Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present – Chapter 1: Human and Cannabis Coevolution
Special thanks to the Cannabis Museum for sponsoring the creation of this series.
The introduction to this series (Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present) can be found here.
Note: This first chapter in this massive history of reefer madness is also an updated version of an article that I wrote and published here at Cannabis Culture back in 2009. This updated version of the article has an updated citations section, better images, and a brand new large historical photo exhibit above the citations. The remainder of this series of articles (chapter 2 onwards) is about the unfair stigmatization of cannabis. In order to emphasize just how unfair that stigma is, Chapter 1 stands as a broad, culturally universal and historically ubiquitous counterpoint to that stigma.
The evidence is overwhelming: Cannabis is the number one plant partner of humanity. By a long shot.
“Whatever THC’s original purpose may have been, as soon as a certain primate with a gift for experiment and horticulture stumbled on its psychoactive properties, the plant’s evolution embarked on a new trajectory, guided from then on by that primate and his desires.”
– Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire (1)
Image #1 by Doobie Duck
Does the human-cannabis connection predate humanity?
Coevolution
“Coevolution” is a concept described by Darwin (2) but first fleshed-out and defined in 1964 by insect scientist (entomologist) Paul Ehrlich and botanist Peter Raven, in their paper “Butterflies and plants: a study in coevolution.” (3) Put simply, coevolution is where two different living species help each other adapt and evolve by influencing each other.
Can one argue that this is occurring between cannabis and humans? Certainly, the partnership has been good for cannabis. Once confined to central Asia, cannabis has been distributed by humans to all four corners of the globe. Different cannabis species have developed due to human selection for industrial, nutritional or medicinal traits. Cannabis has become a stronger, more diverse, more adaptive and more widely-cultivated plant as a result of its relationship with us. (4)
Image #2 from p.93 of ‘Plants of the Gods’ by Schultes and Hoffman, 1992. The striped area is the location that cannabis is thought to originate from.
Image #3 from Duvall C.S., 2019. The African Roots of Marijuana. Durham, NC, Duke University Press. https://chooser.crossref.org/?doi=10.1215%2F9781478004530
Can the same thing be said for humans? What has the plant done for us?
Hemp seeds do happen to be the best food in the world for humans. (5) Nice of cannabis to evolve into a plant which produces seeds that contain all the essential fatty acids required for complete human health in the exact ratios required by humans.
Image #4 from https://bulkhempwarehouse.com/5-awesome-hemp-infographics/
Also worth mentioning: cannabis may have been our first rope and fabric (6), our first “true” paper (7), and one of our first medicines. (8) The list of physical and mental medicinal actions that cannabis is involved in is a long one, and would take many pages to properly outline its entire scope. Suffice to say cannabis medicines may replace up to half of all medicines when fully researched. (9)
Then there’s that cannabis high. To a certain extent, it is the insights gathered during these moments of highness that have most deeply affected human culture. As psychonaut/poet Allen Ginsberg put it;
“. . . the vast majority all over the world . . . adjust to the strangely familiar sensation of time slowdown, and explore this new space through natural curiosity, report that it’s a useful area of mind-consciousness to be familiar with.” (10)
Image #5: Gene Krupa, Life Magazine, 1943. Image from timeote.info
Without attempting to list everything, what are some of the results of the insights found during the “time-slow cannabis high” (11) on human mental and cultural evolution?
Image #6 from https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/vipers-muggles-and-the-evolution-of-jazz/
On the less controversial side of things: pot-smoking piano players in the whorehouses of Storyville in New Orleans brought the world jazz music. (12) Most, if not all of, the decent rock and reggae music after 1965 was composed while the artists were high – ditto most of the best rap music. (13)
Image #7 from https://greencamp.com/weed-and-music/
The writers of the best comedy of the last sixty years? Potheads. (14) The designers of the personal computer and much of the software in this world? Potheads. (15) The best writers and poets? Potheads. (16) And I think it’s safe to say a very large percentage of professional athletes – especially those within the NFL, NBA and pro snowboarding – had their performances enhanced when high – or by what they had learned while high. (17)
Image #8: Michael Phelps in 2009, from https://www.lapresse.ca/sports/autres-sports/sports-aquatiques/200902/01/01-823044-phelps-confirme-avoir-fume-du-cannabis.php
Image #9: Michael Phelps in 2016, from https://blog.myswimpro.com/2020/09/11/how-michael-phelps-became-the-greatest-swimmer-of-all-time/
But let’s also speak more controversially: there is some difficult-to-dismiss evidence Shakespeare (18) and Jesus (19) were also really, really high. The evidence for Jesus was that the holy “Christ/Messiah” anointing oil that was used during his baptism and for the healing miracles and duties of him and his apostles was in fact “kanneh-bosm” oil.
Image #10 from https://stablediffusionweb.com/image/1650401-jesus-with-cannabis-halo-and-bud
The evidence for Shakespeare was that pipes found on his property – dated to his era – were full of cannabis resins, and he hinted at knowing something about “compounds strange” while at the same time preferring the “invention” found in “a noted weed” in his Sonnet 76.
Image #11 from https://napashakes.org/2015/08/the-bard-abides/
In fact, it’s fair to say that cannabis has had a profound effect on the minds of those behind many religions (20) and much of modern theatre – which now also involves Hollywood. (21)
Image #12 from https://www.amazon.com/Hollyweed-Hollywood-Funny-Poster-12×18/dp/B01N307Y3V?th=1
Say what you want about the benefits and drawbacks of religion and Hollywood, but you have to admit that the insight-filled “time-slow cannabis high” has been part of the process of human cultural evolution. Religion has brought us – or disseminated – the Golden Rule. Hollywood brought us “They Live,” “Brazil,” and “Blade Runner.” Ultimately, humans have benefited from both relationships . . . at the very least there is some baby to save after the bathwater has been thrown out.
Problem Solving
Image #13: Aron H. Lichtman, from https://pharmtox.vcu.edu/about/our-team/aron-h-lichtman-phd.html
At the risk of endorsing animal experiments, which I almost always find completely useless in being able to tell anything relevant about human behavior (not to mention cruel), there has been a notable discovery from animal experiments regarding the cannabinoid receptors which may shed some light on the “insight” side of the high. In an article titled “Evaluation of CB1 receptor knockout mice in the Morris water maze” by Varvel and Lichtman (22), scientists took mice that had their cannabinoid receptors genetically “knocked out” – “knockout mice” – and put them in a tank of water with a small platform, comparing their performance in finding this platform with mice which still had their cannabinoid receptors.
Image #14: Morris Water Maze Handbook: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/morris-water-maze-illustrated-handbook-researchers-fwarc/
As it turns out, the regular mice could learn to search out the platform when it was moved but the knockout mice could only learn where the platform was once. The knockouts could not relearn their new position when the platform was moved. This means that cannabinoid receptors have something vital to do with memory and problem solving. Dr. Robert Melamede has reflected on the water maze experiments and suggests there are FLPs and BLPs – Forward Looking People and Backward Looking People – the BLP’s missing out on some cannabinoid-related brain activity. Perhaps the BLP brains don’t produce enough cannabinoids on their own. According to Dr. Melamede, the extremely backward-thinking people such as ex-president Bush are the human equivalent of knockout mice. (23)
Perhaps if there was more pot smoking and less drinking – or less eating fried food and sugar – going on in the White House, there would be less war and less monopoly capitalism and more sustainable growth and wealth-sharing. We’ll never know until we run the experiment.
Hopefully, this “knockout mice drown – CB1 receptors are important” info will empower scientists to stop drowning rodents and turn their attention to the study of well-cannabinized human subjects in their natural setting – like an Easy Star All-Stars concert or something. Maybe the researchers just need to smoke a bit more pot in order to become “forward-looking” enough to see how inhuman, insufficient and wasteful animal testing ultimately is. Then again, marijuana smoking doesn’t automatically turn you into a good person.
Clearly, the huge bibliography of anecdotal evidence outlined above of humans using cannabis in natural settings points towards much insight and creativity gained from cannabis use. Combined with all the evidence of the medical, nutritional and industrial uses, it can be said that humans have benefited much from cannabis – more than any other plant – and cannabis has benefited much from us – more than any other animal. This is a “win-win” form of coevolution known as “mutualistic symbiosis.”
Other questions then arise: how far back does this relationship go? And where is it headed?
Image #15: Rug depiction of Nizami Ganjavi (1939), Ganja Museum, Republic of Azerbaijan
“Our fathers planted gardens long ago… Whose fruits we reap with joy today; Their labor constitutes a debt we owe… Which to our heirs we must repay; For all crops sown in any land… Are destined for a future man.”
- Arab Poet – Nizami, “Gardens Long Ago”
Image #16: The world’s first flower fossil – circa 125 million years ago. From https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/prehistoric-fossil-may-be-mythical-first-flower-n411461
Image #17: Angiospermae (flowering plants) are at the top of this timeline – with the fossil record going back to about 125 million years ago. Mammalia are near the bottom, with the earliest mammal fossil appearing about 225 million years ago, and the earliest primate fossil appearing around 66 million years ago. The earliest ape able to walk upright lived about 12 million years ago. The earliest Homo sapiens fossil dates from about 300,000 years ago. Image from: https://phys.org/news/2021-11-impact-evolution-life-earth.html
Image #18: This fossil – from the Herb Museum collection – is of an unknown leaf from 40-50 million years ago. Cannabis originated approximately 34 million years ago.
Image #19: Cannabis fossils, unknown date. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328185308_Cannabis_Systematics_at_the_Levels_of_Family_Genus_and_Species
Ancient Gardens
There are few cannabis fossils on record. (24) Cannabis probably arrived on planet earth about 34 million years ago, an estimate based upon the seven shared parasites with Cannabis’s “sister group” the Urticaceae (nettle) family and the lack of any shared parasites with cannabis’s “cousin” the Moraceae (mulberry/fig) family. (25)
Image #19: Nettle. Illustration by Otto Wilhelm Thomé (1885), from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtica_dioica
The first cannabis farmers? Nobody knows that for sure. Cannabis historian Chris Bennett has pointed out that is that there is evidence of cannabis being used as rope dating back to 26,900 BC in Czechoslovakia. (26) Bennett also pointed out that the use of cannabis as a psychoactive substance dates back “at least 5,000 years.” (27)
Image #20 from https://www.amazon.ca/Dragons-Eden-Speculations-Evolution-Intelligence/dp/0340230223
In a footnote to his 1977 book The Dragons of Eden – Speculations on the Origin of Human Intelligence, Carl Sagan pointed out that cannabis is the only crop of the Pygmies, and posited that “It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization.” (28)
We also know that as early as 1.75 million years ago Homo erectus migrated into Asia, where cannabis is thought to originate. (29) Sometime between 1.8 million and 1 million years ago early humans learned to control fire. (30) Did they sit around fires, using dried hemp plants for their fire fuel and get a whiff of that cannabis smoke while they “chewed the fat” from a recent hunt? Is this how we invented language?
Image #21: Cattle Eating Hemp. Image from https://www.feedipedia.org/content/cattle-eating-hemp
It’s even possible that earlier primates or mammals or birds or other animals went after the cannabis seeds and then began distributing a few of the unchewed seeds in nice neat little piles of fertilizer a day’s worth of travel away. I am told that human feces makes poor fertilizer . . . maybe proto-human droppings were better?
In his book Intoxication, Author Ronald K. Siegel records cannabis self-administration by different animals. Mice, rats and birds would get intoxicated in the process of obtaining hemp seeds. Monkeys have been observed snacking on the top leaves of plants in South American pot farms. (31)
Image #22: “Meet Sugar Bob – Oregon’s Pot Eating Deer,” from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y17XvOg5N2A
Endocannabinoids, the things that your body produces that control many physiological and cognitive processes (not least of which are the ones that get you high) are a lot older than humans. They are found in primates, mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, sea urchins, molluscs, leeches and the Hydra vulgaris – a primitive water creature that never ages. Scientists estimate the first endocannabinoids are over 600 million years old. (32)
There is a theory – the “vestigial receptor hypothesis”, that states that the proto cannabinoid receptor evolved in primitive organisms before the division of animals and plants – about a billion years ago. (33)
It’s an obvious over-simplification, but it’s quite possible that a nettle-like plant had a mutation which reactivated its cannabinoid genes and began to ooze THC, which intoxicated and confused animal threats, allowing the mutant plant to survive pests. The intoxication may have eventually attracted other animals – intoxication-attracted animals – which the mutant plant hitched a ride with, making the proto-cannabis plant more able to spread it’s seed around.
Over millions of years plants have mutated and evolved to have shapes and petals and smells and fruits and nectar, all of which have acted as enticements and rewards for their animal partners. There is even an ant-fungi relationship where the ants take care of the fungus and the fungus helps break down the ant’s food. (34) The cannabis-human relationship is just like the bee-flower relationship or the ant-fungus relationship – a pair of fauna and flora helping each other out – except in our case it’s a bit more complex.
Image #23 from the Daily Beast, March 18th, 2021: https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-white-house-sandbags-staffers-sidelines-dozens-for-pot-use/
Image #24 from marijuanamoment.net March 28, 2025 https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-white-house-says-marijuana-decriminalization-opened-the-door-to-disorder-in-washington-d-c/
The future of human-cannabis coevolution
“Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation. The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal.”
– “Biden White House Sandbags Staffers, Sidelines Dozens for Pot Use,” Scott Bixby, Asawin Suebsaeng, Adam Rawnsley, The Daily Beast, March 18, 2021 (35)
“In a fact sheet about an executive order that Trump signed on Friday—which is broadly aimed at beautifying the District and making it more safe—the White House listed several local policies in the nation’s capital that it takes issue with, including cannabis reform. That’s despite the president’s previously stated support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana laws. ‘D.C.’s failed policies opened the door to disorder—and criminals noticed,’ it says, citing ‘marijuana decriminalization,’ as well as the District’s decision to end pre-trial detentions and enforcement practices around rioters, as examples of such policies. … With respect to the fact sheet circulated by the White House, cannabis possession and personal cultivation is legalized in D.C. under a voter-approved ballot initiative, though commercial sales of non-medical marijuana remain illegal (a policy referred to by some as ‘decriminalization’). Because of a long-standing congressional rider that’s been annually renewed since that vote, the District hasn’t been able to use local funds to implement a system of regulated recreational cannabis sales, so officials have taken steps to expand the city’s existing medical marijuana program as a workaround. During Trump’s first term, he maintained that D.C. rider to keep blocking cannabis sales in his budget requests, as did his successor, former President Joe Biden. But as advocates and industry stakeholders have waited to see how the Trump administration will navigate cannabis policy issues during this second term—and whether the president will push for reforms such as rescheduling and banking access as he endorsed on the campaign trail—the fact that his White House’s first public mention of marijuana links decriminalization to disorder is hardly encouraging.”
- “Trump White House Says Marijuana Decriminalization ‘Opened The Door To Disorder’ In Washington, D.C.” Published on March 28, 2025 (36)
While a few of the more insane and powerful amongst us want cannabis eliminated from planet earth, most humans respect, enjoy and revere this plant and appreciate what it has to offer. With any luck (and a little more more education and civil disobedience from activists), cannabis is here to stay.
What is ahead for the evolution of cannabis? Our influence on the plant is increasing more and more each day as new breeders seek out different traits. Expect more breakthroughs in breeding for traits we value – such as specific tastes, smells, colors and of course physical and mental effects. Breeding for different effects holds great potential for increasing cannabis’s value to us. I expect someday soon we will all be able to walk into any cannabis compassion club or cafe and select from strains named “Munchies,” “Giggles,” “Pain-B-Gone,” “Sleep,” “Wake Up,” “5 Minute Orgasm” and the ever-popular “Fantasia-On-The-Big-Screen.”
And what is ahead for human evolution? The medicinal and nutritional advantages to the human race provided by cannabis are massive. If it was reintroduced into our diets and medicine cabinets to its full potential, it could very well help humans evolve into a stronger and more physically and mentally healthy race of beings.
If we humans can overcome the monopolists who control our government and we humans succeed in defeating the monopoly of cannabis production and distribution outside of our community AND within our community, there might be millions of jobs of cannabis farming, cannabis gardening, cannabis breeding, cannabis trimming, and cannabis retailing that will open up to people of modest means. Other profitable botanical medicines may also be re-examined for their utility, and increase number of people working within the emerging herbal health-care and soft-drug tourism economies. Cannabis could very well help humans evolve beyond poverty.
Image #25 from https://www.pressreader.com/newspapers/n/ayrshire-post/20141003
Image #26 from https://thehia.org/News/whats-the-hold-up-on-hemp-biofuel/
The economic potential of cannabis could be further expanded by realizing cannabis is the best fuel crop in the world for ethanol production. Some estimate that legal hemp ethanol would cost 15 cents per liter or 50 cents per gallon at the pump! (37) Cannabis even grows in sand! (38) The fact it can grow almost anywhere will increase the areas we can grow fuel in and help us reclaim desert regions for food and fuel production. If cannabis was no longer over-regulated, it could easily compete with and replace the oil-spill causing, oil-war causing, climate-change causing fossil fuels – not to mention making up a large percentage of the sustainable lubrication oils, varnishes, vegi-plastics, pressed fiber board and concrete (hempcrete) building materials of the future. This would go a long way in helping humans … not just to evolve, but to survive.
Finally, an end to the drug war and an honest evaluation of it’s racist and monopolistic origins may help humans evolve past the point of using scapegoating as a method of social control. Evolving from “Homo sapiens Beat-eachother-uppus” to “Homo sapiens Learn-to-share-the-stuffus” is quite possibly the greatest evolutionary step we could ever make. It’s certainly now or never.
“Moreover the riches of the earth are for all . . .”
– Ecclesiastes 5:9, Aramaic (Lamsa) Bible (39)
Image #27 from https://syriacpress.com/blog/2022/03/11/tree-of-life/
Lacking the massive amount of data needed to be able to call cannabis our “co-evolutionary partner in mutualistic symbiosis,” ancient humans simply referred to it as “the tree of life” and left it at that. We must take the momentum we have from transforming prohibition into semi-legalization and used it to transform semi-legalization into full legalization – where the harmless are no longer harmed, and every human has access to every herb and the entire herbal medicine economy.
We must not let the war against cannabis (or the efforts to monopolize cannabis) threaten to bring our own evolution to a painful halt. And we must not let the drug war act upon us as a form of “unnatural selection,” choosing only the most obedient, dull and misinformed to provide us with the future generation, leaving the forward-looking people to rot in jail, suffer the indignity of “treatment” for their intelligent preferences, and/or languish in artificial, tyrant-imposed poverty.
Citations for this article can be found below the following photo exhibit.
Collected by David Malmo-Levine.
A special thanks to Chris Bennett, for introducing me to most of these images and getting me hooked on ancient cannabis history.
“Hemp, ca. 5500 BCE, Kyushu Island, Japan.” Taken from: Hemp For Victory, Kenyon Gibson, Nick Mackintosh, Cindy Mackintosh, Whitaker Publishing, London, 2006, p. IV
History of Cannabis and Its Preparations in Saga, Science, and Sobriquet, Ethan Russo, August 1st, 2007, Chemistry & Biodiversity. Https://www.scinapse.io/papers/2146134654
“Yangshao hemp-cordmarked Amphora, Banpo Phase, 4800 BCE, Shaanxi. Photographed at the Musee Guimet.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YangshaoCordmarkedAmphoraBanpoPhase4800BCEShaanxi.jpg https://hempshopper.com/hemp-history/4000-bce-the-earliest-well-documented-evidence-of-cannabis-use/
Ea/Ae/Ia/Enki/Oannes/Dagon. Taken from: “Sayce on the God Ea, or Oannes,” Estéban Trujillo de Gutiérrez https://therealsamizdat.com/2015/04/09/sayce-on-the-god-ea-or-oannes/
EaEn-kiOannes, is depicted as a fish-man, having his roots in the living-water, but more importantly, he has connections with a sacred tree similar to that which is described in the Garden of Eden. In the ancient Sumerian texts, EaEnkiOannes is described as being wise like the biblical serpent and as he “who knows the plant of life and the water of life.” (Ringgren 1973). Professor Mackenzie, also noted this in 1915, commenting that “In a fragmentary Babylonian charm there is a reference to a sacred tree or bush at Eridu [Eridu is thought to be the cradle of Sumerian civilization]. Professor Sayce has suggested that it is the Biblical ‘Tree of Life’ in the Garden of Eden . . . It may be that Ea’s sacred bush or tree is a survival of tree and water worship.” (Mackenzie 1915)
“Cannabis the Once and Future Tree of Life,” Chris Bennett, May 19, 2018
“Ea is…the god of wisdom, ‘the king of wisdom, who creates understanding’, ‘the experienced one (apkallu) among the gods’, ‘he who knows everything that has a name’. It is he who gives the king wisdom. He is also the god of the art of incantation. In his temple ‘the house of Apsu’ in Eridu there was a notable tree, kiskanu, whose branches were used in ritual sprinklings . . . The incantation priest was the representative of Ea.” (Ringgren 1973)
“Cannabis the Once and Future Tree of Life,” Chris Bennett, May 19, 2018
Theophilus Pinches suggested in 1908 that Eridu was the Sumerian paradise calling it “not the earthly city of that name, but a city conceived as lying also “within the Abyss”, containing a tree of life fed by the Euphrates river. Pinches noted “it was represented as a place to which access was forbidden, for ‘no man entered its midst’, as in the case of the garden of Eden after the fall.” In a myth called the Incantation of Eridu, it is described as having a “glorious fountain of the abyss”, a “house of wisdom”, sacred grove and a kiskanu-tree with the appearance of lapis-lazuli. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_the_gods_(Sumerian_paradise)
Enki is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), crafts (gašam), and creation (nudimmud), and one of the Anunnaki. He was later known as Ea or Ae in Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) religion, and is identified by some scholars with Ia in Canaanite religion. The name was rendered Aos in Greek sources (e.g. Damascius). . . . The main temple to Enki was called E-abzu, meaning “abzu temple” (also E-en-gur-a, meaning “house of the subterranean waters”), a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu. It was the first temple known to have been built in Southern Iraq. Four separate excavations at the site of Eridu have demonstrated the existence of a shrine dating back to the earliest Ubaid period, more than 6,500 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enki
Studentsofhistory.com/civilization-in-mesopotamia
Circa 2600 BCE: The Golden Headdress of Queen Shub-ad of Ur (detail) from the royal graves of Ur, from the finds of Leonard Wolley, The March Of Archaeology, C. W. Ceram, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1958, p. 191
“Gold wreaths from Queen Shub-ad’s head-dress”, UR: THE FIRST PHASES, Sir Leonard Woolley, King Pinguin Books, London, 1946, p. 10
Detail, Queen Shub-ad’s head-dress, photo origin unknown.
“One of the great treasures of early dynastic Ur is a headdress of leaves of beaten gold and three large flowers with eight petals and a center of carnelian. The leaves are obovate with acuminate tips and may not relate to the flowers. The diameter of the flowers being approximately 12 to 15 centimeters (5 to 6 inches) suggests that they may represent the water lily or perhaps the opium poppy with the carnelian being interpreted as the capsule contained within the corolla. With this headdress, found by the Woolley Expedition, was a necklace of leaves that are obovate with acuminate tips and another rank of leaves in beaten gold that strongly suggest Cannabis. Others, (Lloyd 1961, p. 302) have suggested willow (Salix), but the venation is more like that of Cannabis, as is the leaf morphology.”
“Art and Artifact as Ethnobotanical Tools in the Ancient Near East”, W.A. Emboden Jr., from Ethnobotany – Evolution of a Discipline, Shultes & Reis, 1995, Discordes Press
L.A. Waddell, The Phoenician Origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons, William Norgate LTD., London, 1924 – 1st. edition, p. 245
Bahrani History, April 5, 2021, Facebook
“The grave was already found 5 years ago, but it took years before it was scientifically determined from which plants the large amounts of pollen in the pit were. In addition to cannabis, this turned out to be meadowsweet, a plant with a fever-reducing effect. The archaeologists therefore think that the person buried at the time may have been ill. The tomb has features of the Bell Beaker culture and dates from the period 2459 – 2203 BC. A children’s grave dating from 2800 – 2400 BC was also found nearby.”
“As already mentioned, the excavations documentally proved that poppy, cannabis and ephedra were used for making the soma-haoma drinks, and thickets of these plants were found in excess in the vicinity of the excavated temples of Margiana. Since these alkaloid plants had an unpleasant smell they were first wetted in water. The archaeological excavations of the Margiana temples have yielded huge vats, “small baths” (and sometimes weaved baskets) that are plastered inside with gypsum layers and were used for this purpose. On the bottom of these containers there were preserved remains of alkaloid plants, cannabis, first of all. In this respect the excavations of the Gonur temenos are very significant. There, around a small temple there were scattered a lot of private houses the inhabitants of which were engaged in the everyday service of the temple. Over twenty five rooms found in these private houses have yielded either large vats or “small baths” made in the special brick platforms (Fig.4).”
“Margiana and Soma-Haoma,” by Victor I. Sarianidi, Moscow [From the article by Victor Sarianidi entitled Margiana and Soma-Haoma at Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), Vol. 9 (2003) Issue 1c (May 5) and edited by Jan EM Houben, Leiden University
“The contents of ceramic vessels in the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, Turkmenistan,” by C.C. Bakels, Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden [Excerpts from the article by Professor C.C. Bakels titled Report concerning the contents of a ceramic vessel found in the “white room” of the Gonur Temenos, Merv Oasis, Turkmenistan at Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), Vol. 9 (2003) Issue 1c (May 5) and edited by Jan E.M. Houben, Leiden University.] www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/haoma.htm
“Gonur Depe (Turkmen: Goňur depe) is an archaeological site, dated from 2400 to 1600 BCE,[1] and located about 60 km north of Mary (ancient Merv), Turkmenistan consisting of a large early Bronze Age settlement. It is the “capital” or major settlement of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonur_Depe
“Parvati Offers Bhang to Shiva,” https://drugtimeline.ca/
Shiv and Parvati Preparing Bhang, 18th century
As can be seen the Ramesseum III papyrus scroll (that which is still in existence today) actually consists of various bits and pieces. However, (as luck would have it) at least one of the sections that made mention of Medical Cannabis is still very much intact. . . . As most Egyptologists put the date of the scroll at around 1,700 BC, this would make it one of the oldest known medical references on the subject. A translation of the above reads as follows: ” A treatment for the eyes: celery; hemp; is ground and left in the dew overnight. Both eyes of the patient are to be washed with it early in the morning.” — (RAM IIIA 26) An Ancient Egyptian Herbal by L. Manniche p82 Pictures — Courtesy of the “British Museum of London”
http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap2B/Egypt/Ram.htm
Circa 1400 BCE: Seshat – goddess of writing and knowledge, Luxor Temple, Egypt. Mytologier (Illustrated Dictionary of Mythology), Philip Wilkinson, Carlsen, A Dorling Kindersley Book, London/Copenhagen, 1998, p. 33
The goddess Seshat shown on the back pillar of the colossal statue of Rameses II at the Temple of Luxor. https://thecuriousegyptologist.com/2022/05/24/seshat-she-who-is-foremost-in-the-library/
“Indication regarding hemp ropes may be found in the mythology of the Goddess Seshat, who appears to be holding a rope and a stalk in the below depiction. More interesting is the image that appears above the head of the ancient Goddess. A number of different researchers have noted the similarity between a cannabis leaf and the symbol attached to the head of the Goddess Seshat in Egyptian images. Seshat was the Egyptian Goddess of temple architecture and mistress of scribes, presiding over the ‘House of Life’, also known as the ‘House of Books.’ This temple was a sort of library and school of knowledge, and served as a store place of texts regarding tradition and rituals. Since very early Egyptian times, Seshat’s main function was to assist the king in ‘stretching the cord’ for the layout of temples and royal buildings, and in this one is reminded of the Ur depictions discussed in Chapter 10. ‘Her seven-pointed ‘flower’ or ‘star’ is an accurate image of a hemp leaf. This leaf is made up of seven-pointed leaf parts that are arranged in the same pattern as the most prominent sign in Seshat’s emblem. Hemp is, and has long been, an excellent material for making ropes with the low-stretch quality required for measuring cords, particularly when these are greased to reduce variations in their moisture content which would influence elongation. The characteristic leaf of the plant used in making these ropes was thus a logical choice for the emblem designer who wanted an easily recognized reference to Seshat’s job. This leaf is so unique that its picture allows no confusion with other items…. the hemp leaf in Seshat’s emblem is unmistakable evidence that the ancient Egyptian rope- stretchers used hemp for their measuring cords, and that Seshat cannot deny her now illegal patronage and ownership of this psycho-active plant. Add to this flagrant evidence that in Coffin Texts Spell 10, ‘Seshat opens the door of heaven for you’ (7), and the case against her is solid enough to get her busted if she still plied her trade today.’ (Aleff, 1982/2008).”
Cannabis and the Soma Solution, Chris Bennett, Trineday, Walterville, Oregon, 2010, pp. 224-230. See also: “The Mother Plant of the Goddess: Cannabis,” Chris Bennett, May 31, 2019
Seshat at Karnak. First image from “Echos of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations, E.C. Krupp, Harper & Row, New York, 1983, second image from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/b3/6a/63b36a322649ce6d4a90e12427bcae00.jpg
“… there is a questionable specimen of Hemp in an Egyptian tomb dated between three and four thousand years ago.” “In Thebes, Hemp was made into a drink said to have opium-like properties.” Plants of the Gods, Shultes & Hofmann, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1992, pp. 93, 98 Image from: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/versatile-plant-what-were-many-uses-cannabis-ancient-egypt-007733
Image from Art & Symbols of the Occult, James Wasserman, 1993, Destiny Books, Vermont
“… hemp is supposed to have been used of old for its intoxicating qualities.”
The Ancient Egyptian, Vol. II, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinsson, Bonanza Books, New York, 1836/1989, pp. 22-23
Asherah, detail from an ivory box from Mīnat al-Bayḍāʾ near Ras Shamra (Ugarit), Syria, c. 1300 BCE; in the Louvre, Paris, Giraudon/Art Resource, New York, photo origin unknown.
“‘There is a classic Greek term, cannabeizen, which means to smoke Cannabis. Cannabeizen frequently took the form of inhaling vapors from an incense burner in which these resins were mixed with other resins, such as myrrh, balsam, frankincense, and perfumes: this is the manner of the shamanistic Ashera priestesses of pre-reformation Jerusalem, who anointed their skins with the mixture as well as burned it.’ (Emboden, 1972)
Icons dedicated to her have depictions of a ‘sacred-tree’, or plant, most likely made as a visual reference to the hemp that her followers grew and revered, utilizing it as an entheogen but also as a food and oil source, along with using the fibers in ritual weavings. Sula Benet believed that it was here amongst the worshipers of the goddess that the cultic use of cannabis originated: ‘Taking into account the matriarchal element of Semitic culture, one is led to believe that Asia Minor was the original point of expansion for both the society based on the matriarchal circle and the mass use of hashish.’ (Benetowa, [Benet], 1936).
‘An ancient ivory cosmetic casket lid from the 14th century site of Minet al-Beida, depicts the goddess herself in the role of the Tree of life, offering two caprids vegetation which clearly resembles buds of cannabis, but has been erroneously described as both ears of wheat or corn. ‘This [depiction] seems to indicate finally the explanation of the Biblical references to the asherah as a natural or stylized tree in the fertility cult. This was the symbol of the mother-goddess, now known from the Ras Shamra texts as Ashera, the counterpart of Mesopotamian Ishtar, or Inanna … The tree of life … is called the ashera in the OLD TESTAMENT (In the Authorized Version, it is called ‘the grove’.)’ (Gray 1969).
‘The word that the Bible, with evident distaste, translates ‘grove’ was not really a grove at all, but an Asherah: the stylized multi-branched tree symbolizing the Great Goddess of Canaan … Asherah’s … tree symbol was alternately the ‘tree of knowledge’ or ‘tree of life.’ In northern Babylon she was known as the Goddess of the Tree of Life, or The Divine Lady of Eden.’ (Walker 1988)
Barbara Walker further connects Ashera with the ancient symbol for the tree of life, by noting that the Eagle headed figures shown in the Assyrian reliefs, are ‘in the act of fecundating sacred trees, such as the goddess Asherah as the Tree of Life’ (Walker 1988). In light of Ashera’s recognition as a symbol of the sacred tree and her cults use of cannabis (Emboden 1972), it is of interest to note that in medieval times, certain Moslem groups referred to cannabis by the name ashirah. They saw it as an endearing term for their hempen girlfriend. (Rosenthal 1971)”
Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible, Chris Bennett & Neil McQueen, Forbidden Fruit Publishing Company, Gibsons, B.C., 2001, pp. 28-29
Circa 900 B.C.E., Sacred Trees, palace of Nimrud, ancient Assyrian archeological site situated in modern-day Iraq, New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Prometheus Press, London, 1973, p. 71
Circa 883-859 B.C.E. Eagle-Headed Genie Between Two Sacred Trees, Alabaster, Nimrud, Assyria, located in the Brooklyn Museum, photo: Brooklyn Museum
“The woven basket Oannes and his priests always carry for collecting the fruit of the sacred tree (Fig 19) are likely made from fiber of the Tree itself … Later depictions show the basket being used to collect the pine-cone like buds of hemp from the image of the sacred tree by bird-masked shamans who as winged angels, indicate the power of the sacred fruit to take its partaker between worlds. Identical to the different uses attributed to the sacred qunubu, these ancient images of the tree of life associate it not only with leaves and buds similar to hemp but also connect it with the production of anointing oil, incense and fiber. Associations which would seem to tie both image and plant name together.” (Bennett & McQueen, 2001)
“… [O]n the Assyrian bas-reliefs the sacred plant is guarded by winged genii, with the heads of eagles … There is a singular analogy between these symbolic beings and the … Garudas of the Aryan in India, genii, half men and half eagles … in the Indian myths … it is the Garuda who recover the ambrosia … or sacred juice of Soma, with which the libations were made … giving it back to the celestial gods … [the Garuda] is made its keeper. His office, therefore, as well as the eagle-headed genii of the Assyrian monuments, besides the plant of life, is similar to the duty ascribed in Genesis to the kerubim which Yahveh placed at the garden of ‘Eden, after the driving forth of the first human pair, to defend the entrance,’ ‘and to keep the way of the tree of life.’” (Lenormant, et al., 1881)
Cannabis and the Soma Solution, Chris Bennett, Trineday, Walterville, Oregon, 2010, pp. 221-222
“Thus in the 9th century B.C., the Assyrians put wings on the shoulders of their protective geniuses, even though their heavy, muscle-bound bodies and squarely planted feet seem to belong irrevocably to the earth. The one opposite … is from the palace of the great King Ashur-Nasir-Pal II at Numrud in what is now Iraq.” Horizon, Volume III, Number 2, American Horizon Publishing Co., New York, Nov. 1960, pp. 32-33
“The Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II standing before the Tree of Life, which is surmounted by the symbol of the god Ashur. Relif from Nimrud in Iraq, 883-859 B.C. British Museum, London.” The Illustrated Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996, pp. 94-95
Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient & Medieval History, Marcel Dunan & John Bowle, editors, Paul Hamlyn, London, 1965, p. 87
Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient & Medieval History, Marcel Dunan & John Bowle, editors, Paul Hamlyn, London, 1965, p. 61
See also: Potshot #17, pp. 28-52 at https://pot-shot.ca/
Circa 680-669 BCE, Black Stone of Esarhaddon. Image from http://i-cias.com/e.o/esarhaddon.htm
“Basalt stela of Assyrian king Esarhaddon; lower level depicts plow with seed drill; in the upper level king Esarhaddon stands before an elaborate incense chamber with smoking staff censer pictured in cut-away in the lower portion of the chamber, the upper chamber is tent-like with an opening.”
“In a letter written around 680 BC by an unknown woman to the mother of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, mention is made of a substance called qu-nu-bu which could be cannabis.” –Ernest L. Abel, MARIHUANA, THE FIRST TWELVE THOUSAND YEARS”, citing L. Waterman, Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire, Letter 368. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1930).”
Green Gold, Bennett, Osborn & Osborn, Access Unlimited, Frazier Park, California, 1995, p. 18
“Religious scene (period of Essarhaddon); in the lower register is the picture of a plough (Brit. Mus. Eg. Dept No. 91027) … In the upper register is the so-called sacred tree, a priest before an alter, and a bull probably for sacrifice.”
Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 5, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 72
“Interestingly also on this Basalt Stela of Essarhaddon (Fig 8) we find directly behind the ancient king a recurring symbol for the Tree of Life in the form of an elaborate looking plant directly behind the ancient monarch, to which we will return again. Behind the tree we find the ‘Bull of Creation,’ while below are the early tools of ancient agriculture, perhaps indicating an intimate connection between the three symbols. Possibly in relation to the bull’s association with the holy plant depicted on the stele, Mesopotamian ritual required that the priest whisper into the ear of the sacrificial bull the words ‘Great Bull that treadest the celestial herbage’ (Hooke 1963) … A scribe of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Essarhaddon’s son) recorded in 650 BC: ‘We were dead dogs, but our lord the king gave us life by placing the herb of life beneath our noses’ (Ringgren, 1973) When one reads the full passage regarding the qunnabu reference in the Sacred Rights in relation to the stella with Esarhaddon, the incense tent, Tree of Life, and the sacred ox, their connection is even more cemented, as is the imagery of the woven basket depicted in the other images of the Tree of Life:
‘To the queen mother, my ‘lord’: your servant, Nergal-sarrani. Good health to the queen mother, my ‘lord’. May Nabu and Marduk bless the queen mother, my ‘lord,’ May Tasmetu, whom you revere, take your hands. May you see 1,000 years of kingship for Esarhaddon. As for what the queen mother, my Lord, wrote to me, Saying: ‘What is going into the ritual?’ These are its constituents: sweet-scented oil, wax, sweet-scented fragrance, myrrh, cannabis (qu-nu-bu) and sadidu-aromatic.’
Cannabis and the Soma Solution, Chris Bennett, Trineday, Walterville, Oregon, 2010, pp. 212-215
Plate No. 416
“Priests and worshipers cannot usually be differentiated. The only priests of whom I am sure are on two Assyrian seals. One, on No. 416, is ceremonially fertilizing a sacred tree . . .”
p. 98
Hans Henning von der Osten Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Edward T. Newell Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1934 The University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications; Vol. XXII
Plate No. 437:
“On No. 437 a second worshipper appears beside a sacred tree.”
p. 100
Hans Henning von der Osten Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Edward T. Newell Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1934 The University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications; Vol. XXII CD5348.N54https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=CD5348.N54
“In the 1960s, an archeological expedition from Tel Aviv University made a surprising discovery in the form of a Jewish temple inside the ancient citadel of Tel Arad. The temple consisted of a courtyard with an altar, and a room bearing two standing stones (Biblical “Massevot”) on a raised platform (“Holy of Holies”). Two incense altars were placed on the steps leading to the standing stone. The temple was abandoned at some point, but in a respectful way. The altars were placed on their side, the standing stones were not broken, and the whole compound was covered with a fill, without desecration. . . . On one altar remains of frankincense were traced. But on the other altar, the residue proved to contain traces of – cannabis. This finding is surprising, as it is the first time ever that Cannabis is found in an ancient site anywhere in the Middle East.”
“Cannabis in the service of the Lord?”
“Aharoni recognized five phases of construction of the shrine (from Stratum XI to VII), which he believed spanned ca. 350 years, from the 10th to the 7th centuries BCE (Aharoni1968: 19−21). However, Herzog showed that the shrine was used only during two strata; he argued that it was first erected in Stratum X and went out of use in Stratum IX (Herzog 2002: Figs. 12, 15). Herzog and Singer-Avitz dated these two strata to the 8th century BCE, from ca. 760/750 to ca. 715 BCE (Herzog 2002: 98; 2010: 175; Singer-Avitz 2002: 162−180), restricting the time of the shrine to less than half a century.”
“World’s oldest marijuana stash totally busted – Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world’s oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.”
Dec. 3, 2008, 10:19 AM PST / Source: Discovery Channel By Jennifer Viegas
“Earliest evidence for cannabis smoking discovered in ancient tombs – Traces of potent pot were identified in 2,500-year-old wooden artifacts buried with people who lived along the Silk Road in China.” MICHELLE Z. DONAHUE, JUNE 12, 2019 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/earliest-evidence-cannabis-marijuana-smoking-china-tombs
The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs,” MENG REN, ZIHUA TANG, XINHUA WU, ROBERT SPENGLER, HONGEN JIANG, YIMIN YANG, NICOLE BOIVIN, SCIENCE ADVANCES, 12 Jun 2019 Vol 5, Issue 6
“2000 year old lady getting makeover” The Sacramento Bee Sat, Jul 16, 1994 ·Page 25
“An MRI scan of the mummified remains of a 2,500-year-old Siberian princess has revealed that she died after suffering from acute breast cancer. The mummy, known as ‘Princess Ukok’ or the ‘Siberian Ice Maiden’, was believed to be part of the Pazyryk nomadic tribe mentioned in 5th century BC by Greek historian Herodotus. Her body was discovered in 1993 by Russian archaeologists, who uncovered her tomb beneath the permafrost in the Altai Mountains, containing fine clothing, jewellery, headdresses, a make-up bag, a stash of cannabis, plus six saddled and bridled horses.”
Ancient Siberian Princess Died From Breast Cancer and Smoked Cannabis to Ease Pain By Katie Spicer Published 16 October 2014 https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ancient-siberian-princess-died-breast-cancer-smoked-cannabis-ease-pain-1470366
From the Lands of the Scythians, Ann Farkas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975
Detail, Scythian breastplate, 4 th century BCE, The Hidden Treasures of Antiquity, Edited by Alberto Siliotti, VMB Publishers / White Star S. p. A., Vercelli, Italy, 2006, p. 278
Circa 4th to 3rd century BCE., Scythian censer, used for burning hemp buds. From the Pazyryk burials in the Pazyryk Valley of the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, close to the border with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
Image from http://benedante.blogspot.com/2011/09/frozen-tombs-of-altai.html
Herodotus famously described the Scythians’ use of cannabis for intoxication. Sitting under a large web blanket of wool used as a tent, they would throw buds on hot stones, breath the vapor and “howl with pleasure”.
Herodotus, “The Histories”, Book 1, Verse 202, circa 450 BCE, reprinted in English in 1998, Oxford University Press, Translated by Waterfield and C. Dewald
“Objects connected with the use of cannabis were found in frozen tombs of the ancient Scythians, in the Altai Mountains on the border between Russia and Outer Mongolia. The small, tepee-like structure was covered with a felt or leather mat and stood over the copper censer (four-legged stool-like object). Carbonized hemp seeds were found nearby. The two-handled pot contained cannabis fruits. The Scythian custom of breathing cannabis fumes in the steam bath was mentioned about 500 B.C. by the Greek naturalist Herodotus.”
Hallucinogenic Plants: A Golden Guide, Richard Evans Schultes, Golden Press, New York, 1976, p. 35
Plates 27 and 28, Classical Indian Sculpture, 300 B.C. to A.D. 500, Chintamoni Kar, Alec Tiranti LTD, London, 1956
Detail of North Gate of the Great Stupa, Sanchi, UNESCO World Heritage Site, near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh state, India, Asia
Circa 50 C.E., North Gate, Temple of Sanchi, Central India
“By its quietude and seclusion ensuring a proper atmosphere for meditation, combined with its proximity to the rich and populous city of Vidisa, Sanchi fulfilled all the conditions required for an ideal Buddhist monastic life. The dedicatory inscriptions at Sanchi unmistakably show that the prosperity of the Buddhist establishment here was, to a great extent, due to the piety of the rich mercantile community of Vidisa. The nearness of the city, the strategic situation of which – at the confluence of two rivers, the Betwa and the Bes, as well as on two important trade routes resulted in a great overflow of wealth, was in no small measure responsible for the flourishing condition of Sanchi even when the empire of the Mauryas was a thing of the past.”
Buddhist Art and Architecture, The Hill of Sanchi http://www.buddhanet.net/sanchi.htm
Tree and serpent worship: or, Illustrations of mythology and art in India in the first and fourth centuries after Christ: from the sculptures of the Buddhist topes at Sanchi and Amravati, James Fergusson, Publisher London : India Museum : Wm. H. Allen and Co., 13, Waterloo Place, S.W., publishers to the India Office, 1868, p. 242 https://archive.org/details/gri_33125010818173/page/n241
William Dalrymple Fasting Buddha, 2021 https://www.grosvenorgallery.com/artworks/4760-william-dalrymple-fasting-buddha-2021/ So the
The gospel of Buddha according to old records, Names Carus, Paul, 1852-1919. Created / Published Chicago, The Open court publishing company, 1894. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.gospelofbuddhaac01caru/
“Bodhisatta continued for six years patiently torturing himself and suppressing the wants of nature. He trained his body and exercised his mind in the modes of the most rigorous ascetic life. At last, he ate each day one hemp-grain only, seeking to cross the ocean of birth and death and to arrive at the shore of deliverance.”
THE GOSPEL OF BUDDHA COMPILED FROM ANCIENT RECORDS BY PAUL CARUS, ILLUSTRATED BY O. KOPETZKY, CHICAGO and LONDON THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1915 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35895/35895-h/35895-h.htm
“The Tibetans considered Cannabis sacred. A Mahayana Buddhist tradition maintains that during the six steps of asceticism leading to his enlightenment, Buddha lived on one Hemp seed a day. He is often depicted with ‘Soma leaves’ in his begging bowl and the mysterious god-narcotic Soma has occasionally been identified with hemp.”
Plants Of The Gods, Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1992, p. 99
“Tibetans consider hemp to be a sacred plant, and they often cultivate it in proximity to monasteries and courtyards. In the Lamaistic tradition, it is said that Budda nourished himself with just one hemp seed a day during the six ascetic years preceding his enlightenment. As a result, hemp seeds are an important food for fasting ascetics. Books in monasteries have been printed on hemp paper since the adoption of Buddhism.”
Marijuana Medicine: A World Tour of the Healing and Visionary Powers of Cannabis by Christian Rätsch, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, 2001, pp. 44- 46
“In the Text and Commentary of the Memorial of Sakya Buddha Tathagata, by Wong Puh (Translated from the Chinese by the Rev. S. Beal.) which appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 20, (1863), a parallel is drawn between the 7th century AD Chinese Buddhist text the Memorial of Sakya Buddha Tathagata, which is a story of the life of Buddha, and the 3rd century AD Indian biography of Buddha, Lalita Vistara (Sanskrit), by Dharmarakcha, (308 AD). The Memorial of Sakya Buddha Tathagata, contains the passage, ‘He ate grain and hemp seed, subduing pain, subduing pleasure.’ . . . ‘Thus he addressed himself to the practice of austerities (Dushkaracharya), each day eating one grain of hemp, one grain of rice; by this means reducing himself to a condition of overcoming all pleasure.'”
Buddha’s One Hemp Seed A Day Diet By Chris Bennett on August 7, 2016 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2016/08/07/buddhas-one-hemp-seed-a-day-diet/
‘Secret Drugs of Buddhism’, Soma, and the Sad State of Entheogenic Anthropology By Chris Bennett on February 12, 2020 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2020/02/12/secret-drugs-of-buddhism-soma-and-the-sad-state-of-entheogenic-anthropology/
Text translation: “Cannabis is ‘cannob’ and is called ‘shahdang.’ It is a plant used to make durable ropes, it’s leaves are similar to a tree called ‘malba/malia’. Has a strong odor and long stems and round edible seeds, if it’s used/eaten excessively it might affect sperm/fertility. If seeds are soft not dried, it’s juices heals earache and pains.”
Mentioned in “Medicinal plants in archaeological codes, Islamic references and contemporary sources,” Muzaffar Ahmad Dawood Al-Musli, Professor, p. 44
Depiction of hemp in an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ materia medica, Circa 750 C.E., (British Library, 0r3366, fol.108r) https://eatlikeasultan.com/spotlight-on-hemp/
Circa 850 C.E., image from Marijuana Medicine, Christian Ratsch, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, 2001, p. 61
Illustration 3: Domesticated species of cannabis in the 10th-century manuscript of Dioscorides, De materia medica copied in Constantinople, now New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M652, f. 86r. https://www.ahpa.org/herbs_in_history_cannabis
“The Hemp Column: The decorated column above is from a church in Germany. Hemp was used as a decorative plant by many religions, ancient and modern. One writer said he had seen ‘many Draughts of Temples of Venus where, instead of the usual ornaments of the Pillars, I perceiv’d nothing on the Capitals but certain Wreathings of Hemp twirl’d in a beautiful manner, not unlike the Voluta of the Ionian Order, but fuller and more graceful; the Architrave and the Corona also had no other Ornaments except Hemp.”
Jack Frazier, The Great American Hemp Industry, Solar Age Press, Petertown, WV, 1991, p. 110
“This illustration of a cannabis sativa plant appears in an 11th century CE manuscript. The text is attributed to the 4th century CE Roman medical writer Pseudo-Apuleius and is called The Herbarium. It contains medical recipes for treating illnesses. The recipes are organized around the main plant used for each prescription. Cannabis is introduced here. The Latin manuscript translates: ‘Wild cannabis grows in the wilderness, along the roads, and in ditches.’ The section has two recipes, one for breast pain and the other for cold sores. For breast pain wild cannabis is first ground up, mixed with animal fat, and applied to the chest. The second recipe asks that the cannabis fruit be ground up with nettle and mixed with sour wine. The entry in this particular manuscript ends with an interesting remark: miraberis effectum bonum ‘you will be surprised at its good effect.’”
Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World, Alan G. Sumler, Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland, 2018
Girona Cathedral. Detail of the Tapestry of Creation: the creation of Eve, Genesis 2:21-22. 11th – 12th century. https://twitter.com/emilia_romanica/status/1035784639208538112
“The centre of the embroidery includes two concentric circles. In the centre circle is Christ Pantocrator, shown as a beardless young man. The circle surrounding him carries the text: Dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux, And God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light’ (Gen 1.3). He is surrounded by various rectangular sections placed within the outer concentric circle. These sections contain pictorial references to the days of the creation as told in Genesis, including a representation of Eve being taken from the body of Adam. There are also texts from the Book of Genesis. Outside the circle there are representations of the four winds.”
Medieval Cannabis, from a 12th-century medical and herbal collection
https://mediumaevum.tumblr.com/post/159824765209/medieval-cannabis-from-a-12th-century-medical-and “Cannabis, which the text recommended for external use: it could, for example, be pounded with grease and used to reduce swelling of the breasts.”
“Christ heals the two blind men on the road to Jericho”
“Sicily’s Cannabis Cathedral:During the Norman Conquest in 1072, crusading forces took control of the island of Sicily from Islamic control. By 1174 the newly declared King of Sicily William II decided to build a grand metropolitan cathedral in this newly conquered land right in the picturesque little village of Monreale. A mix of Norman-French, Byzantine and Arabic cultures create a stunning display of spectacular design throughout the interior. One image seems to be repeated in the mosaics art . . . The cannabis leaf!”
“Carpet page, Damascus Keter, Burgos, Spain, 1260. Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem, Israel. This manuscript, copied by Menahem ben Avraham ibn Malek, is one of the earliest Hebrew illuminated manuscripts from Spain to survive. It contains the entire Bible and the ‘carpet’ pages precede the main divisions. Typical of the design is a central stem flanked by interlacing scrolls and fillets outlined by micrography. The page is framed by a border of bold script also between two lines of micrography.”
Avodah Press, avodahpress.com
Detail of image from Christian Ratsch, Plants of Love, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California, 1997, p. 88
“PUFFING HASHISH, best known in the United States in the form of marijuana, a Persian lady of the 14th Century enjoys an ancient drug that is still the subject of much controversy. Made from the dried flowers of hemp, hashish produces intoxication and hallucinations that may persist for hours. It is sometimes smoked, sometimes taken in the form of pills or pellets, or mixed with sugar and eaten like candy. While its use has long been accepted in Asia Minor and the Orient, the drug is illegal in the United States.”
Drugs, Life Science Library, Time Incorporated, New York, 1967, p. 59
“This Mongolian painting from the Middle Ages (by Master Siyah Qalem) depicts a scene of deference to a shaman. The offering is a golden hemp plant.”
Image taken from Christian Ratsch, Marijuana Medicine, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1998, p. 69
Painted by a Shiite cult circa 1400 BCE.
“Historia Plantarum” (On Plants), p. 102, Circa 1395-1400 CE https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11560/view/1/102/
“Historia Plantarum (On plants) is a natural science encyclopedia, in which animals, plants, and minerals are illustrated and described for their medicinal properties, in keeping with the medieval tradition of the tacuina medievali (medieval health handbooks), and from which the codex derives its most common name, Tacuinum sanitatis. The work was first compiled as Taqwim al-Sihhah (The maintenance of health) by the 11th-century Baghdad physician Ibn Buṭlān, and chief among his Greek sources was Dioscorides, a physician in the first century. The court in Sicily commissioned a Latin translation in the mid-13th century.”
“Armenian illuminated manuscript page depicting dining in paradise and an angel resurrecting the dead. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Walters MS 543 fol 14, 1455 CE.”
http://www.clavielle.com/judgement-part-i-name-that-angel/
Detail: “Dining in Paradise and the Resurrection of the Dead”
Author: Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea
Abstract: This Armenian Gospel book was produced in 904 of the Armenian era (1455 CE) at the monastery of Gamałiēl in Xizan by the scribe Yohannēs Vardapet, son of Vardan and Dilšat, and was illuminated by the priest Xačʿatur. The priest Pʿilipos commissioned the manuscript as a memorial to himself, his parents Łazar and Xutʿlumēlikʿ, and other relatives listed in the colophon on fols. 300r to 301v. Pʿilipos is depicted on fol. 14v alongside his brothers Yusēpʿ and Sultanša, as they kneel before the Virgin and Child enthroned (Theotokos). The book contains twenty-six full-page polychrome miniatures, including four Evangelist portraits; ornately designed canon tables; four decorated incipit pages; numerous marginal miniatures of floral and faunal motifs; and nineteen marginal miniatures of biblical characters or allusions to biblical narratives.
http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W543/description.html
“Published in 1484, this Pre-Linnean text describes 150 plants and 96 medicines commonly found in apothecaries, and each plant description is accompanied by a detailed woodcut. The work is compiled from older sources, including classical, Arabic, and Medieval works, and contains Latin text, with the names of the herbs in both Latin and German. The popularity of the text resulted in the publication of ten reprints before 1499. This important work was compiled by Peter Schöffer, an early German printer born in 1425 in Gernsheim, Germany. Studying in Paris, Schöffer spent his early career as a manuscript copyist, but he eventually became an apprentice to Johannes Gutenberg. In 1457, Schöffer went into business with Guternberg’s moneylender, Johann Furst, establishing the printing firm Furst and Schöffer, after the foreclosure of the mortgage on Gutenberg’s printing shop.”
Schöffer, Peter. 1484. Herbarius latinus. Digitized by the Missouri Botanical Garden.
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/288745
1484: Peter Schoeffer publishes Germany’s first press-printed Herbal from his Gutenberg and it included Cannabis · Jun 22, 2018
In 1485 Peter Schoffer published a revised and expanded herbal in German. With over twice as many figures and 435 chapters, this was not just a simple translation and reprint of his 1484 Herbarius. Sometimes this work is called the Herbarius zu Teutsch. Although the preface includes the words “Ortus Sanitatis” and “gart der gesuntheit” those are considered the titles of later works usually derived from Maydenbach’s unaffiliated 1491 publication. …We have synonyms, Canapus (Latin), Canaps (Greek), Sechedenchi (Arabic — sometimes we later see schedengi)
Schoffer’s 1485 German Herbarius steps up the game Asterion Schoenostrophon Herbitage Asterion Schoenostrophon · Follow Published in Herbitage · 2 min read · Jun 24, 2018 https://medium.com/herbitage/schoffers-1485-german-herbarius-steps-up-the-game-f33942d937e4
“An illustration of Indian hemp (Cannabis sativa), from a woodcut in Gart der Gesundheit, 1485” Cannabis, Jonathon Green, Thunder Mouth Press, New York, 2002, pp. 84-85
The Garden of Health (German for Latin hortus sanitatis , ‘Garden of Health’, in relation to the medieval herbal and medicinal garden) was written by Johann Wonnecke von Kaub and is one of the first printed herbal books in German and next to the Circa instansprobably as the model of numerous reprints until the 18th century, the most influential. It is one of the most important late medieval works to the knowledge of natural history, especially of medicinal plants.
“An anonymous compilation from classical, Arabic and medieval sources, originally published in Mainz in 1484 and variously known under titles: Aggregator practicus de simplicibus (cf. pref.); Herbarius in Latino; Herbarius Moguntinus; Herbolariumde virtutibus herbarum (cf. finis, sig. x7v) It has been mistakenly attributed to Arnaldus de Villanova”
Incipit Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum by Herbarius Publication date 1509
Circa 1510 CE, “Hemp and Hops”, Herbal and Bestiary ABC, from A Country Herbal, Lesley Gordon, Webb & Bower, 1980, pp. 87-90
1543 CE, Leonhart Fuchs, New Kreuterbuch (New Herbal)
http://95.211.55.198/plantillustrations/public_html/ILLUSTRATIONS_full_size_/184636.jpg
http://plantillustrations.org/volume.php?id_volume=4617&mobile=0
Leonhart Fuchs [ˈfʊks] (17 January 1501 – 10 May 1566), sometimes spelled Leonhard Fuchs,[1] was a German physician and botanist. His chief notability is as the author of a large book about plants and their uses as medicines, i.e. a Herbal Book. It was first published in 1542 in Latin. It has about 500 accurate and detailed drawings of plants, which were printed from woodcuts. The drawings are the book’s most notable advance on its predecessors.[2] Although drawings were in use beforehand in other Herbal books, Fuchs’ Herbal book proved and emphasized high-quality drawings as the most telling way to specify what a plant name stands for.
1546 CE, Hieronymus Bock, Kreutterbuch, (Plant Book), illustrated by David Kandel
The first edition of his Kreutterbuch (literally “plant book”) appeared in 1539 unillustrated;[1] his stated objectives were to describe German plants, including their names, characteristics, and medical uses. Instead of following Dioscorides as was traditional, he developed his own system to classify 700 plants. Bock apparently traveled widely through the German region observing the plants for himself, since he includes ecological and distributional observations. His 1546 Kreutterbuch or “herbal” was illustrated by the artist David Kandel.
1555 CE – Spanish version of Materia Medica
Via Google Translate: “This book is an exceptional example of the transmission of knowledge over the centuries: Dioscorides, a Greek physician of the first century, wrote an important treatise on pharmaceutical botany and can be considered the father of pharmacology. This work was translated into Arabic in the 10th century, in the time of Abderramán III; later, the Toledo School of Translators poured this knowledge into Latin, with Antonio de Nebrija being the first Spanish edition in Latin, in 1518. The year is 1555, and the editor Juan Latio publishes the translation in Spanish in Antwerp that we occupied, by Dr. Andrés Laguna, doctor of Pope Julius III, who, on his trips to Rome, was able to consult various codices, as well as a book printed in Venice by Matthioli.”
http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000037225
With some 1200 pages, the work by Pietro Andrea Mattioli from 1563, which translates as “The New Herbal Book. … “Hemp,” in: Mattioli, New Kreüterbuch, 384 D. Mattioli describes how hemp seeds, cooked as a porridge, were a common everyday dish. He recommended a decoction of hemp seeds cooked in milk or wine for “tearing in the stomach” or “dry […] cough.”
The Herbal Book of Pietro Andrea Mattioli Stephanie Neuner | 15 May 2024 https://www.dhm.de/blog/2024/05/16/the-herbal-book-of-pietro-andrea-mattioli/
Hemp, woodcut from Li Zengzi, Origins of the Materia Medica, 1612. Image from doctorlib.info
Theatrum botanicum: The theater of plants. Or, An herball of a large extent : containing therein a more ample and exact history and declaration of the physicall herbs and plants that are in other authours, encreased by the accesse of many hundreds of new, rare, and strange plants from all the parts of the world, with sundry gummes, and other physicall materials, than hath beene hitherto published by any before; and a most large demonstration of their natures and vertues. Shevving vvithall the many errors, differences, and oversights of sundry authors that have formerly written of them; and a certaine confidence, or most probable conjecture of the true and genuine herbes and plants. Distributed into sundry classes or tribes, for the more easie knowledge of the many herbes of one nature and property, with the chiefe notes of Dr. Lobel, Dr. Bonham, and others inserted therein. Collected by the many yeares travaile, industry, and experience in this subject, by Iohn Parkinson apothecary of London, and the Kings herbarist. And published by the Kings Majestyes especiall priviledge Author: Parkinson, John, 1567-1650 Created/published London : Printed by Tho. Cotes, 1640
from Matthaus Merian & Ludwig von Anhalt-Kothen’s rare work Der Fruchtbringenden Geselschaft Nahmen, Vorhaben Gemaehide und Woerter. It was published in Frankfurt in 1646. … Every plate in this work was engraved by Merian, a topographical artist and engraver; it is his only collection of botanicals Each print features a quaint flower with a background of a German town, garden or countryside. Near the bottom of the page are initials of the member of the society to whom the flower, tree, plant or bush was given as an emblem. Nissen calls the work one of the most beautiful emblem books ever produced.
View of Masulipatam, published by Johannes Janssonius Waasbergen, 1672. The three flags indicate the location of foreign trading factories. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AMH-7503-KB_View_of_Masulipatam.jpg
View of Masulipatam, detail.
Circa 1725, “The Raja Ajit Singh”, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
“The Raja is shown surrounded by his sons and grandsons. Under the influence of the Mughals, these portraits of the royal family were fashionable in Rajput courts of the 18th century. The raja, who is smoking the hookah and holding a flower in his right hand, is lying back on a large cushion.”
Indian Art, Marguerite-Marie Deneck, Hamlyn, London, 1970, plate #40
BARUFFALDI. The Hemp.
BARUFFALDI, Girolamo. The Canapajo. Cultivation of Canapes. Instructions of three practical Centesi Fabrizio Berti, Innocenzio Bregoli, and Antonio Pallara. Collected by the knight Gio. Antonio Berti centese. Bologna, L. Della Volpe, 1741
“Cultivation of hemp: instructions”
Girolamo Baruffaldi (Ferrara, 17 July 1675 – Cento, 31 March 1753 (or 1755)) was an Italian presbyter, poet and scholar, known also for the manufacture of sensational local philological falsehoods. … He composed a poem in eight books entitled Il Canapaio, with great attention to the agronomic aspects [1] of the cultivation of hemp, which was of great importance for agriculture in the Cento area and which was widely used for the uses of the Venetian fleet.
The Canapajo. Books VIII. With Annotations. In Bologna, Nella Stamperia di Lelio della Volpe, 1741 … Cultivation of the Canape Instructions of three Practical Centesi Fabrizio Berti, Innocenzio Bregoli and Antonio Pallara. 3 non-text boards, two of which are plow instruments See reproductions
http://collindubocage.com/html/fiche.jsp?id=1782287&np=&lng=fr&npp=150&ordre=&aff=&r=
1748 Engraving Of Indian Woman Smoking Cannabis.
“Issued 1748, Paris, likely by Didot for Prevost”
“Franklin’s kite experiment was performed in Philadelphia in June 1752, according to the account by Joseph Priestley. … According to the 1767 Priestley account, Franklin realized the dangers of using conductive rods and instead used the conductivity of a wet hemp string attached to a kite. As a result, he was able to remain on the ground and let his son fly the kite from the cover of a shed close by. That enabled Franklin and his son to keep the silk string of the kite dry to insulate them while the hemp string to the kite was allowed to get wet in the rain to provide conductivity.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_experiment Meme by David Malmo-Levine, 2022.
Circa 1760 CE – Hill Chief with Children. Indian Museum, Calcutta.
Indian Painting, Douglas Barrett & Basil Gray, Rizzoli International Publications INC., New York, p. 174
A depiction of tools used in the dressing of hemp, from the 1762 edition of Denis Diderot’s encyclopedia. https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/hemp-cultivation-early-south-carolina
“Cannabis Hemp Engraving”, F. P. Nodder, Published by B. White & Son, May 1st, 1788 http://hempology.org/PRINTS.HTML/1788.html
“The foot machine for breaking and beating flax & hemp. Invented by R. Macpherson.” Bears number: Plate XVI, London (circa 1820s).
“A self-portrait by Horace Vernet (1789-1863) smoking ‘hasheesh’ dated 1835.”
Cannabis, Jonathon Green, Thunder Mouth Press, New York, 2002, pp. 92-93
Drawing of Cannabis indica featured in O’Shaughnessy’s article on the plant in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1839)
See also page 838 to page 851 of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1839, here:
Germania is a painting created at the end of March 1848 during the Revolutions of 1848. This allegorical figure is represented with the Reichsadler, oak leaves (symbols of German strength), an olive branch (as a sign of peace), sometimes alternatively identified as a cannabis branch, and a banner. It was hung in the National Assembly in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche, where it concealed the organ. It was meant as a symbol of a united democratic Germany. After the revolution, the painting belonged to the German Confederation but was not exhibited any more. After the dissolution of the German Confederation, the Bundesliquidationskommission gave the painting and other items of the National Assembly to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, in 1867. The actual painter is unknown. Traditionally the painting is attributed to Philipp Veit since c. 1900. Apparently its allegorical language draws from Veit’s Germania painting from 1834–1836. According to Rainer Schoch it might be a collaboration of several artists of the artistic circle Deutsches Haus.
Marijuiana – Its Effects on Mind and Body, Miriam Cohen, the Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs, Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., Editor, 1985, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, p. 12
“Shops of hashish merchants on a street in Cairo.” Chromolithograph by A. Preziosi, c. 1850, after himself.” https://wellcomecollection.org/works/d8h8evhk/items
“Shops of hashish merchants on a street in Cairo.” Detail.
“Bayard Taylor was born on January 11, 1825, in Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth son, the first to survive to maturity, of the Quaker couple, Joseph and Rebecca (née Way) Taylor. His father was a wealthy farmer. Bayard received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester, Pennsylvania, and later at nearby Unionville. At the age of seventeen, he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester. The influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold encouraged him to write poetry. The volume that resulted, Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems, was published in 1844 and dedicated to Griswold. Using the money from his poetry and an advance for travel articles, he visited parts of England, France, Germany and Italy, making largely pedestrian tours for almost two years. He sent accounts of his travels to the Tribune, The Saturday Evening Post, and The United States Gazette. In 1846, he published a collection of those articles in two volumes as Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff. That publication resulted in an invitation to serve as an editorial assistant for Graham’s Magazine for a few months in 1848. That same year, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, hired Taylor and sent him to California to report on the gold rush. He returned by way of Mexico and published another two-volume collection of travel essays, El Dorado; or, Adventures in the Path of Empire (1850). Within two weeks of release, the books sold 10,000 copies in the U.S. and 30,000 in Great Britain. … In 1851 he traveled to Egypt, where he followed the Nile River as far as 12° 30′ N. He also traveled in Palestine and Mediterranean countries, writing poetry based on his experiences. Toward the end of 1852, he sailed from England to Calcutta, and then to China, where he joined the expedition of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry to Japan. The results of these journeys were published as A Journey to Central Africa; or, Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile (1854); The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain (1854); and A Visit to India, China and Japan in the Year 1853 (1855).”
The Lands of the Saracen, frontispiece, detail.
The Lands of the Saracen online: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10924 https://archive.org/details/landsofsaracenor1859tayl/page/n7
Pioneer of Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater, Donald P Dulchinos, Autonomiedia, New York, 1998
From the 1975 edition of the Hashish Eater.
Fitz Hugh Ludlow, sometimes seen as Fitzhugh Ludlow (September 11, 1836 – September 12, 1870[1]), was an American author, journalist, and explorer; best known for his autobiographical book The Hasheesh Eater(1857).
Ludlow also wrote about his travels across America on the overland stage to San Francisco, Yosemite and the forests of California and Oregon in his second book, The Heart of the Continent. An appendix to it provides his impressions of the recently founded Mormon settlement in Utah.
He was also the author of many works of short fiction, essays, science reporting and art criticism. He devoted many of the last years of his life to attempts to improve the treatment of opiate addicts, becoming a pioneer in both progressive approaches dealing with addiction and the public portrayal of its sufferers. Though of modest means, he was imprudently generous in aiding those unable to cope with drug-induced life struggles.
Ludlow died prematurely at the age of 34 from the accumulated effect of his lifelong addictions, the ravages of pneumonia and tuberculosis, and overwork.
An ad for medicine made from extract of Cannabis indica in the May 19, 1858 edition of the Charleston Courier. https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/hemp-cultivation-early-south-carolina
‘Hemp workers’ engraving created by Lallemand and Levy, published in the ‘L’Illustration, journal universel’, Paris, France 1860
Advertisement for Hasheesh Candy, Chicago Tribune, April 20th 1864, p. 3
Daily Mirror And American, February 2nd, 1866, p. 1
Cannabis Sativa Botanical Illustration, John Sowerby, 1883. Original formerly in the Herb Museum collection, now the collection of the Cannabis Museum.
WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS, EARTH, AND OCEAN, AS REVEALED IN The Starry Sky, the Vasty Deep, AND ALL CONTINENTS OF THE GLOBE. JAMES P. BOYD, A.M., P. W. ZIEGLER & CO., PHILADELPHIA, PA., 1887, p. 426
Atlasobscura.com/places/mirador-de-colom-columbus-monument
“Moreover, the monument to Columbus in Barcelona is decorated with hemp leaves. . . . Sources: Hash Marijuana & Hemp Museum,” “Cannabis branding: a green history,” 10 October 2018 https://www.grapheine.com/en/graphic-design-en/cannabis-branding-a-green-history https://www.grapheine.com/wp-content/uploads/monument_a_colom.jpg
Detail, Columbus Monument in Barcelona, June 1st, 1888
Emancipation Proclamation, published by the Strobridge Lith. Co, Cincinnati, circa 1888. Note the hemp leaves behind the words “Emancipation Proclamation”. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION By AMPS Corporate -June 15, 2024 https://ampsmagazine.com/?p=6246
Slave working the hemp break, unknown date. Emancipation Day marks slavery’s end in Ky, August 7th, 2015. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/08/07/emancipation-day-marks-slaverys-end-kentucky/31277799/
Pubdate: 1889 Source: Arbuckle Bros. Coffee Co., New York City Lith. by Donaldson Brothers, N.Y. (Actual size: 3X5 inches)
“Explanatory. The series of cards to which this one belongs, consists of 50, each card of which shows a correct colored map, properly bounded, of one of the chief countries of the world, and portrays the peculiarities of industry, scenery, etc., of each nation, in original pictures, true to nature, made by the best modern artists. Every package of Arbuckles’ Coffee contains either one of these cards, or one of our series of 50 Zoological cards, an equal number of which are used in conjunction with the geographical cards, both series being so distributed that every 100 pound case of coffee contains one hundred cards, each one different from all the others. Teachers, in the public schools, are unanimous in their praise of our object lesson cards, and pronounce them one of the happiest, and most impressive mediums, for imparting instruction to all classes of students.”
“Cannabis is protection”, Porticoes of via Indipendenza, 3 Via dell’Indipendenza, Bologna, 1892
“Bologna is the capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy and among Italy’s oldest hemp-growing regions. Civic records indicate that hemp was among Bologna’s primary agricultural crops beginning in the 15th century. … The arched ceiling layout is dominated by cannabis leaves which are painted in stunning detail. The cannabis-leaf border and grape and wheat plants intertwine to complete the fresco’s botanical theme. The cannabis-themed fresco was added through an 1892 reconstruction of the tower by the Italian artist Augusto Sezanne. Potentially working from a pattern from the ancient architects, the cannabis-centric layout is an homage to when the building was used as a storage and textile area for the weaving of the region ’s hemp distribution. Colorful murals tucked inside the roofing ’s arches further illustrate Bologna’s hemp history. For a cow plows through a hemp field in preparation for seed, A Bolognese farm is recreated in fresco. Another fresco shows a seated woman weaving hemp on a loom as an spinning wheel sits in her prepared. Small paintings found in between the columns also indicate the building’s historical hemp history. The scenes come complete with prose. “Where cannabis leaves match the wheat, a hemp spool works with interlocking hemp. The prose, somewhat facetiously, relays the age-old groan of hard work, reading ‘io ruofo e tu sospiri,’ or ‘I turn, you sigh.’”Today, the historic building is home to restaurants and businesses, including the general store La Coroncina, established in 1694.
http://www.museociviltacontadina.bo.it/The_Museum/Hemp_a_versatile_fiber
Industrial Mechanics. Mechanical industries technology. Vol. IV. Processing of textile fibers: Cotton, linen, cannabis, jute, wool and silk spinning, 1904.
Fiber Plants, 1905. Caption: 1 RAMIE – BŒHMERIA NIVEA – 2 JUTE – CORCHORUS CAPSULARIS -3 BOWSTRING HEMP – SANSEVIERIA ZEYLANICA – 4 HEMP – CANNABIS SATIVA – 5 COTTON – GOSSYPIUM HERMACIUM
“General View of Simskii Plant” In 1909 and 1910, Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) traveled extensively in the territory around the Ural Mountains, where he photographed railroad installations, factories, urban settings, and natural landscapes. In the summer of 1910 he traveled along the Samara-Zlatoust Railroad (built in 1885–90; now the Ufa-Chelyabinsk line), including the Sim River valley. Seen here is a dramatic, sun-dappled view of the houses located at Simskii Zavod (Sim Ironworking Factory). The settlement arose in 1759–60 adjacent to an iron factory that relied primarily on serf labor. Burned by Bashkirs in 1774 during the Pugachev Rebellion (1773–75), the factory resumed operation by the end of the decade and expanded during the 19th century. The fields seen here in the foreground are growing what appears to be hemp. A horse grazes near a wooden fence. Behind the fences are large mounds of hay that were cut in late summer. Visible beyond the wooden houses is the steep bank of the Sim River. The hills in the background are covered primarily with conifer trees. Prokudin-Gorskii used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Some of his photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
General View of the Simskii Plant, detail.
“Hemp Field” From 1909 to 1912, Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) made several trips to the territory around the Ural Mountains, where he photographed railroad installations, factories, urban settings, and natural scenes. In the summer of 1910 Prokudin-Gorskii traveled along the Samara-Zlatoust Railway (built in 1885–92; now the Ufa-Chelyabinsk line), including the Sim River valley. Seen here is a luxuriant hemp field in the vicinity of Sim Station, located near the Sim Ironworking Factory. At the turn of the 20th century, hemp represented a major source of income for peasants in the western and central provinces of Russia. Hemp fiber was particularly valued for ropes because of its resistance to salt water. Hemp fiber was also used in the making of cloth. Seen in the background here are other fields and forested slopes, with Shelyvaginoi Knob (hill) to the right. During his travels, Prokudin-Gorskii photographed landscapes not only to illustrate the geographical diversity of the Russian Empire, but also to demonstrate the range afforded by his special three-color photography process. Prokudin-Gorskii used this process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Some of his photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
“This is a rather interesting photograph for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a photograph of a now ilicit subject, a field of marijuana being grown in the Ural mountains in 1910 for hemp fiber. But even more interesting is that it represents some of the first color photography ever done, a result of the invention of panchromatic film in 1906. The photographer was Sergei Mikhailovich, 1863-1944, and the un-translated title is “Konoplianoe pole”. http://hemp-ethanol.blogspot.com/2008/01/original-hemp-field.html
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?intldl/mtfront:@OR(@field(NUMBER+@band(prok+00593)))
“MODERN PERSIA AND ITS CAPITAL”, National Geographic Magazine, April, 1921, pp. 374
“MODERN PERSIA AND ITS CAPITAL”, National Geographic Magazine, April, 1921, pp. 407
“GROWING HEMP IN THE ACONCAGUA VALLEY”, National Geographic, Sept. 1922, “A Longitudinal Journey Through Chile” by Harriet Chalmers Adams, pp. 256
“GROWING HEMP IN THE ACONCAGUA VALLEY”, National Geographic, Sept. 1922, “A Longitudinal Journey Through Chile” by Harriet Chalmers Adams, pp. 260
“A REST AMONG THE SAND-DUNES SOUTH OF EL WAD: ALGERIA. The Bedouin cameleer must have his tea and a pipe of kief, the desert man’s opiate.” “PEOPLE AND PLACES OF NORTHERN AFRICA”, National Geographic Magazine, October, 1922, p. 367
“FROM ENGLAND TO INDIA BY AUTOMOBILE”, National Geographic Magazine, August 1925, p. 217
“Often we would go down to Haidar’s camp to smoke the Kalyan with him.” GRASS, MERIAN C. COOPER, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York & London, The Knickerbocker Press, 1925, p. 193 Photo by Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack.
“ALONG THE BANKS OF THE COLORFUL NILE”, National Geographic Magazine, September, 1926, p. 335
“COLOR RECORDS FROM THE CHANGING LIFE OF THE HOLY CITY”, National Geographic Magazine, December 1927, p. 699
“Note the snowy white turban in place of the flowing kaffiyeh and the chain attached to his pipe, which has on it a spear for the cleaning of the pipe bowl and a pair of tweezers, or small tongs, for lifting a live coal to his pipe.”
“EAST OF SUEZ TO THE MOUNT OF THE DECALOGUE – Following the Trail Over Which Moses Led the Israelites From the Slave-Pens of Egypt to Sinai,” National Geographic Magazine, December 1927, p. 730
“BARE LIVING-ROOM OF A LOW CASTE FAMILY OF NORTH INDIA,” “INDIA THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST,” Lands and Peoples, VOLUME IV, TORONTO, THE GROLIER SOCIETY LIMITED, 1929, p. 33
“A GAME OF CHECKERS IN A COURTYARD OF OLD CAIRO,” “THE COLOR OF CAIRO,” Lands and Peoples, VOLUME V, TORONTO, THE GROLIER SOCIETY LIMITED, 1929, p. 126
“HOW THE HEMP ‘ROPE’ CROP IS GATHERED IN,” “HEMP.” THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE VOL. 4, FLO to ISIS, THE WAVERLEY BOOK COMPANY, LTD., LONDON, 1930, p. 1827
“DAMASCUS, SYRIA.” THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE VOL. 3, COOK to FLOUR, THE WAVERLEY BOOK COMPANY, LTD., LONDON, 1930, p.1048
“Arab Land Beyond the Jordan”, National Geographic Magazine, December 1947, p. 759
“The Idyllic Vale of Kashmir”, National Geographic Magazine, April 1948, p. 535
“The Idyllic Vale of Kashmir”, National Geographic Magazine, April 1948, p. 544
“Friendship of the People Fountain”, 1951, Moscow, Russia. “Construction of The Friendship of People Fountain or the Friendship of Nations Fountain in the VDNKh park (also called The All-Russia Exhibition Center) in Moscow, was started just after WW2 in 1951 and completed in 1954. The 16 statues of women representing the different nationalities and Republics of the Soviet Union are represented circling the main column featuring pillars of Wheat, Sunflowers and of course Cannabis … Some of the statues of the women representing the different nationalities and Republics of the Soviet Union are holding opium or poppy flowers along with of course Cannabis… A few statues even have depictions of both growing at their feet…
“Historically, in Russia cannabis was one of the most cultivated cereal grains, its fiber was used for hemp and textile manufacturing; status of cannabis was as high as of wheat and sunflower. In fact, you can see cannabis leaves right between wheat sheaves on the fountain of the International Friendship in Moscow.”
“HEMP,” THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA, FIELD ENTERPRISES, INC., U.S.A., 1956, p. 3378
“HEMP,” THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA, FIELD ENTERPRISES, INC., U.S.A., 1956, p. 3377
“EGYPT: FERTILE LAND SET IN THE DESERT,” The BOOK of KNOWLEDGE, VOLUME 3, CRU-GERA, THE WAVERLEY BOOK COMPANY LTD, London, 1957, p. 176
“The Kif fields, Mazzarif (alt. 4500 ft.) in Rif Mountains of Morocco.” The High Times Encyclopedia of Recreational Drugs, Stonehill Publishing Company, New York, 1978, between pages 176 and 177.
Citations:
- Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire, 2002, Random House, p. 156 See also: Cannabis – Forgetting and the Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan University of California Television (UCTV) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeCra-sn0dI&t=656s
- Carl Zimmer, “The Beauty of Deceit,” August 27, 2005 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-beauty-of-deceit https://carlzimmer.com/the-beauty-of-deceit/ See also: Darwin, C. R., On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilized by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing, 1862, London: John Murray. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F800&viewtype=side&pageseq=1
- Ehrlich, P.R. & Raven, P.H., “Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution,” (1964) Evolution: Vol. 18, No. 4. pp 586-608 https://academic.oup.com/evolut/article-abstract/18/4/586/6868274 https://www.academia.edu/50985823/Butterflies_and_Plants_A_Study_in_Coevolution
- McPartland, J.M. & Guy, G.W., “The evolution of Cannabis and coevolution with the cannabinoid receptor – a hypothesis,” (2004) The Medicinal Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, The Pharmaceutical Press, London, p. 93 See also: Robert Connell Clarke, Hashish!, Red Eye Press, 1998, p. 6
- Chris Conrad, Hemp For Health, 1997, Healing Arts Press, pp. 112-122
- Rowan Robinson, The Great Book of Hemp, 1996, Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, p. 103
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 1. Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 40 See also: The Great Book of Hemp, pp. 104-106
- Christian Ratsch, Marijuana Medicine, 2001, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, pp. 15-18 See also: Franjo Grotenhermen, Ethan Russo, Cannabis and Cannabinoids, 2002, The Hawthorn Integrated Healing Press, pp. 27, 37 The Medicinal Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, pp. 72-75
- Tod Mikuriya, Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1973, Medi-Comp Press, Oakland, California, p. xxiv See also: Sidney Cohen and Richard Stillman, The Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976, Plenum Medical Book Company, pp. 35-36 Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 2000, AH HA Publishing, p. 40
- Allen Ginsberg, “First Manifesto to End the Bringdown”, 1965, published in David Solomon, The Marijuana Papers, 1966, Bobbs-Merrill, p. 185
- “Time slowdown”, David Malmo-Levine, 2003, Cannabis Culture #45 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2003/12/05/3075/
- “The History of music and marijuana (part one)”, Russel Cronin, 2004, Cannabis Culture #49 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2004/09/08/3434/
- “The history of music and marijuana (part two)”, Russell Cronin, 2005 Cannabis Culture #50 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2005/01/20/3512/ “Marijuana music history (part 3)” Russell Cronin, 2005, Cannabis Culture #51 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2005/02/10/3582/
- “Dead funny “, Russell Cronin, 2005, Cannabis Culture #53 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2005/04/25/4113/ https://www.420magazine.com/community/forums/celebrity-tokers.304/
- “One-Third Of Programmers Use Marijuana While Working, With Many Touting Creative Benefits, Study Finds,” December 27, 2021, Kyle Jaeger https://www.marijuanamoment.net/one-third-of-programmers-use-marijuana-while-working-with-many-touting-creative-benefits-study-finds/ “7 Tech All-Stars Who Smoke Weed,” Wikileaf, November 15, 2016 https://www.wikileaf.com/thestash/7-tech-nerds-who-smoke-weed/ “Silicon Valley is full of stoners – The tech hub is also a hub of getting high,” KRISTEN GWYNNE, MARCH 5, 2013 https://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/silicon_valley_is_full_of_stoners/ “The FBI is struggling to find good hackers because of marijuana rules,” Mary Schumacher, Apr 23, 2018 https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/fbi-struggling-find-good-hackers-due-pot-rules-article-1.3949920 “Most programmers smoke pot. Coincidentally, most programming jobs won’t drug test. :D” http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=63960¤tpage=11 “In John Markoff ‘s 2005 book What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry . . . he reveals that the world’s first online transaction was a drug deal: ‘In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory engaged in a commercial transaction with their counterparts at Massachussetts Institute of Technology. Before Amazon, before eBay, the seminal act of e-commerce was a drug deal. The students used the network to quietly arrange the sale of an undetermined amount of marijuana.’ “Online highs are old as the net: the first e-commerce was a drugs deal,” Mike Power, 19 April 2013 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/apr/19/online-high-net-drugs-deal
- Marcus Boon, The Road of Excess – A history of writers on drugs, 2002, Harvard University Press, pp. 123-169
- “THE WORLD’S BEST ATHLETES SMOKE WEED. HERE’S PROOF. WHAT NOW?” MASTER TESFATSION, APRIL 20, 2018 https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2771410-athletes-smoke-weed-interviews-nba-nfl-420 “10 professional athletes who use marijuana,” Jackson Thompson, Jan 20, 2022 https://www.insider.com/10-professional-athletes-who-use-marijuana-2022-1 https://norml.org/?s=athletes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_sport https://www.celebstoner.com/archive/tags/?tag=NFL https://www.celebstoner.com/celebstoners/profile/michael-phelps/ “There’s worse than marijuana”, Skip Bayless, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=bayless/050822&num=0
- “Drugs clue to Shakespeare’s genius – Elizabethans may have explored more than just the oceans,” March 1, 2001 http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/UK/03/01/shakespeare.cannabis/ “Shakespeare on pot” Chris Bennet, 2001, Cannabis Culture #31 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2001/06/14/1943/
- Cannabis and the Christ: Jesus used Marijuana, Chris Bennet, 1998, Cannabis Culture #11 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/1998/01/02/1301/
- “Cannabis Has Always Played an Important Role in Religion,” Chris Bennett, October 1, 2009 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2009/10/01/cannabis-has-always-played-important-role-religion/ Green Gold the Tree of Life – Marijuana in magic and Religion, Chris Bennet, Access Unlimited, 1995 Cannabis and the Soma Solution, Chris Bennett, Trine Day LLC, Walterville, Oregon, 2010 The Ancient History of Cannabis part 1, David Malmo-Levine, Fall 2001, Potshot #17 The Ancient History of Cannabis part 2, Spring 2002, Potshot #18 https://pot-shot.ca/
- “Celebrity stoners,” Dana Larsen, July 9, 2002 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2002/07/09/2404/ “Celebrity stoners,” Dana Larsen, October 31, 2002 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2002/10/31/2496/ “Celebrity stoners,” Dana Larsen, January 8, 2003 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2003/01/08/2606/ “Celebrity Stoners,” Dana Larsen, June 19, 2003 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2003/06/19/2858/ “Celebrity Stoners,” Dana Larsen, December 22, 2003 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2003/12/22/3059/ “Celebrity stoners,” Dana Larsen on February 4, 2004 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2004/02/04/3139/ “Celebrity stoners,” Brooke Thorsteinson and Dana Larsen, April 28, 2005 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2005/04/28/4176/ https://www.celebstoner.com/celebstoners/actors/
- Evaluation of CB1 receptor knockout mice in the Morris water maze, S A Varvel, Aron H Lichtman, J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2002 Jun ;301 (3):915-24 12023519 https://bibliography.maps.org/bibliography/default/resource/6234
- “Cannabinoids, From Cells to Society Part 2”, Dr Melamede’s presentation at the 5th Conference on Clinical Cannabinoids, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OAjc8r5-_I
- Cannabis Systematics at the Levels of Family, Genus, and Species October 2018, John McPartland, Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research 3(1):203-212 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328185308_Cannabis_Systematics_at_the_Levels_of_Family_Genus_and_Species
- Ibid, p. 74
- “Much older tools used for breaking hemp stalk into fibres, indicate humanity has been using cannabis for cloth “since 25,000 B.C. at least” (Barber, 1999). ‘In 1997, a hemp rope dating back to 26,900 BC was found in Czechoslovakia. it was the oldest evidence for hemp fiber’ (Seydibeyoglu, et. al. 2017).” “Cannabis Roots: Humanity’s Ancient Plant Ally,” Chris Bennett, December 28, 2017 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2017/12/28/cannabis-roots-humanitys-ancient-plant-ally/
- “Ritual use of cannabis in funerary rites in the region inhabited by the Yamnaya goes back at least 5,000 years, as evidenced through a find of skeletal remains and burnt cannabis seeds recovered at a burial mound at modern day Gurbăneşti, Romania. (Rosetti, 1959).” “The Proto-Indo Europeans and Indo-European Cannabis Cult,” Chris Bennett, March 2, 2021 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2021/03/02/the-proto-indo-europeans-and-indo-european-cannabis-cult/
- Carl Sagan, Dragons Of Eden, Random House, New York, 1977, p. 191 https://archive.org/details/B-001-015-431/page/n213/mode/2up
29. The Medicinal Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, p. 72
30. “Fossils found there have enabled the identification of several specimens of early hominids, more particularly of Paranthropus, dating back between 4.5 million and 2.5 million years, as well as evidence of the domestication of fire 1.8 million to 1 million years ago.” Fossil Hominid Sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai, and Environs http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=915
31. Ronald K. Siegel, Intoxication, 1989, Dutton, pp. 147-157
32. The Medicinal Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, p. 81
33. Ibid, p. 85
34. “Exploiting a mutualism: parasite specialization on cultivars within the fungus-growing ant symbiosis,” Proceedings of the Royal Society, Gerardo, Mueller, Price, Currie, Issue Volume 271, Number 1550/September 07, 2004 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691791/pdf/15315894.pdf
35. https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-white-house-sandbags-staffers-sidelines-dozens-for-pot-use
36. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-white-house-says-marijuana-decriminalization-opened-the-door-to-disorder-in-washington-d-c/
37. “Fuel of the Future? The Economics, History and Politics of Hemp Fuels,” David Malmo-Levine, 2008, Treating Yourself Magazine, #11, http://hemp-ethanol.blogspot.com/ See also: “Hemp Can Still Save the World,” David Malmo-Levine, January 29, 2020 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2020/01/29/hemp-can-still-save-the-world/ CIFAR Conference XIV, “Cracking the Nut: Bioprocessing Lignocellulose to Renewable Products and Energy”, June 4, 2001 http://fuelandfiber.com/Hemp4NRG/Hemp4NRGRV3.htm
38. Marijuana Medicine, p. 64
39. https://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/5-9.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamsa_Bible
