The earliest uses of cannabis

Cannabis is generally placed into two categories — Sativa and Indica — and to understand the differences between them, we have to go back to the beginning.

The earliest evidence of Cannabis use by humans comes from the Neolithic Age, which began about 12,000 years ago.

Cannabis was one of the first crops farmed by ancient people. In fact. the name Cannabis Sativa is Latin and translates to ‘farmed hemp.’

Neolithic people figured out that not only are the seeds and oil of the Cannabis plant good to eat, but the fibrous stalks can be processed and woven into things like rope, textiles and clothing.

Agriculture was born, which helped create civilization as we know it.

It didn’t take long for the use of Cannabis to spread and advance from the mountains of central Asia throughout the rest of the known world.

Pottery discovered at a site called Yuan-Shan, in modern-day Taiwan, dates to about 8000BC and had woven Hemp cord pressed into it during the drying stage, which could have either been for decoration or a way of labelling that Cannabis/Hemp seeds or oil was stored inside.

Perhaps both.

The oldest textile made from Hemp discovered so far is a piece of cloth from Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq/Iran — dating to the same period, about 8000BC.

Cannabis originated in the mountains of modern-day Tibet and northern India and was spread throughout modern-day Iran, China, Japan, Taiwan and southern Siberia by ancient settlers and farmers over several thousand years.

The Scythian, nomadic warriors who lived on the steppes of Eurasia starting around 900BC, played an important role in spreading Cannabis throughout modern-day Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Their word for it, Kanab, is also widely considered the origin of the word, Cannabis.

The earliest use of cannabis in what is now China, Japan and Taiwan, was more as a textile, and became what we know as Cannabis Sativa.

The earliest use of cannabis in what is now India, Iran and southern Siberia, was more as a drug, and became what we know as Cannabis Indica.

Today we know both types produce THC and CBD and due to the fact there was only cross-breeding in the black market for nearly a century, it’s mostly hybrids in North America.

• There are actually three types of Cannabis when you add the little-known Ruderalis to the list.

Shen Nong — Sativa

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Some of the earliest written references to Cannabis involve the mythical Emperor Shen Nong, who is said to have lived around 2700BC and is considered the father of Chinese medicine.

Legends say he sampled 365 herbs — including cannabis — to test their effects as a way of teaching people to be self-sufficient. (He is also said to have died from eating a plant that made his intestines rupture before he could take an antidote).

Shen Nong — which means divine farmer — is credited with creating Chinese agriculture by inventing the ox yoke, the plow and the axe, as well as irrigation and the storage of seeds. He is also said to have discovered tea — which he named cha — after leaves from a tree blew into a pot of boiling water, producing a pleasant smell.

Drinking it gave him a warm feeling that also felt as though spirits were exploring his body, so he chose the character cha, which means to examine or investigate.

There’s no physical evidence of Shen Nong’s existence and whether he was an actual person is a matter of debate as the legend also says he was conceived when his mother inhaled the vapour of a dragon and was born with a transparent stomach, allowing him to see the effects of eating herbs.

Our knowledge of Shen Nong comes from writings that date to around 50BC that were based on oral tradition. These were eventually compiled into the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (some 2000 years after Shen Nong is said to have lived), which translates roughly to: The Divine Farmer's Book of Herbs.

It says seeds from the Cannabis plant — which was called Ma or DaMa — are good for gaining weight and improving blood flow and energy.

But eating too much, Shen Nong warned, “may make one behold ghosts and frenetically run about.”

Cannabis was still mainly used as a textile and food source but burial cairns found in modern-day western China that date to around 2500BC had ash residue that tested positive for THC.

This would be what we know today as Cannabis Sativa.

Lord Shiva — Indica

One of the earliest written stories we have about Cannabis comes from the Vedas, scripture from ancient India which refer to it as one of the five sacred plants.

The Vedas are dated between 2000BC and 1400BC and there are two stories on the origins of how Cannabis came into use, both linked to the god Shiva.

One is that after getting into an argument with his family one day, he went off by himself, wandering on a mountain until falling asleep under a leafy plant. When he woke up, he ate some of the leaves and felt rejuvenated and peaceful, so it became one of his favourite snacks.

Another says that Shiva was poisoned when fellow gods Brahma and Vishnu churned an ocean of milk trying to create a potion of immortality and it was drinking Bhang — made from drops of the milk that spilled as they took it away, mixed with Cannabis — that saved him.

Cannabis was called by its Sanskrit name, Ganja, which is still widely used today.

Along with using Cannabis as a textile, ancient Hindus would rub flowering buds between their hands then scrape the residue and roll it into a ball, called Charas.

Those were eaten, or boiled in milk with herbs and spices to make Bhang,

Ancient people wouldn’t have known about the need for decarboxylation — using heat to activate the THC, CBD and other cannabinoids — so the effects would have seemed magical to many who drank it, and it was thought to bring them closer to the divine realm.

Consumption of bhang continues today, especially as part of Maha Shivaratri and Holi, both spring festivals.

This is one of the earliest examples of Cannabis being used as a drug and would be what we know today as Cannabis Indica.

Where the word Cannabis comes from

The origins of the word Cannabis date to around 900BC with the Scythians — nomadic warriors from an area that today would extend from eastern Iran to southern Siberia.

They used Cannabis as a textile and also as part of a cleansing ritual after funerals.

A teepee-like structure was set up and Cannabis seeds, buds and leaves were thrown on hot stones. The smoke and vapour was inhaled, by some accounts as a way of communing with the spirit world.

Its use would have expanded as they discovered its anti-anxiety and mood enhancing properties.

“They anoint and wash their heads; as for their bodies, they set up three poles leaning together to a point and cover these over with woollen mats; then, in the place so enclosed to the best of their power, they make a pit in the centre beneath the poles and the mats and throw red-hot stones into it… The Scythians then take the seed of this hemp and, creeping under the mats, they throw it on the red-hot stones; and, being so thrown, it smoulders and sends forth so much steam that no Greek vapour-bath could surpass it. The Scythians howl in their joy at the vapour-bath. This serves them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.” — Herodotus

Scythians introduced Cannabis to the ancient Greeks, which is where our word for it comes from.

The Scythian word was Kanab (which may have come from the Assyrian word Qunub) and the ancient Greeks borrowed that. They would add ‘IS’ to the end of words for things that weren’t Greek, giving us Kannabis.

Then came the Latin word, Cannabis, which we still use today.

The English word, Hemp, has the same roots:

English comes from Germanic dialects that can be traced to Latin and Greek, however its early speakers pronounced the C/K sound as an H and the B as a P, so Kanab became Hanap, then Hanaep and eventually Hemp.

Cannabis and Hemp technically mean the same thing in two languages, but today Hemp generally refers to the textile and Cannabis to the drug.

The term Marijuana — which comes from Mexican Spanish — was popularized in Canada and the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s as a pejorative connecting it to immigrants.

And it’s called Ganja in Jamaica as indentured workers brought to the Carribbean by the British in the mid-1800s brought the name with them and it stayed.

The earliest written usage of Cannabis Sativa in reference to getting high was by English herbalist William Turner in his 1548 work, The Names of Herbes.

Sativa is a Latin word that means ‘farmed’ or ‘cultivated’.

In 1753 it was officially given the name Cannabis Sativa L., by botanist Carl Linnaeus, who created the modern system of naming organisms.

Then in 1785, evolutionary biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck decided the Cannabis plant found in India was different enough — and used to make Hashish — that it should have its own name, so he ascribed it Cannabis Indica L. (which means Cannabis from India, also known as Indian Hemp).

With this, we officially had two types of Cannabis — Sativa and Indica — but the debate over whether they really are two separate plants, or two variations of the same one, continues.

The origins of Hashish

The actual origins of Hashish are as hazy as its sagacious smoke.

One of the earliest written uses of the word Hashish — which is Arabic for dried grass — discovered so far comes from a pamphlet found in Egypt dated 1123AD. It was used as a slur, accusing Nizari Muslims of being “Hashish-eaters,” which would be the equivalent of calling someone a stoner today.

This could also be seen as some of the earliest evidence of Cannabis being used as a recreational drug.

Hashish is mentioned in the classic Arabian tale, One Thousand and One Nights, which dates to the 11th century, and records from the 10th century show scholars debated its use.

Stories were also spread that followers of Hassan ibn al-Sabbah — leader of the Nizari Muslims in what today would be northern Iran — used Hashish to help them get into the proper mindset to commit murder. They were called Hashishins, which got conflated and mistranslated through several centuries and languages, eventually leading to the modern term: assassin.

Hashish possibly evolved from Charas, likely starting when Cannabis was brought by the Scythians into what is today Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

It would have been used as a textile, but the Scythian penchant for Cannabis could have led to exploration of consumption methods.

Charas — made by rubbing flowering buds between the hands and scraping the resin into a ball — had been consumed for thousands of years, so ancient people would have known about trichomes.

But as any good stoner knows, Cannabis has to be decarboxylated to really be effective.

Dried resin, called kief (which comes from the Arabic word for pleasure), would have been pressed together, much like with Charas, and the climate of what today is Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon would have been hot enough for decarboxylation to happen, at least partially.

That means early Hashish would have been more potent than Charas, which could be why it was given a new, Arabic name.

Still today, Lebanon, Morocco and Afghanistan are known for making the best Hash.

Hashish was also mainly consumed as an edible for the first several hundred years. It wasn’t until the 1400s that explorers brought smoking to Eurasia from North and South America, along with tobacco.

The first laws against Hashish were made in the 1300s. Ibn Taymiyyah issued a Fatwa, likening it to wine, with the punishment being 80 lashes.

Another Arabian Emir, Soudon Sheikhouni of Joneima, outlawed its use in 1370. That punishment was having all your teeth pulled and your crops burned but people still consumed it.

By the 1700s, laws against Hashish had spread throughout the Islamic world.