History of Marijuana: Where Did Cannabis Come From?

The history of marijuana is as in-depth as it is interesting. For more than 10,000 years, people have been using the cannabis plant for various purposes from medicinal treatments, to hemp clothing, to seeds for nutrition.

It has only been within the last 100 years or so that the cannabis plant has been looked down upon throughout the world, due mostly to demonization from government propaganda. Read on to learn more about the fascinating history of the cannabis plant.

What's the Earliest History of Marijuana?

Historians note that the first evidence of the use of the cannabis plant in any form dates back to Asia in the year 8,000 BCE. Fossil records indicate that inhabitants of what is now known as the country of Taiwan used hemp cord to make pottery.

Agriculture, as we know it today, is also around 10,000 years old. In his book The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Origin of Human Intelligence, the late scientist Carl Sagan speculated that the cannabis plant could have been the first crop ever to be mass-produced agriculturally.

From circa 6,000 BCE to 2,737 BCE, cannabis oil and seeds were consumed for nutrition in China, and the Chinese also reportedly used hemp to make textiles. The year 2,737 BCE is where we find the first ever records of anyone using the cannabis plant for medicine, by Emperor Shen Neng. In 1,500 BCE, the Chinese kept records of cultivating the cannabis plant.

After this, up until around 800 BCE, the use of 'bhang' can be found in sacred Hindu texts. Bhang means the dried leaves, stems, and seeds of the cannabis plant. Hindus used cannabis as a medicine and also as a sacrament to the god Shiva. Cannabis was considered by Hindus to be one of the earth’s five sacred plants.

The use of hemp rope in Russia has been reported to occur circa 600 BCE. Circa 500 BCE, Scythian tribes were buried with the cannabis plant as part of their rituals for the afterlife. Greeks used cannabis in 200 BCE, and evidence suggests the Chinese used the first hemp paper in 100 BCE.

How Did the History of Marijuana Develop Around the World?

In the year 73, in his encyclopedia Pharmacopoeia, ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides discusses the cannabis plant as medicine. He was the physician for Nero’s army.

In the year 100, the English import hemp rope from the east and make records of its use.

>> What is Synthetic Marijuana?

From the year 100-400, the use of cannabis medicine appears in various texts from the far east. Around the year 570, the French record burying their then queen Arnegunde with hemp cloth. The effects of cannabis are discussed in the Jewish Talmud around the year 600, and Vikings record importing hemp rope to Iceland.

From the year 900 to 1200, the use of hemp and cannabis spreads widely throughout large parts of the Far East, the Middle East, and as far as areas of what is now the United Kingdom. Pipes for smoking hashish have been found in Ethiopia, dating back to the year 1300. The French physician Rabelais wrote about cannabis medicine in his 1532 work Gargantua and Pantagruel. In 1533, King Henry VIII issued fines to farmers that were not growing hemp for the crown.

In the 1600s, the cannabis plant makes its way to the Americas. The colonists begin to cultivate cannabis for hemp in Port Royal, Plymouth, and Virginia. Around 1700, cannabis and hashish become major trade commodities in parts of Asia. Swedish Botanist Carl Linnaeus classified the term cannabis sativa in 1753.

One of the first known prohibitions on cannabis came in the year 1798, when Napoleon caught word that Egyptians consumed hashish and that French soldiers have subsequently done the same. Napoleon then puts an outright ban on the use of hashish.

Despite its prohibition, consuming hashish was popular in France in the early 1800s. Throughout the 1800s, plantations in the US grew mass amounts of hemp for industrial purposes. From 1850 until the early 1900s, cannabis was widely prescribed and accepted as a medicine in the United States.

What is the Modern History of Marijuana?

In 1906, the US passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which enforced into law the labeling of products containing alcohol, cannabis, and opium.

In 1910 during the Mexican revolution, immigrants who used cannabis recreationally brought its use into mainstream US, when up until this point cannabis was seen as mostly medicinal. Due to racist viewpoints on Mexican immigrants, this planted the seed for the US to pass the Harrison Act in 1914, defining recreational marijuana use as a crime—although these laws were rarely enforced.

>> Why Should Cannabis be Legalized?

In 1916, scientists at the USDA created paper made from hemp pulp, noting that the hemp paper was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood,” as referenced in the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer.

Alcohol prohibition was passed in 1919, as the 18th amendment to the United States Constitution. Cannabis was thought of as a safer alternative, which led to an increase in its use by US citizens. Despite this, from 1915–1927 prohibition of recreational cannabis happened in California, Texas, Louisiana, and New York.

Where Does Marijuana's History Leave Us?

In 1936, the propaganda film Reefer Madness is released, causing a chain reaction of 81 years of prohibition of the plant medicine in the US. In 1937, the US passed the Marihuana Tax Act, outlawing its use. In 1937, an author for the publication Popular Mechanics called hemp a "billion dollar cash crop," but the article isn’t published until 1938, after cannabis prohibition.

From the 1940s until the 1960s, cannabis users were highly frowned upon and looked at as degenerates. This perception started to slowly change with the hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1970, the NORML was formed to influence the change of marijuana laws. The laws did not change much, however, until 1996 when the state of California was the first to legalize medical marijuana, and many other states followed in the 2000s. Washington State and Colorado voted to legalize the use of recreational cannabis in the year 2012.