the story of cannabis
FROM HERB TO KILLER DRUG
ANCIENT CUSTOMS
Cannabis has been used by humans for centuries for its fibers but also as medicine and for therapeutic and ceremonial purposes.
EGYPT
More than 5,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians were already an example of a truly holistic use of the cannabis plant. It was known as Shemshemet. In ancient writings, recipes were found to make medicines based on this. Not only was it good for eye problems, painful periods, or inflamed limbs, but cannabis could also be used to treat fever and inflammation.
Around 2000 BC, cannabis ointments were used to treat eye ulcers and glaucoma. Today, science has proven what the ancient Egyptians learned through centuries of experience that cannabis is a powerful anti-inflammatory that reduces intraocular pressure.
The Egyptian pharaohs also used cannabis for ceremonial purposes. Traces of cannabis have been found in the remains of Ramesses the Great (pharaoh in 1213 BC), as well as the remains of other mummified Egyptians.
In the nineties of the 20th century, a series of studies by Nerliche appeared, parse and Balabanova reported on this surprising discovery. Nerliche’s study noted that the mummies had significant tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) deposition and concluded that this was likely obtained through cannabis smoke. Marijuana was presumably smoked to make a peaceful transition to the afterlife. As you might imagine, these studies were very controversial when they first came out.
ARAB WORLD
During the Maluk dynasty in Syria and Egypt and during the Ottoman Empire, it was common to consume hashish, especially in Egypt. Cannabis was less popular in Turkey than in the Ottoman empires. Apart from Egypt, Morocco was an important center of Marijuana in North Africa from the 13th century. To this day, the country where hashish is called “kif” remains a major exporter of hashish to Europe, the Middle East, and far beyond. In the Arab world, hashish was v.Ch. used as a stimulant in the 9th century.
On medicinal use, Gabriel G. Nahas writes in Hashish in Islam 9th to 18th Century that the physician Al-Razi (865-925) refers to the use of hemp leaves as a medicine for the ear and prescribes it for dandruff and flatulence.
Hashish has long been a mainstay for the Islamic world from North Africa to Turkey and Central Asia. Although people think of strict religious conservatism regarding the Muslim world, the debates in the Middle East and Iran have been shaking for centuries.
CHINA
Cannabis was known in China as ma and was common in everyday life. In ancient China, it was used to produce textiles for ordinary people who could not afford silk and other finer fabrics. The most important innovation that emerged from that time was paper made from hemp fiber.
In 2019, researchers at a cemetery in the Pamir Mountains in western China found evidence that cannabis was smoked during ritual mortuary ceremonies around 500 BC. According to EL Abel in “Marijuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years,” the earliest mention of human use of cannabis comes from the island of Taiwan, located off the coast of mainland China, in an ancient village more than 10,000 years ago in the Stone Age. The earliest known written records date from 1250 BC during the Shang Dynasty.
The Chinese mainly used hemp for textiles and paper but also as medicine. In 2737 BC, the use of cannabis was already described in Chinese medical writings. According to Chinese legend, emperor Shen Nung discovered the healing properties of marijuana around that time.
In the 2nd century, a Chinese doctor named Hua Tuo used cannabis as an anaesthetic. During the Tang Dynasty in the early 7th century, China established its first medical school that learned about the benefits of cannabis, among other things.
The use of cannabis seeds for medicine has been recorded for at least 1800 years, and prints of the hemp plant have been found on Chinese pots from 4000 BC.
JAPAN
Tiama was the name for hemp in Japan from 10 000 to 300 v.Ch. It was the main fiber plant to provide raw materials for oil, paper, textiles, ropes, sails and medicine. The Japanese Shinto religion, which worships nature gods, the most important being the sun goddess Amaterasu, used hemp as an indispensable part of ritual cleansing. At these ceremonies, hemp leaves were smoked, and at Shinto weddings, hemp seed was also part of the rituals.
The main ritual of the ordination of the Japanese Imperial family still bears the name Taima. Tiama was the name for industrial hemp with a very low THC content. However, there were places in the north of the Japanese mountains where Miasa (beautiful hemp) grew; this was cannabis that contained more THC. The strain was so good that it belonged under the term ‘Mayaku’ (Japanese for hemp drug). The famous mountain hemp was known as ‘the herb of the gods’.
Marijuana was also used in Japan primarily during the Meiji era, which stretched from 1868 to 1912. A literature review published in October 2020 found that cannabis was prescribed in Japan for the treatment of various medical conditions, including pain, indigestion, asthma, tuberculosis, and gonorrhoea. The review states that in the Japanese Pharmacopoeia (the 3rd edition of which was published during the Meiji era), cannabis Indica is described as an anaesthetic. The book also provides instructions for the production of cannabis tinctures.
The report states that Japan had embraced the latest European pharmacology without resistance, including with regard to medicinal cannabis. Until 1849, hemp was widely grown in Japan. It was valued for its practical uses and it was part of the religious and spiritual rituals. With the introduction of the Cannabis Control Law by the US authorities, its use, sale and cultivation was banned.
INDIA
In India, marijuana was mostly used during religious ceremonies, and it has been used for thousands of years to worship the god Shiva either by smoking cannabis or by drinking “bhang”, a drink made by mixing hemp, milk and various herbs.
As long as it consists only of the leaves, Bhang is not part of the 1985 Law on Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances. Bhang was also used to treat a number of diseases, ranging from gonorrhoea to diarrhoea.
In ancient religious writings, the cannabis drink is described as a divine drink, good for everything that man needs. The god Shiva (the creator and destroyer of mankind) loved cannabis. Now there are still ‘sadhus’ who honour their god by smoking chillum. Chillum is a type of pipe in which cannabis is smoked. Cannabis also has a legendary place in Ayurvedic medicine, the alternative system of medicine developed in India more than 3,000 years ago. In the Athar Veda, one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism, cannabis is mentioned as one of the five most sacred plants on earth, a source of happiness and a liberator.
GREEK/ROMAN
Evidence shows that the ancient Greeks used cannabis to treat inflammation, earache and oedema. In fact, the word cannabis can be traced back to the ancient Greek word cannabis.
The ancient Greeks and Romans used hemp fibers for boat sails, ropes, wickerwork, clothing and shoes; it is widely believed that hemp was an everyday item. The Greeks also used cannabis to aid digestion. The female hemp plant is also said to be good against menstrual pains.
It was also customary to offer guests hemp cookies after meals to increase the overall cheerfulness. In The Medical Use of Cannabis Among the Greeks and Romans, James L. Butrica writes about the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides who wrote the five-volume medical text Materia Medica. According to Butrica, the book probably contains the oldest surviving record of the medicinal use of cannabis from that time.
The book, published around 65 AD, describes a compress made from the boiled root of wild cannabis that is supposedly effective against inflammation and limestone, as well as more than 100 other mentions of the plant and its use, including for treating ear pain.
ENGLAND / UNITED STATES
The Romans brought the drug to England. The English used the hemp plant for making textiles. They didn’t use it as a drug. In England’s American colonies, cultivation was actively stimulated, among other things, to produce rope and ship equipment.
At George Washington, the United States’ first president, hemp grew in the garden. He was aware of its medical properties, and Queen Victoria’s physician also saw it as a cure for coughs, headaches, asthma and menstrual pains. At that time, cannabis was also available in the US. For example, it was processed into a candy. There are also advertisements promoting ‘Indian Cigarettes of Cannabis’ as a remedy for asthma and insomnia.
ISRAEL
In the Torah, in the book of Exodus, there is a passage referring to “kaneh bosem” or “fragrant reed” that Moses is to use by God as an anointing oil in rituals. Kaneh bosem is described as an anointing oil for the tabernacle of the Hebrews. But we don’t have to look at the Bible alone to find evidence that the ancient Israelites used cannabis. In May 2020, researchers announced that they had found cannabis remains on an altar near a religious shrine in Tel Arad in southern Israel.
The site was used for prayer services during the kingdom of Judah around 700 BC, and as the researchers said, dark material found on the altar contained THC, CBD and CBN with an assortment of terpenes. They also suggested that the cannabis resin had been mixed with animal manure to heat it.
The researchers stated that the discovery was the earliest evidence for cannabis use in the Ancient Near East and was likely used as an intentional psychoactive substance to stimulate ecstasy as part of cultic ceremonies.
(NOT SO OLD YET) NETHERLANDS
Marijuana and the Netherlands go hand in hand, but smoked-out coffee shops on the canals of Amsterdam only tell half the story. While there is evidence that cannabis has been used in the Netherlands for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, one thing is sure: hemp was widely cultivated in the Low Countries during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century. It was crucial to making textiles and rope for one of the world’s great naval powers.
Visitors to the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum in Amsterdam can marvel at the paintings of 17th-century Dutch artists depicting sailors, soldiers and artists who get high in the old-fashioned coffee shops.
According to Sex Drugs and Rock n Roll in the Golden Age, the young people of that time were the first generation in recent history to embrace smoking and make it a mainstream habit and national pastime.
Prohibition - The war on drugs
HOW IT STARTED
Du Pont was an emerging industry at the beginning of the last century that wanted to protect its patent to produce plastic and nylon from petroleum (plastic and nylon could also be made from hemp seed oil). Du Pont’s main financier was Andrew Mellon, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932, owner of Mellon Bank and then the richest man in the U.S.
Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) was an American newspaper magnate (owner of more than 52 newspapers) who associated paper mills and forests to supply wood pulp. Hearst had signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Du Pont to supply a new chemical process allowing paper to be obtained from wood pulp more cheaply than before. This empire was threatened by Georg Slichten, an Austrian, with a patent registered for the much cheaper machine of making paper from hemp fiber.
Hearst felt threatened by the possible production of cheap hemp-based newsprint using the Georg Slichten patent. Hearst was used to releasing his news at the time and starting a war if it suited him. For example, he seduced America with inflammatory articles and sensational pictures about women being stripped by black Spaniards in 1897. This led to a war with Spain in 1898 over its colony Cuba.
War is always good for a newspaper’s circulation figures, and Hearst didn’t hesitate to start one if he could make money from it. He decided to direct a skilful campaign against industrial hemp. He did this very cleverly by emphasising the use of hemp as a stimulant. Every day, one of his more than 50 different newspapers published a juicy story about a new, dangerous drug with a complex and scary name, Marijuana, which was made from industrial hemp.
According to Hearst, this new killer drug was used by Mexicans, blacks and Hispanics and incited them to commit all kinds of crimes, such as raping white women. These stories were accompanied by drawn pictures with archetypal fear images that were used by drug fighters until modern times.
Sayings that remain of this are:
- ‘Marijuana leads to the use of harder drugs
- ‘Marijuana is a threat to our youth’
- ‘Marijuana today is no longer nearly as harmless as thought’
- ‘Marijuana is a source of crime’
Hearst fear image that is still propagated and believed, you start with Marijuana and end with Heroin.
Hearst fear image a threat to youth, which is now also used as an argument to scare people.
MARIJUANA TAX ACT 1937
Hearst’s years-long anti-marijuana campaign led to the introducing of a bill in the U.S. Congress that made growing hemp through heavy taxation unprofitable. Andrew Mellon founded the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics) in Washington DC and crowned his “nephew” (his niece’s husband) Harry Jacob Anslinger as director on August 11, 1930. Anslinger was the godfather of the American war on drugs, and his influence on state policy continued to be felt long after he died in 1975.
Anslinger began paying more and more attention to cannabis in 1934 when the FBN was floundering. Tax revenues fell dramatically during the economic crisis, and the agency’s budget was sharply cut; Harry’s entire department was in danger of ending up on the chopping block. Anslinger understood that the likelihood of prohibitive legislation increased if the substance in question was associated with ethnic minorities. He eschewed references to the beneficial-sounding cannabis and hemp and called for a federal ban on marijuana.
Very few Americans knew that cannabis, the weed that some African Americans and Americans of Mexican origin smoked, was a lighter form of the concentrated cannabis medicines everyone had used since childhood.
By stigmatising marijuana and the “foreigners” who smoked the herb, Haerst sharpened anti-Mexican sentiment. During the crisis of the 30s, many “white” Americans believed they had to compete with brown-skinned migrants for scarce jobs.
To gain public support for their campaign, Anslinger and Hearst proposed marijuana as the sinister substance that made Mexican and African-American men lust for white women. When it came to ridiculous anti-marijuana propaganda, nothing could top “Hot Fingers
Pirielli,” the bulging-eyed piano player pounding jazz tunes on his piano, in 1936’s “Tell Your Children,” a film that later became known as “Reefer Madness.”
Although the film was not a blockbuster, “Reefer Madness” was destined to become a cult classic among American students. This film is a vivid example of the national madness that paved the way to federal prohibition and sums up the synchrony between Washinton, Hollywood and the mainstream media in the war on cannabis.
The Prohibition (MARIJUANA TAX ACT) was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1937 after a brief deliberation of less than 50 minutes. Usually, Congress first hears experts before deciding on the new legislation. These hearings can take hours, days, months or even years until sufficient information has become available.
In the case of the Marijuana Tax Act, that was not considered necessary. Harry Anslinger was examined as an expert witness and stated that Marijuana encourages criminal behaviour and ultimately leads to the user’s death. In 1937, everyone agreed that this dangerous drug should be banned immediately. After all, you could read in the newspaper daily what misery this killer drug caused.
Under Anslinger’s leadership, the Bureau of Narcotics grew into the current DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, intended to eliminate industrial hemp for producing energy, paper and plastics, steered humanity towards a polluting economy based on petroleum and eventually culminated in the WAR ON DRUGS.
There is a clear link between cannabis prohibition and racism in the US, England, and other European countries. In 1937, African Americans and Mexicans published false statistics about crime and its relationship to marijuana. Over the generations, weed continues to be associated with it and thus stigmatised.
During the Second World War, the ban was temporarily lifted for fibre production because sisal from Asia was unavailable. Hemp was a strategically important crop for the military. She made sails, ropes for ships, clothes, tarps, tents, hammocks and duffel bags.
THE REPRESSION INDUSTRY
The WAR ON DRUGS is self-perpetuating. Police make cultivation for their use impossible and ensure a high street value that makes illegal, large-scale production attractive. In America, the inventor of the WAR ON DRUGS, a complex sociocultural structure has emerged that lives in prohibition and maintains it.
Police officers, drug fighters, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, prison guards, private security companies, and social workers all make money from the ban and are, therefore, also in favour of repression.
The DEA, the successor to Anslinger’s Bureau of Narcotics, grew into a monstrous, secretive organisation with a budget of more than $3 trillion annually. Companies dealing with prisoners’ incarceration, such as the Prison Industrial Complex, are listed on the American stock exchange and are among the most stable stocks. Millions of Americans are now incarcerated, and the country is the world leader with the most prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. The media and politics are also doing their bit. Fear of drugs sells newspapers and generates ratings and votes.
EVERYONE USES DRUGS
According to the definition of the WHO (WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION), drugs are “all those substances that, once ingested in a living organism, change the functioning of that organism.” So drugs are illegal drugs like cannabis, cocaine, heroin, XTC,… but also legal drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and all other medicines.
According to the WHO definition, we all use drugs but don’t realise it. Everyone has taken aspirin, Aspirin is responsible for 13,000 deaths worldwide yearly. In the Netherlands, 50 people die from aspirin every year. Every year, 25,000 people end up in hospital with an overdose of legal medicinal drugs, of which about 1,500 die. At the same time, no one has died from cannabis use in 10,000 years.
Legal drugs prescribed by doctors are the most abused in our modern world. 25% of all U.S. children use prescription medications such as morphine-like painkillers. In the U.S., legal medical painkillers are responsible for 40 deaths a day.
BANNING IS THE WORST OPTION
The best textbook example of prohibition is the American alcohol prohibition, the alcohol prohibition that was valid from 1920 to 1933. The alcohol ban increased the price, which stimulated criminal production, smuggling, sale and use of spirits such as whisky and gin, which increased the number of alcoholics. At the beginning of prohibition, most people drank beer. In the end, “hard liquor” or liquor.
Prohibitionists believed any undesirable behaviour could be eliminated by simply banning it and punishing it harshly. After the failure of alcohol prohibition, they turned their attention to other drugs.
