We defy you to read this all the way through and come away with any remaining stigma against cannabis. It might also make you mad — as it does us — to realize that this known, natural and ancient medicine was taken out of legal circulation for the last 90 years of U.S. history, mainly because it was perceived as a threat to big industry.

Cannabis cultivation goes back some 12,000 years, making it one of humanity’s oldest crops. It’s believed to have first grown wild in Central Asia, (now Mongolia and Siberia). Humans quickly figured out that drying it, smoking it, wearing it and weaving it was a really good idea, so they began to cultivate crops.

In pre-modern times cannabis was regularly used as a medicine and for spiritual purposes. In fact, it’s only in recent years that cannabis has been demonized as a harmful, even dangerous drug (e.g., see the 1936 Reefer Madness entry in the Timeline below), rather than viewed as a wellness product.

Take A Look At This

triangle-rt
HEMP HANDY

01_-5000-3000-bce_yangshao

The economy of China’s oldest known Neolithic culture revolves around cannabis. Remains found around the Yellow River valley show that the Yangshao people wore hemp clothes, wove hemp fibers and produced hemp pottery.

triangle-lt
FOUND BY THE MOUND

01a_mesoamerica

Pre-Columbian tribes throughout Mesoamerica (an area reaching from central Mexico down through much of modern-day Central America) use hemp to make clothing, fishing nets, sandals, baskets, rope and mats. Archaeological finds from another pre-Columbian people known as the Mound Builders, who lived in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions of North America between 3000 BCE and the 16th century, show evidence of the cannabis plant being used for textiles, as medicine and in rituals.

triangle-rt
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

02_2900_bce_fu_hsi

Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi, credited with bringing civilization to China, references cannabis as a medicine, extolling its yin and yang properties. Most clothing at this time was also made from hemp.

triangle-lt
HIGH COURT

03a-2737_bce-shennung-b

Chinese Emperor Shen Neng is said to use cannabis in the treatment of constipation, gout, rheumatism, malaria, absent-mindedness and poor memory. (We find the last two hilarious.)

triangle-rt
THE BAKING DEAD

03_2500_bce_burial_tombs

Burial tombs in China and Siberia show evidence of mummified psychoactive cannabis.

triangle-lt
HIGH-ROGLYPHS

03b_bce2000_papyrus

Medicinal plants depicted on scrolls in Ancient Egypt include cannabis.

triangle-rt
MJ MILKSHAKE

04_2000-1000-bce-_bhang

Bhang, a drink of ancient India made of cannabis, milk and spices, is used as an anesthetic and to speed up a slow metabolism.

triangle-lt
HIGH PRIESTS

05_1450_bce_exodus

The Book of Exodus (from the Torah) mentions a holy anointing oil used in the ordination of high priests made from kaneh-bosem — believed by religious scholars to be cannabis mixed with myrrh, cinnamon, cassia and olive oil. The Old Testament also references cannabis as a bartering material and incense.

triangle-rt
WISE WOMAN WEARS WEED

Seshat, the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge and writing, is depicted on a temple in Luxor wearing what some historians say is a cannabis-leaf headdress. (Looks like it to us.)

triangle-lt
AGE-OLD REMEDY

06a_1213-bce_

More than 3,000 years after he died, cannabis pollen is found on the mummy of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. The Egyptians use the plant for inflammation, enemas, to help the uterus during childbirth and to treat glaucoma (a medical breakthrough revived in 1971).

triangle-rt
ROYALLY SUPERB HERB

06b_950bce_sheba

Historians speculate that the biblical Queen of Sheba delivered cannabis to King Solomon in addition to gold and spices.

triangle-lt
THE ORIGINAL ZORO

An ancient Persian religious text said to be written by Zoroaster, founder of one of the world’s oldest religions, records medicinal use of cannabis.

triangle-rt
AYURVEDIC MEDIC

06d_600_aruyvedic

Indian medicine calls for cannabis to sharpen the mind, reduce fevers and treat insomnia. It is also believed to relieve dysentery and leprosy.

triangle-lt
ICE MAIDEN’S VISIONS

07_-500-bce_altai_princess

The mummified and tattooed remains of the Altai Princess — also known as the Siberian Ice Maiden — a 20-something-year-old woman who died of metastatic breast cancer 2,500 years ago, was found buried with cannabis, which she likely took to alleviate her pain. Burial clues suggest she may also have been a shaman; if so, her elevated status might have resulted from her cannabis use, since an altered state was believed to facilitate communication with the spirit world.

triangle-rt
SMILE LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

08_-50-bce_diodorus_siculus

According to Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian-Greek historian, Egyptian women use cannabis to ease sorrow and lift their spirits.

triangle-lt
CHINESE SECRETS

08a_1_pen-tsao-ching

Chinese text known as the Pen Ts’ao Ching (The Herbal) references cannabis for the treatment of over 100 ailments.

triangle-rt
HOLY SMOKES!

09_-30-ad_jesus_healing

More than 1,400 years after cannabis-based anointing oil is cited in the Book of Exodus, Jesus is believed to use cannabis oil on his disciples and to cure the sick, including those suffering from “demonic possession,” better known today as epilepsy (for which cannabis is currently being explored as a treatment). “There can be little doubt about a role for cannabis in Judaic religion,” according to Carl P. Ruck, a professor of classical mythology at Boston University, who notes that cannabis residue found in containers from Judea and Egypt indicate it was widely used throughout Christianity’s earliest days. The herb is also used as incense at religious gatherings.

triangle-lt
SEXUAL HEALING

02_70-ad_dioscorides01

Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist who traveled throughout the Roman Empire with Nero’s army, lists medical cannabis in his book, De Materia Medica, recognized as the precursor to all modern medical pharmacopoeias. He also reports that cannabis is used to suppress sexual longing. (Our take on this is they must have had to get really, really stoned for this to work. In small doses, cannabis is a known aphrodisiac.)

triangle-rt
OLD FARTS

02b_2ndc_mother1

Galen of Pergamon, a Greek physician famous throughout the Roman Empire, prescribes medical cannabis to relieve pain and flatulence (farting). The Egyptians of the era are a bit more ambitious, deploying cannabis in the treatment of tumors. They also used a cannabis-infused pessary (vaginal suppository) to aid childbirth and uterine pain. (Products such as this are on the market again today. See Foria.)

triangle-lt
VISIONARY SURGEON

10_2nd_century_huatuo

The famous Chinese surgeon Hua Tuo, recognized as “many hundreds of years ahead of his time in medical knowledge and practice” and the first person in China to use anesthesia during surgery, relies on a “cannabis boil powder” dissolved in wine as an anesthetic during intestinal resections, organ grafts and chest incisions. (Not so sure how the organ grafts went for him, but he sure was ahead of his time.)

triangle-rt
HIGH SEAS

10a_5th_anglo

Cannabis reaches Britain’s shores during the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

triangle-lt
KISS KISS BHANG BHANG

05_7th_century_bhang

Indian tantric sex practices incorporate cannabis, calling for a mixture of the leaves, buds and stems to be mixed with milk, water and spices to create an aphrodisiac known as bhang. (This is still available today on the streets of India and will knock your socks off. We know. We tried it.)

triangle-rt
1,001 APHRODISIAC NIGHTS

12_9th_century_persia

One Thousand and One Nights, the tales told over 1,001 nights by the legendary Arabic queen, Scheherazade, in order to keep herself alive, describes hashish’s intoxicating and aphrodisiac properties.

triangle-lt
PERSIAN POT POTION

11_9th_century_1001_nights

Persians mix the juice of cannabis seeds with herbs to treat migraines.

triangle-rt

INVASIVE WEED

12a_9th_viking

Seeds dating to this era have also been discovered in the remains of Viking ships.

triangle-lt
YE OLDE BOOB BALM

13_11th_century_herbarium

The Old English Herbarium calls for cannabis mixed with fat to be applied to painful, swollen breasts.

triangle-rt
ABBEY ASCENSION

 

14_12th_century_hildegardIn an era when few women wrote much of anything, Hildegard von Bingen, a brilliant Benedictine abbess in what is now Germany, regularly corresponds with the Pope. Known as Saint Hildegard, she also writes plays and music, and produces major works covering everything from theology to medicine. In Physica, she addresses the medical benefits of cannabis, recommending it for headaches and as a poultice to treat wounds. (If her self-reported visions are anything to go by, it seems likely she partook of her own medicine.)

triangle-lt
MEDIEVAL MAMAS

15_1480_europe_caesarean_

Medieval midwives use hemp as an aphrodisiac and analgesic. German midwives advise that following a Caesarean section, mothers are to be wrapped with “a plaster made of three eggs, hemp cloth and Armenian earth.” (Which turns out to have made a type of cast. Ingenious.)

triangle-rt
A NEW LEAF

15a-1538_new-herball

William Turner, a naturalist and the first English botanist, extolls the importance of medicinal hemp in his book New Herball.

triangle-lt
VIVA ESPAÑA

15b_1545_spanish

The Spanish introduce cannabis to their New World colonies, though it’s possible African slaves familiar with its medicinal and intoxicant components used it there previous to this time. Earlier explorers reported seeing it growing wild throughout North America and noted the use of hemp by indigenous populations. (See 3000 BCE for prehistory evidence of cannabis use throughout the Americas.)

triangle-rt
NATURALIST NOUSE

15c_1578_-nouse

Li Shizhen, considered China’s greatest naturalist, details the antibiotic and antiemetic effects of cannabis.

triangle-lt
TO TOKE OR NOT TO TOKE

16_1600s_shakespeare

According to a 2015 study, scientists detect traces of cannabis on smoking pipes excavated from the garden of William Shakespeare, suggesting the Bard of Avon may not have limited himself to tobacco.

triangle-rt
VIRGINIA PLAIN

16a_1611_jamestown

Jamestown settlers plant hemp in North America, where it is grown alongside tobacco and cultivated for its fiber. Hemp — used for rope, sails and clothing — is a major export throughout the colonial period.

triangle-lt
MONEY MANDATE

16b_1619_virgina

The Virginia Assembly passes legislation requiring every farmer to grow hemp.

triangle-rt
SWEET MELANCHOLIA

16c_1621_melancholia

English clergyman and scholar Robert Burton recommends cannabis for depression in his book The Anatomy of Melancholy.

triangle-lt
MOUNT VERNON DAZE

17new_1745-1775_mt_vernon

George Washington’s diaries detail his 30-year cultivation of cannabis at Mount Vernon, his Virginia plantation. Entries also reference a strain high in psychoactive compounds.

triangle-rt
POT POULTICE

17a_1764_poultice

The New English Dispensatory, published in London, recommends applying boiled hemp roots to the skin to reduce inflammation.

triangle-lt
STONER SCRIPTS

18_1799_napolean_alexandria

In addition to their discovery of the Rosetta Stone near Alexandria, Napoleon’s troops bring cannabis back to France from Egypt.

triangle-rt
HOT FOR HEMP

18a_1800_800px-psm_v54_d031_spreading_hemp_in_kentucky

Hemp plantations flourish in Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York and California.

triangle-lt
A ROYAL PAIN

10_1840s_queen_vic

Queen Victoria is said to rely on cannabis to relieve menstrual cramps. Reports suggest she also takes it to counter morning sickness and as an obstetrical anesthetic. (Coming from someone who popped out 9 kids, we reckon she knew what she was talking about.) Her personal physician writes extensively on the plant’s benefits for a wide range of ailments, including pain relief, insomnia, muscle spasms and epilepsy.

triangle-rt
THE CANNABIS CHRONICLES

20_1841_william_brooke_oshaughnessy_1

After nearly a decade in India, where he studied the use of Cannabis sativa in Ayurvedic and Persian medicine, Irish physician William Brooke O’Shaughnessy conducts clinical trials of the plant as medicine. Conditions treated include rheumatism, cholera, tetanus, rabies and convulsions.

triangle-lt
HAREM HIJINKS

11_1846_martineau

Harriet Martineau — an English writer, feminist, abolitionist, social reformer and sociologist whose descendants include Kate Middleton — travels to the Middle East. In her memoir, Eastern Life Present and Past, she recounts an experience of enjoying cannabis in a harem: “The poor Jewesses were obliged to decline joining us; for it happened to be Saturday: they must not smoke on the Sabbath. They were naturally much pitied: and some of the young wives did what was possible for them. Drawing in a long breath of smoke, they puffed it forth in the faces of the Jewesses, who opened mouth and nostrils eagerly to receive it. Thus was the Sabbath observed, to shouts of laughter.”

triangle-rt
HIGHLAND CONTRACTIONS

21b_1851_scotland

The Monthly Journal of Medical Science of Edinburgh notes that cannabis has a “remarkable power of increasing the force of uterine contraction during labour.”

triangle-lt
TOKE TOME

21a_1851_pharma

Cannabis makes its debut in the 3rd edition of the United States Pharmacopoeia, an annually published compendium of drug information, where it remains for nearly a century.

triangle-rt
CANNABIS KUDOS

11z_dispensatory

The plant achieves official medical recognition as a childbirth aid when it is included in the Dispensatory of the United States as a method of inducing contractions.

triangle-lt
WEED FOR A WEEK

21e_1860_gonorrhea

An Ohio state commissioner proclaims that a weeklong dose of cannabis mixed with milk and sugar cures gonorrhea. (Although the afflicted probably finished the week with gonorrhea, the duration was undoubtedly made more tolerable.)

triangle-rt
HEAVENLY HASHISH

12_1860s_1870s_alcott

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, writes works depicting cannabis use. A story entitled “Perilous Play” ends with the line, “Heaven bless hashish, if its dreams end like this!” (Her prose suggests she may have enjoyed its effects herself.)

triangle-lt
HOW DO YOU SPELL RELIEF?

22a_1889_the_lancet_

An article in The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, recommends cannabis to counter the symptoms of opiate withdrawal.

triangle-rt
KING COTTON

22bnew_1890s-black_cotton_farming_family

By the end of the 19th century, cotton has largely replaced hemp as a major cash crop in the U.S. southern states.

triangle-lt
RUNNING ON HEMP-T

23_1908_ford-t

Henry Ford designs his first Model-T to run on hemp gasoline, and sections of the chassis are constructed from a plastic-like hemp product whose impact-strength is reputed to be greater than that of steel.

triangle-rt
MARIJUANA MENACE

23a_1910_mexican-immigrants

The beginning of the Mexican Revolution sees an influx of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. The newcomers introduce the recreational use of cannabis, which they call “marijuana,” into American society. Fear and prejudice run rampant, with anti-drug crusaders railing against the nation’s “foreign” element and decrying the “Marijuana Menace.”

triangle-lt
HOME GROWN

With its pharmaceutical supply of cannabis from India threatened by the outbreak World War I, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declares that the nation must become self-sufficient. By 1918 American farms are growing 60,000 pounds of high-quality cannabis.

triangle-rt

PROHIBITION PREVIEW

23c_1915-1927-prohibition

Anti-drug proponents initiate a crackdown on the non-medical use of the plant and 10 states pass laws prohibiting marijuana, a word widely used by anti-cannabis campaigners to harness anti-immigrant fervor. None of the legislation makes a distinction between marijuana  (psychoactive) and hemp (industrial crop, non-psychoactive).

triangle-lt
DRY TIMES

23d_1919_prohibition

The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Prohibition) bans the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol. Cannabis becomes an attractive alternative.

triangle-rt

GOOD WHITE FOLKS

24_1927_mexican_family

The New York Times runs an article July 6 under the headline “Mexican Family Go Insane: Five Said To Have Been Stricken by Eating Marihuana.” Fears grow that “good white folks will be corrupted by the habit.”