The History of our Relationship with Cannabis
The question of the legalization of marijuana has spurred countrywide debate and controversy for years. It may seem like the conversation about cannabis has been going on forever, and the truth is, it has. Humans and cannabis have a long and diverse history that spans as far back as 440 BC and reaches every corner of the globe.
Earliest Recorded Uses
Fossilized records and historical texts indicate that hemp is one of the oldest agricultural crops known to mankind. Pottery discovered in modern-day Taiwan that dates back nearly 10,000 years incorporated hemp cord as a binding element. According to sources tied to the ancient Chinese Emperor Shen Neng, people in China used cannabis medicinally as early as 2700 BC. Hindu religious texts described using cannabis for medicine and as an offering to the god Shiva around 2000 BC.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus also described the use of cannabis. In his seminal 440 BC work, Histories, Herodotus described the Scythians, a group of Eurasian nomads, and their practice of taking cannabis steam baths. He noted how the group would vaporize hemp seeds over hot red stones. According to Herodotus, the smoke it created “gave out such a vapor as no Grecian vapor bath can exceed,” causing revelers to “shout for joy” in delight.
Cannabis likely grew originally in Asia, so different communities and cultures throughout the region were some of the first to interact with the plant. Scythian contemporaries in China and Siberia also left behind evidence of the use of cannabis. Graves of shamans in those areas are littered with burned cannabis seeds from as far back as 500 BC. Given that the cannabis was located near the burial grounds of shamans, historians speculate that ancient cultures used the plant in a variety of spiritual and religious ceremonies.
Before spreading it to the rest of the world, central Asian cultures found a variety of uses for cannabis. Ancient peoples used fibers from the plant to make “clothing, paper, sails, and rope.” The seeds of the plant provided an additional food source. Although it is likely that strains of ancient cannabis had low levels of THC, the chemical compound found in cannabis that creates an “high,” some evidence indicates that ancient peoples appreciated the psychoactive effects of the plant and purposely cultivated strains with higher concentrations of THC.
Across the world, a different group of ancient peoples were experimenting with the effects of another plant with psychoactive properties: peyote. Records indicate that Native American cultures used peyote for nearly 2000 years before Europeans came to the continent. Discoveries of peyote specimens in North American cave and rock shelters show that ancient cultures have been using the substance, maybe in religious ceremonies and maybe just for fun, for at least 3000 years. Unlike cannabis however, peyote’s popular use has remained close to the region where it originated.
On the other hand, popular use of cannabis spread far and wide and its proliferation began early in the history of the plant’s relationship with mankind.
Growing Reach
Evidence shows that people used cannabis for recreational purposes by about 800 A.D across the Middle East and parts of Asia. There, cannabis was used in the form of hashish, a purified form of the plant that is smoked with a pipe. The use of the substance spread with the growth of Islam since Islamic religious texts did not specifically forbid the use of cannabis while they did prohibit the use of alcohol and other intoxicants. By around 1100, cannabis had spread around the East for paramilitary purposes. Then, a Persian military leader supposedly used the hypnotic effects of hashish to recruit followers to commit assassinations.
By around 850, not only had the use of cannabis begun to evolve, but its geographic reach began to grow. The Vikings brought different hemp made goods with them to Iceland, including rope and seeds. By 1000, smoking hashish became common in Arabic cultures as it spread throughout the Middle Eastern region. Around 1200, cannabis was introduced to the continent of Africa when mystic devotees from Syria brought it with them for ceremonial use when they traveled to Egypt. The plant continued to spread around Africa in the same time span when Arabic traders brought cannabis to the Mozambique coast.
Written historical records from around 1300 describe cannabis being brought to the attention of European communities. In an account of his journeys, Marco Polo recited an Arabic tale and in it, described the use of hashish. By 1300, discovered hashish pipes made in the Ethiopian tradition suggest that cannabis had by then spread throughout the rest of Africa.
A couple of hundred years later, around 1550, cannabis began its sprawl to the Americas. It was then that Angolan slaves working on the sugar plantations of northeastern Brazil brought cannabis with them on the journey. They were allowed to plant the cannabis between the rows of sugarcane and smoked it when they had breaks. By the 1600s, British and French colonists were growing cannabis for hemp. Around the same time, settlers in Jamestown discovered the unusually strong properties of the plant and began cultivating it in order to use its fibers to make rope, sails, clothing, paper, and more. By 1800, the cultivation and use of cannabis exploded throughout North America. Marijuana plantations were booming businesses across the states in Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, California, Nebraska, Kentucky, and New York.
The use of cannabis in the form of hashish also grew around this time, and by 1600 it enjoyed popular use in France and to a lesser extent, in the United States. Today, people consume cannabis in many forms around the world, including smoking, vaporizing, and ingesting as marijuana, hash, hash oil, wax, edible treats, and more. People around the world also grow the plant for hemp to make products including clothes, paper, rope, linens, and much more. Cannabis remains one of the most diverse and far-reaching crops in the world.
Cannabis in Religious Rituals
Since the beginning of its known use by humans, cannabis has been a part of religious rituals and ceremonies. As early as 2000 BC, people used cannabis as an offering to the god Shiva in Hindu religious texts. The work declares cannabis one of the five sacred plants of India and refers to it as “Sacred Grass.” Around 650 BC, a Persian religious text mentions cannabis and refers to it as the “good narcotic.” Evidence from 500 BC shows cannabis being used in the burial ceremonies of Eurasian nomads. The ancient Scythian people covered their dead with a tent and attached a stick holding a leather pouch that held cannabis seeds. The Scythian’s used cannabis as offerings in royal tombs as well. Burial sites throughout Northern Europe dated to this period contain hemp remnants. The ritual of burying people with hemp likely came from the traveling Scythian people. One thousand years later, in 570, ritual hemp burials persisted; people in what is now France buried their queen, Arnegunde, with hemp cloth.
Many other religious traditions around the world have used cannabis for different rituals and ceremonies. Before the spread of Confucianism in 200 A.D., Taoists in China consumed cannabis mixed with ginseng ritually, believing it allowed them to move their spirit into the future. Tibet, a historically Buddhist nation, tells stories of the Buddha’s use of cannabis, claiming that in order to reach enlightenment, the Buddha “subsisted on one hemp seed a day for six years.” Followers of Buddha would often consume cannabis during religious ceremonies to heighten their awareness.
In ancient Greece, the Assyrians burned incense made of cannabis to ward off evil spirits. Assyrians burned this incense during funerals and in children’s bedrooms to cast away the spirits. Although less prominent than in Eastern religions, some evidence suggests that Judeo-Christian cultures also used cannabis ceremonially. In 1936, a Polish scholar posited that a word in the Old Testament had been mistranslated from the original Greek. According to this scholar’s translation, in Exodus, God commanded Moses to make a holy oil consisting in part of cannabis.
Followers of the Jamaican religion of Rastafarianism use cannabis spiritually, a practice that became a legal controversy in the United States and culminated in the 1993 Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. The act has been interpreted by federal courts to allow the consumption of cannabis for spiritual and religious purposes.
Cannabis as Medicine
For nearly as long as cannabis has been used in religious rituals and ceremonies, people have used it as medicine. As early as 2700 BC, China’s Emperor mentioned using marijuana as a medicine. A long history of cannabis use for medicinal purposes follows. In 2000 BC, Hindu religious texts mention the plant’s medicinal use in India. Around 50 A.D., The Natural History cites the analgesic effect of marijuana. Twenty years later, in 70 A.D., a physician in Nero’s army listed medicinal marijuana as one of his pharmaceutical remedies. By 200 A.D., a Greek physician prescribed medical marijuana to a patient. At the same time, the pharmaceutical use of cannabis grew in the East. At that time, a pharmacopeia in the region listed the substance for the first time, and a Chinese surgeon used cannabis as an anesthetic.
In 300 A.D., records show that a Jewish woman used medical marijuana for assistance during childbirth. On the other side of the coin, in 1000, an Arabic physician cautioned that using cannabis could be dangerous in his seminal work, On Poisons. Several hundred years later, around 1530, a French physician mentioned the therapeutic effects of marijuana in his published works. At almost the same time, in 1560 a Portuguese doctor described similar medicinal uses of cannabis. Near 1580, a Chinese doctor described the properties of the plant as both antibiotic and antiemetic.
In 1794 marijuana was noted for its medicinal purposes in The Edinburgh New Discovery. By 1840, several medicines containing cannabis as a base or ingredient became available in the United States. At the same time, hashish was readily available across Persian pharmacies for medicinal use. Between 1850 and 1915 cannabis was widely used throughout America as a well-known, often recommended, and socially acceptable form of medication. Medicinal marijuana was available for purchase at pharmacies and general stores around the country. Across the ocean, in 1890, Queen Victoria’s physician prescribed her medical marijuana. By 1941 however, the medicinal use of marijuana was no longer recognized in the United States, and medicinal marijuana was removed from the US Pharmacopeia.
By the 1900s, much of the world labeled cannabis as dangerous and illegal. Czech researchers in the 1960s nonetheless wrote that marijuana contained analgesic and antibiotic properties. In 1971, evidence surfaced showing that marijuana may help glaucoma sufferers. In 1996, California became the first state in the country to re-legalize the use of medical marijuana for patients suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other serious conditions. In 2003, Canada legalized medical marijuana at the national level. Today, the controversy over the use and legality of medical marijuana continues is taking place throughout the United States and around the world.
Shifting Legality of Cannabis
As a hardy and free growing plant that almost anyone anywhere can grow, cannabis enjoyed unfettered use and cultivation for hundreds of years. However, the legality and acceptable use of the substance has shifted throughout the course of society.
In 1378, Ottoman leader Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issued one of the first known edicts banning the use of cannabis. In it, he forbade eating hashish. In 1798, Napoleon declared a total prohibition of marijuana throughout France after learning that much of the Egyptian lower-class used hashish regularly. In 1890, both Greece and Turkey made the use of hashish illegal. Around the same time, between 1893 and 1894 around 80,000 kg of hashish was imported to India, where it remained legal. In 1914, The Harrison Act declared the use of marijuana a crime in the United States. Between 1915 and 1927, states across the country banned marijuana for nonmedical purposes. Marijuana prohibition originated in California in 1915. American prohibition of alcohol in 1919 lead to the increased use of marijuana, which helped push legislators to further the criminalization of cannabis and cannabis users.
In the 1920s, the dictator leader of Greece issued strongly enforced bans against hashish. In 1926, Lebanon prohibited the production of hashish. Two years later, the recreational use of cannabis was outlawed in Britain. In 1934, hashish production became illegal in Chinese Turkestan after it had enjoyed decades of profitable and widespread cultivation. In 1937, the United States Congress federally outlawed the use of cannabis and marijuana prohibition reached its full effect.
In 1945, the use of hashish was still legal in India and once again began to become more popular in Greece. Conversely, in 1951, the United States Boggs Act and Narcotics Control Act increased penalties and enforced mandatory minimum sentences for people convicted of marijuana related offenses. In 1973, Nepal banned cannabis shops and the export of handrolled hash, while the Afghan government similarly made the production and sale of hashish illegal. In 1987, the Moroccan government cracked down on cannabis farming operations.
Today, states including Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington have re-legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Cannabis use and cultivation is illegal under federal law everywhere across the United States, and much controversy remains concerning these conflicting laws and the direction and use of both medical and recreational cannabis.
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