HIGH TIMES OF MARIJUANA HISTORY

Primitive man, trying all sorts of plant materials as food, must have known the ecstatic hallucinatory effects of Hemp, an intoxication introducing him to an other-worldly plant leading to religious beliefs. The original use of this plant in China was as a fiber plant, hemp. That usage now is documented back to 10,000 B.C. in Taiwan, where archaeologists have unearthed broken pieces of pottery having hemp fiber patterns and rod-shaped tools for beating the stems to obtain net fiber. The Chinese would take the soft fibers and use them for fishing nets, clothing, shoes, sails, and, eventually, writing materials (oldest known rag paper 180 B.C.). The seeds were eaten, being rich in triglycerides (oils).

Ethnobotanists have suggested that Cannabis grew as a robust weed on rich, nitrogenous dump heaps, where villagers put the remains of fishes. This presumably led to the discovery of hemp as a fiber and a food plant, and to its deliberate cultivation by 4000 B.C. Oldest Chinese reference to hemp (ma) occurs in Shu King (2350 B.C.) and Rh-Ya on oldest shamanistic uses (15th Century B.C.), whereas the oldest fragments of spun and woven hemp fabric are only from burial sites of the Chou dynasty (1122-249 B.C.). Ancient China was labeled "the land of mulberry and hemp" because people wore silk imprinted with mulberry leaves and hemp. However, silk was very expensive and worn only by the wealthy. People in eastern Asia adopted this as a medicinal plant (2737 B.C. in a Chinese herbal reference written by Pen T'sao Ching), cannabis seeds were a major pseudocereal in China. At times during Chinese history, wars were waged between land barons over the crop, fought by warriors with bows strung with hemp string. At least one author called this the "first agricultural war crop," and land barons devoted large parcels to grow hemp, so that each canton could be economically independent. Cannabis was brought into cultivation in southwestern Asia for its intoxicating properties, perhaps independently from its medical uses by the Chinese.

In Japan, hemp (asa) was used to make fishing nets, clothing, and mats. Hemp cloth was worn during religious and formal ceremonies to signify purity, and hemp was give to brides as a symbol of the wife's obedience to her husband.

The narcotic use developed in ancient India, where Cannabis was brought by the god Siva from the Himalayas for use and enjoyment. In India, there are three standards of potency: bhang, mostly the U.S. equivalent of marijuana, which includes leaves, fruits, and stems; ganja, prepared from flowering tips (female flowers and upper leaves); and charas, pure, golden resin. The resin was formerly collected by charas, men wearing leather clothes would run through the hemp fields from which the resin could be easily scraped off with a curved spatula. Siva, Lord of Bhang, drank bhang, a mild, boiled liquid refreshment from leaves of Cannabis mixed with almonds, eight spices, rosebuds, milk, poppy seeds, and sugar. Bhang was used like alcohol. Ganja or hashish is sometimes collected by thrashing flowering tops against smooth rock or concrete walls, where the resin and plant particles will stick and can be scraped into bricks. Both bhang and ganja were used during war.

Especially famous was the use of Cannabis by Gobind Singh, founder of the Sikh religion; his soldiers became intoxicated with bhang and opium, and were so stoned and frenzied that they killed attacking elephants and overpowered a superior enemy. Anniversaries of Singh's victory are commemorated with bhang. In the Hindu texts, the Veda, the mind-altering effects of this plant were discussed.

From Herodotus we learned about the Scythians (7th or 6th Century B.C.) of central Siberia. These were expert horsemen and warriors who practiced cannabis intoxication using vapor baths as well as cures for sickness and burial rituals. Their descendants spread to eastern Europe, and are believed to have taken the plant with them. On Christmas Eve, Lithuanians may serve a hemp fruit soup (semienjatka) "for souls of the death," and in the Ukraine and Latvia similar rituals are observed on Three Kings Day.

Some scholars concluded that the "nepenthe" of Homer was Cannabis, but other feel that this is too early and that ancient Greeks knew nothing about the medicinal or intoxicating properties of Cannabis, although they used hemp cloth (450 B.C.) Dioscorides (d. 90 A.D.), in De materia medica, discussed the use of Cannabis for rope, sexual disorders, and earaches. Even as late as Rome, physicians Galen (130-200 A.D.) wrote that it was sometimes customary to give Hemp to guests to promote hilarity and enjoyment. Pliny the Elder (43-79 A.D.) who died a victim of the eruption of Vesuvius, said little about its medicinal uses.

Legends once stated that hashish was discovered by Haydar, founder of Persian Sufis, in 1155 A.D. when he ventured from the monastery on a hot summer day and returned with a happy, whimsical air. His Sufis monks were sworn to secrecy, and Haydar apparently remained stoned the rest of his life (d. 1221), hence the title "the wine of Haydar." Use of Cannabis as an intoxicant became firmly ingrained in the Near Eastern and Turkish, as well as Indian, cultures. The word sufis comes from suf, or wool. This sect wore clothes made more of wool than cotton and was condemned for imitating Jesus, not Mohammed (cotton).

Sufis were a contrast to orthodox Islam and had a mystical approach, including intoxication by drugs. These believers were a counterculture, like hippies, comprised mostly of lower and middle class disciples, living a bleak existence and physically withdrawn from society into their own communes. Sufis were blamed for the downfall of Islamic society and for spreading drug use. That sect attracted social outcasts and those looking for a cheap high relative to the costly high of alcohol.

Cannabis was also involved in the schisms occurring within Islam, following the death of Mohammed. Mohammed died without designating a religious heir (caliph). Islam split into Sunnis of Semitic origin and who wanted to elect the caliph, and Shiites, who insisted that only legitimate successors came from Ali, the husband of Mohammed's surviving daughter Fatima. Shiite Caliph Jafar-I-Sadiq caught his eldest son Ismail drinking wine, and from anger chose his younger son Musa to become the caliph. A small group of Ismail's loyalists went underground and started a new movement. Disciples of Ismail converted the Persian Al-Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, who ruled a mountain stronghold fighting the Persian sultan. He had 12,000 loyal soldiers. Legend has that this loyalty was obtained by offering recruits drugs and beautiful women "to minister to every need."

One legend states that the word "hashish" has another sinister side; according to this legend, Al-Hasan got his army of robbers to murder Christian crusaders and then rewarded them with hashish, hence, "hashishins," the murderers, became the origin of the word assassin.

Egypt was eventually another site of Cannabis history. Although "hashish user" became a derogatory term throughout Islam, signifying low class, problems developed by the 13th Century. In Cairo (1253), Egyptian Muslims ordered plants of Cannabis to be burned, but farmers simply moved outside the city to grow the crop. In 1324, the Egyptian army was used to destroy the crop in the countryside, but the hashish production survived. In 1378 the farmers fought troops to protect their crop and revenues; marshal law was instituted and traffickers were killed, but by 1393 a business of Cannabis was again thriving there. Hashish was eaten, and leaves were rolled into a ball and swallowed like a pill.

Arab traders were also responsible for spreading marijuana to other parts of Africa, where the plant was used by women during childbirth (an ancient custom) and to feed babies after weaning. Kafirs referred to this plant as dagga, which was used in beverages or chewed, but the colonial Dutch adapted this plant for smoking.

Henry VIII fostered the cultivation of Hemp in England. The maritime supremacy of England during Elizabethan times greatly increased the demand. Hashish was introduced into France by Napoleon's army from Egypt (1800), and was first used for treating the mentally ill before becoming popular with Parisians. Frenchmen, including a psychiatrist named Moreau de Tours and the artists Gautier and Boissard, experimented with hashish and started the Le Club des Haschichins, which lured others (Dumas, Delacroix, and Hugo) to try pot. Many felt that the drug improved artistic creativity.

Marijuana was intentionally introduced to North America in Jamestown (1611) as a fiber plant, used primarily for ropes, canvas sails and for paper to print Bibles, the Gutenberg Bible and many others were published on hemp paper; what would Rev. Falwell say about marijuana Bibles? In many states marijuana occasionally grows as a weed, spread by birds. Many famous documents, including early drafts of the Declaration of Independence and writings of Thomas Paine, were scribed on cannabis paper. Hemp farming was done by Thomas Jefferson and many other famous individuals of colonial times, our domestic hemp industry helped our ancestors become economically independent of Mother England, and hemp was at the center of debate between the North and the South in fights by Webster and Clay over tariffs.

In the United States the first marijuana laws were enacted in 1900, presumably because the liquor lobby did not want competition, even though from 1840-1900 more than 100 papers had been published in Western medical literature for using marijuana to treat various illnesses and discomforts. The League of Nations opposed the drug in 1925. The great blow to U.S. use of marijuana as a medicine came with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which became law following a massive campaign by Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who accused marijuana to be an addictive drug, causing violent crimes, psychosis, and mental deterioration. The film Reefer Madness was part of that campaign. That law levied a tax of $1 per ounce for industrial or medical purposes and $100 per ounce for other uses, and tax evasion was punishable by stiff fines or prison terms. That legislation made marijuana a major financial liability for anyone dealing with the plant, and all legitimate uses of marijuana and hemp were essentially stopped economically.

FACTS & FIGURES
Cannabis is one of the few generic names that has become a common name in our culture, either as a subject of praise or damnation. The principal active compound is 3,4-trans-delta-1-tetrahydrocannabinol, also known as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or most commonly as THC, but in this plant there are 360 known compounds, of which more than 60 have the 21-carbon cannabinoid structure. Of these the cannabidiols are mildly active and believed to be the metabolic precursors of the tetrahydrocannabinols, and the cannabinols are thought to be deactivated forms of the THCs. The "ol" ending on these compounds tells you that these are alcohols, present on the leaves and in resin when produced mostly from special glandular hairs on the plant surface. The fruits, roots, and stems, have none of the psychoactive compounds.

Aside from its intoxicating human uses, THC was formerly used as a human and cow tranquilizer, and there are several synthetics, including Synhexyl, Nabilone, and Levonatradol. Marinol is the pharmaceutical name for THC. Recent research by neuroscientists has suggested that there are special receptors in the brain cerebral cortex that are stimulated by THC, although neural substrates are still not firmly established. As an hallucinogen, THC produces euphoria and highly modified sensual perceptions. The concentration of THC can range from 1-5%, and plants grown in North America from stock coming from Panama, Mexico, and, especially, Thailand frequently yield the highest values. A one-gram cigarette containing 10 mg of THC (1%) is considered psychoactive. Hashish resin may have up to 60% THC by weight. The fiber type of plants do not have THC concentrations that are effective enough to produce psychoactive responses (greater than 0.25%).

Botanists classify the northern plants, used for fiber and oil, as C. sativa, a plant that can grow very tall. Southern types including C. indica are densely branched plants about one meter tall and have high resin content. And C. ruderalis, a shorter form with few or no branches. Botanists treat it as one unstabilized species that has been under intense artificial selection for many centuries. Hemp, or marijuana, is a wind-pollinated annual or short-lived perennial. The height record for this plant is about 12 meters. Female plants are usually taller and stockier than male plants. The resin is produced around female flowers until the fruit is nearly mature. Marijuana is the form that comes from smoked dried and crushed leaves, whereas hashish, which is smoked or eaten, comes from the resin produced by the female flowers.