Ancient history

Biologists generally agree that the cannabis plant first grew somewhere in the Himalayas. Evidence of the smoking of cannabis can be found as far back as the Neolithic age, where charred hemp seeds were found in a ritual brazier at a burial site in present day Romania. The most famous users of cannabis were the ancient Hindus. It was called ganjika in Sanskrit (ganja in modern Indian languages). According to legend, Shiva, the destroyer of evil in the Hindu trinity, told his disciples to revere the plant. The ancient drug soma, mentioned in the Vedas as a sacred intoxicating hallucinogen, was sometimes associated with cannabis. It has also been identified with a number of other plants and a mushroom, Amanita muscaria, so the involvement of cannabis cannot be definitively quantified.

The citizens of the Persian Empire would partake in the ceremonial burning of massive cannabis bonfires, directly exposing themselves and neighboring tribes to the billowing fumes, oftentimes for over 24 hours.

Cannabis was also well known to the Assyrians, who discovered it from the Aryans. Using it in some religious ceremonies, they called it qunubu, or the drug for sadness. Also introduced by the Aryans, the Scythians as well as the Thracians/Dacians used it, whose shamans (the kapnobatai - "those who walk on smoke/clouds") burned cannabis flowers in order to induce trances. The cult of Dionysus, which is believed to have originated in Thrace, is also believed to have inhaled cannabis smoke.

Religious and spiritual use

Cannabis has an ancient history of ritual use and is found in pharmacological cults around the world. Hemp seeds discovered by archaeologists at Pazyryk suggest early ceremonial practices by the Scythians occurred during the 5th to 2nd century BCE, confirming previous historical reports by Herodotus. Some historians and etymologists have claimed that cannabis was used as a religious sacrament by ancient Jews, early Christians and Muslims of the Sufi order. In India, it has been used by wandering spiritual sadhus for centuries, and in modern times the Rastafari movement has embraced it. Elders of the modern religious movement known as the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church consider cannabis to be the eucharist, claiming it as an oral tradition from Ethiopia dating back to the time of Christ. Like the Rastafari, some modern Gnostic Christian sects have asserted that Cannabis is the Tree of Life. Other organized religions founded in the past century that treat cannabis as a sacrament are the THC Ministry, the Way of Infinite Harmony, Cantheism, the Cannabis Assembly and the Church of cognizance. Many individuals also consider their use of cannabis to be spiritual regardless of organized religion.

 

Recent history

Under the name cannabis, 19th century medical practitioners sold the drug, (usually as a tincture) popularizing the word amongst English-speakers. It was rumoured to have been used to treat Queen Victoria's menstrual pains as her personal physician, Sir John Russell Reynolds, was a staunch supporter of the benefits of cannabis. Cannabis was also openly available from shops in the US. By the end of the 19th century, its medicinal use began to fall as other drugs like aspirin took over its use as a pain reliever.

In 1894, the Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission commissioned by the UK Secretary of State and the government of India, was instrumental in the decision not to criminalize the drug in those countries. The Report, which at over 500 pages remains one of the most complete collections of information on cannabis in existence, shows the stark contrast in the way that the American and British governments went about deciding whether to criminalize cannabis.

The name marijuana (Mexican Spanish marihuana, mariguana) is associated almost exclusively with the plant's psychoactive use. The term is now well known in English largely due to the efforts of American drug prohibitionists during the 1920s and 1930s, which deliberately used a Mexican name for cannabis in order to turn the populace against the idea that it should be legal. (See 1937 Marihuana Tax Act)

Although cannabis has been used for its psychoactive effects since ancient times, it first became well known in the United States during the jazz music scene of the late 1920s and 1930s. Louis Armstrong became a prominent and life-long devotee. It was popular in the blues scene as well, and eventually became a prominent part of 1960s counterculture.