustee of the Medicinal Cannabis Foundation of India and managing director of HempCann Solutions, an Odisha-based startup that aims to provide research-backed, cannabis-infused medicines. Agarwal spent years researching on cannabis’ possible benefits and soon decided to start HempCann. “I became aware of the worldwide movement around cannabis and realised the benefits of this godherb. I started researching more into the subject and got to know about our more-than-thousand-years history with cannabis. I was not able to stop myself from researching more on the topic, and soon learnt about the plant’s ability to provide more than 25,000 useful products. At that point, it seemed unfair to ignore and keep a magical plant like this away from the public, so I decided to do something about it.”