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Cannabis History: How One Plant Spread Through the World
By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe - Staff Writer October 17, 2014 Health – Live Science
The other plant is Cannabis sativa L.
(The L was included in the name in
honour of the botanist Carl Linnaeus.)
This subspecies is known as hemp; it is
a no psychoactive form of cannabis, and
is used in manufacturing products such
as oil, cloth and fuel.
A second psychoactive species of the
plant, Cannabis Indica, was identified
by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste
Lamarck, and a third, uncommon one,
Cannabis ruderalis, was named in 1924
by Russian botanist D.E. Janischevisky.
From the sites where prehistoric hunters and
gatherers lived, to ancient China and Viking
ships, cannabis has been used across the
world for ages, and a new report presents the
drug's colourful history.
In the report, author Barney Warf describes
how cannabis use originated thousands of
years ago in Asia, and has since found its way
to many regions of the world, eventually
spreading to the Americas and the United
States.
"For the most part, it was widely used for
medicine and spiritual purposes," during pre-
modern times, said Warf, a professor of
geography at the University of Kansas in
Lawrence.
For example, the Vikings and medieval
Germans used cannabis for relieving pain
during childbirth and for toothaches, he said.
"The idea that this is an evil drug is a very
recent construction," and the fact that it is
illegal is a "historical anomaly," Warf said.
Marijuana has been legal in many regions of
the world for most of its history.
Where did pot come from?
It is important to distinguish between the two
familiar subspecies of the cannabis plant,
Warf said. Cannabis sativa, known as
marijuana, has psychoactive properties.
Cannabis plants are believed to have
evolved on the steppes of Central Asia,
specifically in the regions that are now
Mongolia and southern Siberia, according to
Warf. The history of cannabis use goes back
as far as 12,000 years, which places the plant
among humanity's oldest cultivated crops,
according to information in the book
"Marihuana: The First Twelve Thousand
Years" (Springer, 1980).
"It likely flourished in the nutrient-rich dump
sites of prehistoric hunters and gatherers,"
Warf wrote in his study.
Burned cannabis seeds have also been found
in kurgan burial mounds in Siberia dating
back to 3,000 B.C., and some of the tombs of
noble people buried in Xinjiang region of
China and Siberia around 2500 B.C. have
included large quantities of mummified
psychoactive marijuana.
Both hemp and psychoactive marijuana were
used widely in ancient China, Warf wrote.
The first record of the drug's medicinal use
dates to 4000 B.C. The herb was used, for
instance, as an anaesthetic during surgery, and
stories say it was even used by the Chinese
Emperor Shen Nung in 2737 B.C. (However,
whether Shen Nung was a real or a mythical
figure has been debated, as the first emperor
of a unified China was born much later than
the supposed Shen Nung.)