Evidence of Ancient Use of Cannabis
In the fifth century BCE, a Serbian princess was dying, and no one at the time knew why. Her condition grew worse, they started medicating her with cannabis to ease the pain. What they might not have known is that they were also slowing down the advance the breast cancer that would eventually take her life. She was burried on an icy Plateau in Russia’s Altai Mountains and was so well preserved by her conditions that the tattoos on her skin were still visible, and her jar of cannabis that might have been ruderalis remained in tact. Her stuff probably was not as good as from Green House Seed Co.
It is interesting to see a practice that is more than 2500 years old be demonized, especially after so much positive research has been released. The argument is nothing new though. There is evidence of scholarls debating the pros and cons of eating hashish from 900 to 1000 CE. It’ an age old discussion that we are only now getting close to truly understand the discourse of in terms of the biological effects of smoking marijuana and ingesting cannabinoids.
A Global Resource
Cannabis seems to have been omnipotent. Every culture has evidence of using cannabis for robe, cloth and other textiles as well as medicine and paper. The movement truly got its roots in Taiwan, where cannabis is believed to be the world’s first agriculture crop. This was over ten thousand years ago and has been touted as helping to catalyze the development of human civilization, at least Carl Sagan seems to have thought so.
You do not have to dig too deep to see that royals were using it as medicine and being buried with the seeds in their tombs. Ropes made of hemp were being traded worldwide for their strength. Concentrates make their first appearance in 1155 when the Sufi master Sheik Haydar invents Hashish, so the story grows. Hashish quickly spread across the middle east because of the euphoric effects.
By the Renaissance nearly every continent was producing industrial hemp, while scientists were hypothesizing and testing medicinal uses for the plant. Until the 20th century the plant was widely distributed globally and used for a wide range of products. Hashish was the only substance being banned, while industrial hemp still boomed. Save for the middle east, everywhere Hashish went it was banned.
A Turn for the Worse
Two key events changed the course of marijuana’s history towards today’s bizarre policy. First the Harrison Act in 194 defined marijuana use as a crime. Secondly a report was released stating that one acre of hemp could produce 4 times as much paper as tree pulp over 20 years. Despite the use of cannabis in cooking, medicine and multitudinous industries, the plant was being banned from being grown all across the United States because of perceived dangers of recreational use.
Cannabis has been outlawed for less than a century of its 10,000 year relationship with man, and it seems that it might replace the dog as man’s best friend. If you live in a state or country where medical or recreational marijuana is being allowed once more, go vote to end the prohibition and rekindle the industry.
