A Brief History of Cannabis from 10,000 BC until Last December
The Early Days
Once upon a time, approximately a lot of years ago, a seed fell into the ground and a brand new kind of plant started to grow. The leaves came out all bright green and long and pointy and they had these really cool serrated edges and they smelled real nice. And once the plant grew to be real tall, all the green and purple and red leaves started curling together into little leaf balls, and sugary crystals formed on those balls. And it was a good thing, even though you don’t usually want anything growing on your balls.
Today we know this plant by the manmade scientific name, Cannabis sativa—or just cannabis. We also call it other things, like marijuana, hemp, weed, grass, Mary Jane, bhang, bud, ganja, bamba, ace, 420, herb, kif, tea, or some other code word that one of your friends invented so narcs wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. There are lots more other names for our favorite plant, but we’ll get to that later.
Nobody knows for sure when humans first used the cannabis plant, whether you’re talking about the “hemp” plant that doesn’t get you high, or the “marijuana” plant, which does get you high, assuming you’re holding.
But as far as evidence goes, archaeologists have dug up artifacts from people who used hemp fibers as long ago as 10,000 BC in China. And the first known use of cannabis seeds for food and oil is also on record in China, going all the way back to 6000 BC. They’ve found shoes, fabric, clothes, rope, bowstrings for weapons, mats, and more in digs dating back to before the Common Era. In fact, the plant was so important to Chinese culture for so long, they called their country “the land of mulberry and hemp.”
The earliest evidence of people using cannabis to get “high” is a bowl with charred cannabis seeds dating to around 3000 BC that was found by archaeologists in present-day Romania. And the oldest evidence in China was found inside the tomb of a Chinese shaman, dating to around 800 BC. There were a couple of vessels filled with almost two pounds of THC-laden cannabis.
By that time, humans all over the world were using cannabis for making rope, fabric, and many other necessities, using its seeds, oils, and stalks for food, fuel, and fiber, and eventually, fun.
The Paper Situation
One of the most important inventions that people ever invented is paper. And the world’s first known paper was made with hemp fibers, around 110 BC, in China. Before paper, everything that people wanted to write down had to be written on expensive silk or, more commonly, carved onto tablets made out of clay or rock or wood or other bulky stuff. It took a long time to write anything down, and an even longer time to carry whatever was written down from here to there. So knowledge moved around the world very very very slowly, kind of like today for anyone still using dial-up.
According to Chinese legend, modern papermaking was invented by a court official named Ts’ai Lun in 105 AD. One day, so to speak, he woke up, crushed a pile of hemp fibers and mulberry bark etc. into pulp form, let it sit in water until the fibers rose up to the top all tangled together, then moved the mash from the water to a mold, and when the fiber dried together in the mold it formed a sheet that could be written on. Paper!
So he took the newly invented paper to the emperor, thinking he would treat him like a hero with a parade, concubines, and a lifetime supply of rice. But there were doubters. Legend says that in order to turn the naysayers around, Ts’ai Lun did something crazy to prove a point about the power of paper. With a little help from some friends, he faked his death and was buried alive in a coffin with a paper lid. His buddies told the mourners that if the paper lid of the coffin burned, Ts’ai Lun would rise from the dead. The paper did burn, and Ts’ai Lun leapt up out of the coffin and scared the crap out of everyone.
Papermaking, China
The people thought the whole thing was miraculous, and acknowledged the power of paper.
To this day, the Chinese continue the custom of burning paper over the tombs of their deceased loved ones.
Any way you fold it, it was an awesome invention, so awesome that the xenophobic Chinese (have you seen that Wall?) kept it to themselves for hundreds of years, until the ninth century when some Arab soldiers captured some Chinese prisoners who were “holding” (paper, that is) during the Battle of Samarkand, in land that is now Russia. In what might be the world’s first case of mail fraud, the Arabs stole the papers, and later somehow figured out how to deconstruct it and then reconstruct it and then trade it for everything from camels to coconuts. In other words, paper-making soon went global and led to a huge increase in knowledge everywhere, and a growing importance for cannabis.
Once cannabis started to get discovered and traded around the world outside China—between 1200 and 800 BC—people everywhere started getting high as a kite. (Coincidentally, for fans of idioms, the kite was invented in 800 BC.)
According to the earliest-known archaeological finds, followers of Taoism—a back-to-nature philosophy—figured out how to use cannabis for intoxication. Soon after that, the squares of Chinese society who were threatened by the laid-back Taoists voiced their disapproval and began condemning the recreational and spiritual use of cannabis. Sound familiar?
But despite people of all eras attacking cannabis, many others have embraced the plant for its high and for its health benefits for thousands of years, everywhere:
1200 BC
Cannabis is referenced in the sacred Hindu text Atharvaveda as “Sacred Grass,” one of the five sacred plants of India, and is used as medicine and in ritual offerings to Shiva.
700 BC
The Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta refers to cannabis as a “good narcotic.”
700 BC
Scythian tribes in modern-day Iran place cannabis seeds in royal tombs.
500 BC
Cannabis is brought to northern Europe—the future home of Amsterdam—by the Scythians.
70
Greek physician Dioscorides mentions the medicinal use of cannabis.
100
Gold and glass-paste stash boxes for storing cannabis dating from this period are found by archaeologists.
170
Roman physician Galen writes about the psychoactive use of cannabis.
Dioscorides, Greek physician and pharmacologist
FROM LEFT: Marco Polo • India, smoking Hookah
500
The Jewish Talmud refers to the euphoric aspects of cannabis.
900
The use of cannabis-based hashish spreads throughout Arabia.
1155
Narratives from this time in Persia discuss Sufi master Sheik Haidar’s use of cannabis to get high.
1271
Marco Polo tells stories of Asian cannabis use to Europeans.
1300s
Ibn al-Baytar of Spain describes the psychoactive use of cannabis.
1300s
Arab traders bring cannabis to the East Coast of Africa.
1700s
Cannabis use spreads across Constantinople in modern-day Turkey.
1840
Medicinal preparations using cannabis are available in America.
1843
The “Hashish Eater’s Club” is established in Paris.
1856
British tax the trade of cannabis in India.
1890
The Greek government prohibits the use of cannabis.
1890
Cannabis becomes illegal in Turkey.
1894
The British government issues the India Hemp Drugs Commission Report. Among other findings, it concludes that recreational use of cannabis produces no injurious effects on humans.
1890s
Approximately 80,000 kg of cannabis is imported into India from Central Asia each year.
1915-1927
Recreational use of cannabis prohibited in California (1915), Texas (1919), Louisiana (1924), and New York (1927).
1926
Cannabis is prohibited in Lebanon.
1928
Recreational use of cannabis is banned in Britain.
1934-1935
Chinese government begins banning cannabis cultivation in several regions.
1937
The U.S. government passes the Marijuana Tax Act to make production and use of cannabis a federal crime.
FROM LEFT: Coffee Shop, Amsterdam • Marijuana legalized in Washington State
1970s
The cannabis coffee-shop phenomenon begins in Amsterdam.
1972
The Nixon administration in the U.S. urges that the use of cannabis be legalized, but the recommendation is ignored by Congress.
1973
Afghanistan makes cannabis production and use illegal.
1973
Oregon decriminalizes marijuana to a “violation” which is less severe than a felony or misdemeanor.
1975
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration establishes the “Compassionate Use” program for medical marijuana.
1975
California, Alaska, Ohio, and Colorado decriminalize marijuana.
1978
New York, Mississippi, Nebraska, and North Carolina decriminalize marijuana.
1988
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Judge Francis Young finds that marijuana has beneficial medical use and should be reclassified as a prescriptive drug. Congress takes no action.
2008
Massachusetts passed a vote initiative to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce, punishable by a $100 fine.
2012
Voters in Colorado and Washington unanimously pass laws that will legalize marijuana for recreational use.
December 6, 2012
Recreational use of marijuana becomes legal in Washington state, U.S.A.
The Future
The history of cannabis is still being written, and stoners everywhere hope the trail blazed by Washingtonians and Coloradoans will soon be followed by all other Americans to legalize responsible recreational use of marijuana and industrial use of hemp throughout the United States. And then the rest of the world.
