Introduction
- A Brief History of Cannabis
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Since cannabis is the only
plant on the planet that yields both a drug and a useful fiber its
no surprise that it has been used for thousands of years. A Chinese
treatise on pharmacology attributed to the Emperor Shen Nung and alleged
to date from 2737 B.C. contains probably the earliest reference to
cannabis and its potential as a medicine. Other early references to
cannabis come from India in the Atharva Vedafrom the second millennium
BC and from tablets from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian
King, who live around 650 BC
The ancient Greeks used
alcohol rather than cannabis as a recreational drug but they traded
with cannabis eating and inhaling peoples. Hence some of the references
in Homer may be to cannabis- including Homer's reference to the
drug which Helen brought to Troy from Egyptian Thebes. Certainly
Herodotus was referring to cannabis when he wrote in 5 BC that the
Scythians cultivated a plant that grew like flax but grew thicker
and taller; this hemp they deposited upon red-hot stones in a close
rooms producing a vapor. Herodotus noted, "that no Grecian
vapour-bath can surpass. The Scythians, transported by the vapor,
shout aloud".
Herodotus also described
people living on islands who "meet together in companies"
throw cannabis on a fire, then "sit around in a circle; and
by inhaling the fruit that has been thrown on, they become intoxicated
by the odour, just as the Greeks do by wine; and more fruit is thrown
on, the more intoxicated they become, until they rise up and dance
and betake themselves to singing." Other passages from Pliny,
Marco Polo, Abu Mansur Muwaffaq and The Arabian Nights show that
cannabis was cultivated both for its fibre and for its psychoactive
properties throughout Asia and the Near East from the earliest known
times.
The date on which cannabis
was introduced to Europe is unknown; but it must have been very
early. An urn containing cannabis leaves and seeds, unearthed near
Berlin, is believed to date from 500 BC
Cloth made from hemp
was common in central and southern Europe in the 13 century and
remained popular with succeeding generations. Fine Italian linen
was made from hemp as well as flax and in many cases the two were
mixed in the same material. Nor were the Europeans ignorant of the
recreational potential of cannabis; Francois Rabelais (1490-1553)
gave a full account of what he called "the herb Pantagruelion"
The usage of cannabis
also spread quite early to Africa, many years before Europeans moved
into the country. The plant is smoked by Suto women in South Africa
before giving birth, they also grind up the seeds with bread or
mealie pap and give it children when they are being weaned. A report
in 1916 noted that south African mine workers were encouraged to
smoke because "after a smoke the native work hard and show
very little fatigue". The usual mine practice was to allow
three smokes resembling coffee brakes a day. Further north the lives
of some tribes in the Congo centre on Cannabis, which is cultivated,
smoked regularly and venerated. Whenever the tribe travels it takes
the Riamba (a huge calabash pipe more than a yard in diameter) with
it. Any man committing a misdeed is condemned to smoke until he
passes out.
Cannabis occupies fourth
place in worldwide popularity among the mind-affecting drugs - preceded
only by caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. As in the cases of caffeine,
nicotine and alcohol, attempt have been made to suppress the trade
in cannabis and to eradicate its use. Emir Soudom Sheikhouni of
Joneima in Arabia is said to have ordered in 1378 that all cannabis
plants in his territory be destroyed and that anyone caught eating
cannabis have their teeth pulled out. But 15 years after the Emir's
decree the use of cannabis had increased. No successful effort to
suppress cannabis has ever existed and in 1969 the UN estimated
that there were between 200 000 000 and 250 000 000 cannabis users
in the world.
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