A Little Cannabis History
Disclaimer: These views of the author are no substitute for medical advice. Always take care of your health and talk to a doctor. Avoid smoking cannabis, especially if you are under the age of 25, have a heart condition, or are pregnant.
This is part of a related series. Here is what you will learn:
Ultimate Guide to Remote Work, and a Bit of Cannabis
Ever wonder where weed came from? It all starts in Central Asia.
The origin story of cannabis is worth telling. Cannabis was first used to get high thousands of years ago in Central Asia and the subcontinent of India has since found its way around the world. Wild cannabis has been growing for millions of years, evolved to handle harsh climates and ecological conditions.
Feral, outdoor cannabis grows strong than many of today’s wimpy, commercially-grown indoor cousins do.
Most people don’t know, but Tennessee has a reputation for its wild cannabis popping up in the country. Somehow, someone let loose cannabis seeds and the plant kept going. The story is probably more complicated than that, but what we know is that cannabis can grow almost anywhere. In Canada, with its cold winters and short daylight seasons, we have Ruderalis varieties that don’t need sunlight to grow — a tough plant.
Cannabis is a flowering plant in the Cannabaceae plant family. All cannabis comes from a single, original family-line of cannabis plants — the first, first OG landrace strain. The three names given to classify cannabis varieties include Sativa, Indica, and Ruderalis. You should know there’s some dispute about whether these three are actually different, all agree they are subspecies to a common ancestor.
You might notice that I refer to ‘cannabis’ as I might ‘hemp’. The modern difference between the two is the amount of THC found in hemp compared to cannabis. For our purposes, hemp and cannabis are treated the same, depending on their use.
You might have even heard that Indica is a body high and relaxing while Sativa is energizing and a head high. Well, it’s not that simple.
Listen up: we’ve hybridized so many seeds for high THC in pesticide-laden indoor rooms over almost half a century in an illegal market, that now almost all the cannabis strains — Indica or Sativa — have the same genetics. It’s like how a brother looks like his Mom and how his sister Sarah looks like her Great-grandfather. Genetics, no matter how much you isolate traits, will have surprised depending on where it is grown. In other words, don’t worry about separating Indica from Sativa, it’ doesn’t matter.
Cannabis first appeared 28-million years ago in Central Asia on the Altai Mountains on the Tibetan plateau around Qinghai Lake. Back about 160,000 years ago this entire region was held in a deep ice age, causing the plant to remain trapped on a plateau.
The mountain weathers are harsh on any plant. Daytime temperatures on those mountains today and in around local deserts are hot with freezing nighttime temperatures. These plants had to bend against strong winds, snow, sleet and heavy rainfall and at higher altitudes freezing and thawing conditions. The thin soils on slopes don’t hold much water, so only the strongest drought-resistant plants survived.
To go beyond surviving to thriving, cannabis plants grew into short, stout, broad-leaf plants, a pungent smell to ward off predators. Two of the most notable cannabinoids that we know are THC and CBD, found throughout the plant leaves and stems but mostly in the buds. Without question, the climate, weather, soil, and even when cannabis is cut affect the genetics, potency of cannabinoids (e.g., THC, CBD), and terpenes.
Cannabis grew well in these open grassy and treeless hills along the Altai Mountains on the Tibetan plateau. Some very old strains can be tied to where they were first found. Hindu Kush and Afghani, for example, are two forefather varieties known as powerful sedatives that come from this region of the world.
History tells us a lot about ourselves and our world. Some say cannabis could have been our first agricultural crop. Even if this is not true — that goes to wheat and chickpeas — our earliest ancestors did harvest cannabis to eat the seeds.
The honor of the first agriculture food crops goes to wheat, barley, peas, lentils, chickpeas, and flax, which around 9,500 BCE had spread across the Middle-East, northern Egypt, and all along the Mediterranean coasts. However, the seasonal harvesting of cannabis seeds can be traced to 9,000 BCE. People were roaming place to place and also beginning to settle down and farm.
But even if cannabis wasn’t our first agricultural crop, our connection to cannabis does date back 10,000 years. For perspective, at that time there were still a few woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers around. Cannabis still had a long time before humans who would enjoy it for its psychoactive influences.
Our earliest ancestors
Our story begins 600 million years ago with “tunicates,” our tiny sea-creatures that ruled the world’s oceans, living mostly in shallow water. Even this primitive ancestor had an endocannabinoid system — a system in our body that releases pain-relieving and mood-boosting molecules when we feel stressed — giving us that feel-good buzz.
All mammals, reptiles, and fish have an endocannabinoid system (ECS for short), including humans. Interestingly, insects, nematodes, hydra, fungi (mushrooms), and plants lack cannabinoid receptors. The reason why plants and even fungi produce cannabinoids but lack the receptors for them is a complete mystery.
This plant holds a lot of surprises, right?
The chemicals our body releases through the endocannabinoid system help with endurance, giving us a ‘runner’s high.’ Anthropology professor Daniel Lieberman believes our ability to sustain highly-intense endurance is our evolutionary advantage. “Hairless, clawless, and largely weaponless ancient humans used the unlikely combination of sweatiness and relentlessness to gain the upper hand over their faster, stronger, generally more dangerous animal prey.”It’s true, we humans were relentless predators when hunting, often able to outrun grazing herd animals.
The scientists who first discovered the endocannabinoid system in the 1960s coined the word “anandamide” to describe a chemical our body releases that feels euphoric. We are even born to enjoy anandamides as babies. Mother’s milk is abundant with “anandamide,” essential for a baby’s pre- and post-birth brain development.
Anandamide triggers newborns with an instinct to suckle in the first month. These signals heighten a baby’s sense of smell, boost appetite, and help the body recover from stresses, all tied back to our body’s immune system. If a child does not have enough, this could impair the child’s development and long-term health.
Our earliest ancestors lived difficult lives. Hunting and gathering required strength, endurance, and flexibility. Famine, microbial infection, traumatic encounters with predators, fight or flight are how our ancestors survived.
So if you had to pick one food to survive on — say on a desert island — we recommend hemp seeds. Hemp seeds contain more protein and omega 3 and 6 than flax or chia seeds. A 100-grams portion of hemp seeds supplies 586 calories and contains 32 grams of protein. About 73 percent of the energy comes mainly from polyunsaturated fatty acids, linoleic, oleic, and alpha-linolenic acids. When eaten in its shells, hemp seeds are rich in (20%) B vitamins, manganese (362%), phosphorus (236%), magnesium (197%), zinc (104%), and iron (61%). Hemp oil has an unusually high 3:1 Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio. Hemp seeds contain all 20 essential amino acids, including the 9 essential amino acids our body can’t make on its own.
Unlike the potato, with cannabis you have clothing, fuel, and medicine. The roots have been used for medicine for centuries. Shamans would crush the stems and roots to make medicinal teas. We know today that these roots carry trace amounts of chemicals that have anticancer effects. So it’s not a wonder that even before the dawn of agriculture, 10,000 to 5,000 years ago our prehistoric ancestors harvested wild cannabis. People followed the wildlife and plants across the seasons, moving to hunt in the summers to fish in the winters and to know which types of plants to eat.
Cannabis the wonder drug
Scientists have identified several key cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids that give cannabis its special distinctness. Cannabis offers at least 85 cannabinoids and 27 terpenes, fragrant oils that produce drug-like effects. Some researchers believe there are over 104 different cannabinoids. We know that each different combination of cannabinoids (and terpenes) mixes up the compounds enough to give us a different experience each time.
Terpenes! Remember that word.
Terpenes are molecules inside of every plant, which ends up having medical benefits at very low concentrations. Like wine, cannabis comes in various flavours. For example, some cannabis smell (or taste) like citrus, berry, cheese, and pine. Cannabis has a very wide variety of terpene expressions even within the same plant family-line itself.
Like other strong-smelling plants and flowers, cannabis developed terpenes to repel predators and welcome pollinators. Since the leaves of a plant tend to fall prey to insects, the cannabis plant uses terpenes such as limonene or pinene as natural anti-insecticides. The bitter taste of the lower parts of the plant prevent grazing animals from munching on them. There are different terpene levels from the bottom to the top of the plant that will change throughout the life of the cannabis plant.
Flavonoids are similar to terpenes. Instead of smell and taste think of flavonoids as colours to fight threats and to attract pollinators. Anthocyanin is a flavonoid known for giving a deep purple and pastel lavender to Purple Kush and Purple Urkle. Although few cannabis plants express purple, blue, or red hues, those that do are better protected against the Sun’s ultraviolet rays.
Of the 100 or more bioactive compounds already found in cannabis, including cannabinoids and terpenes, flavonoids account for about 20 compounds in cannabis. “Cannaflavins,” for example, are a group of flavonoids only found in cannabis. When eaten in pill form, this flavonoid is a potent anti-inflammatory that can be up to 30 times more powerful than aspirin. Other flavonoids found in cannabis — like Orientin, Quercetin, Silymarin, and Kaempferol — also show anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antioxidant, and anti-cancer properties.
You might know the anti-inflammatory properties found in cannabis align more easily to our body than opioids for delivering pain-relief. Chemicals found abundant in cannabis can control our appetite, emotions, memory, sense of pain, and helps us feel more relaxed and less stressed.
The two most abundant cannabinoids in cannabis are THC and CBD. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is responsible for the psychoactive effects that give cannabis its euphoric “high.” Both THC and CBD interact with our endocannabinoid system (ECS) to cause different effects. In fact, CBD reduces the psychoactive potency of THC. CBD has anxiolytic properties, meaning it helps fight off anxiety.
The smell of the terpene “linalool” also had a friend in humans. It’s a smell in many flowers and spices, including lavender and coriander. Linalool smells like citronella candles or a rose garden. Shamans took the complex floral smell of linalool as a sign of its medicinal qualities, grounding down its leaves, stems, and roots to use.
Cannabis plants rich in linalool grew all along the Irtysh River, an area that stretched from the west of Mongolia to the Siberian lowlands, and to the south to Lake Baika and in the Taklamakan desert north of Tibet. These lavender-smelling plants would spread across the southern Himalayan foothills, where it was cool, dry, and full of sunlight.
With all this potential waiting, someone had to smoke cannabis. Who that Original Original Original Gangster was, we’ll never know?
The early Chinese got high too
Most of our earliest evidence of cannabis use is for food, medicines, and textiles for clothes and ropes. But who was the first to get high on purpose using cannabis? At this point, the farthest back we can go to find proof that people smoked cannabis to get high is about 3,000 years.
A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found pieces of charred wood that tested positive for THC in a tomb in western China dating back to 500 BCE. Even though other older sites exist that show cannabis used in rituals, no other showed proof of people deliberately growing cannabis with high-THC to get high. Not until this discovery in China.
It looks like mourners crowded into the tomb, lit up cannabis on top of a wooden altar, and settled in for a comfy, smoky couch-lock moment. Researchers recovered a musical instrument called an “angular harp,” leading archeologist Yimin Yang to reason that getting high and playing harp must have been held in high regard as a last rite at that time.
Although these tombs western China look remote to us today, they sat at the nexus of our world’s ancient Silk Road. At one time the Silk Road was the single most important land trading route that connected Europe to China and all of Asia. The Silk Road was a key way that commodities and customs moved throughout the ancient world.
“The exchange routes of the early Silk Road functioned more like the spokes of a wagon wheel than a long-distance road, placing Central Asia at the heart of the ancient world,” said Robert Spengler, laboratory director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and a co-author at this Chinese discovery.
The Silk Road to the world
The horse-riding warriors living in Central Asia were the first to consume cannabis and helped to spread cannabis. (Oh yeah, this is also where horses first appeared in the world.) Over the years' migrants and traders moving across the Pamir Plateau would travel between Central Asia and China to southwestern Asia.
The difficulty of movement between valleys in the isolated mountains contributed to creating an incredibly diverse people everywhere along the mountains. These people represented a mix of communities but were often united by similar languages, shared cultural and religious beliefs. Even though nearby communities had surprising amounts of differences in language, dialects, traditions, costumes, cuisine and economic systems, they all had one thing in common: they knew how to survive this harsh land and climates.
Cannabis was known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered its psychoactive properties through the Aryans. The Aryans were a diverse people who followed common religious ceremonies, and used cannabis. The Aryans also introduced cannabis to the Scythians, Thracians and Dacians, a people’s living along the Russian Steppes stretching from China to the edge of Europe. Many of these horse-riding peoples have long been known for coming down from the mountains to raid and pillage farms and settlements.
Cannabis arrived in the Middle East between 2000 BCE and 1400 BCE probably with the help of the Scythians. No one group did more to spread cannabis across Europe and the Arabian Peninsula than the nomadic Scythians. The Scythians were well known as skilled horse-riding archers during Rome’s Third Gothic War in 512 BCE. The Scythians shamans burned cannabis to induce trances before and after battle.
Even the Greek historian Herodotus reported around 450 BCE that Scythians burned cannabis in special braziers to “bathe” in its fumes to great pleasure. He wrote: They make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around them woolen felts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as possible: inside the booth a dish is placed upon the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones, and then add some hemp-seed … immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy.
The Greek historian Herodotus heard the word ‘cannabis’ somewhere and became the first person in the West to record the word “kannabis” in 440 BCE. It is also thought the tale of the Amazon warrior women was originally a Scythian story but also included using cannabis.
A cultural tradition of using cannabis was spreading all along the Silk Road routes. Shamans would share cannabis’s secret as a sedating drug that helps ease difficult childbirths, help inflammation for arthritic joints, and with insomnia. Healers noticed early on that cannabis had anti-microbial properties. It didn’t take long for travelers from Central Asia to spread cannabis to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the northernmost parts of India and Tajikistan.
Traders along the Silk Road would continue to share the seeds with travelers who saw its uses. Some found cannabis helped treat vaginal and uterine problems, a medicine that goes back 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. More than 3,000 years ago, Egyptians prescribed cannabis for glaucoma and inflammation as well as for “cooling the uterus.” People in what is today the Czech Republic used cannabis as an anesthetic medicine around 4,000 BCE, and among Pazyryk tribes in Siberia for food and in ceremonies. There were even cannabis seeds found in the volcanic ashes of Pompeii.
People along these routes transported seeds and crops throughout Eurasia — such as chickpeas and wheat — shaping forever what we eat today. But the more people traveled, the more hybridized cannabis strains became — and in most cases the higher the THC potency.
Europe, here comes cannabis
There is plenty of archaeological evidence showing cannabis use across Central Asia. Scythian burial sites dating to 800–400 BCE in Ukraine show remains of charred hemp seed. The most famous dates back to 700 and 500 BCE to a tomb of powerfully built man, about 45 years old, with a large bowl and leather basket containing 789 grams of cannabis.
In 1993, the mummified body of a Siberian woman was unearthed from under thick ice in the Altai Mountains of Eastern Russia, after being buried for 2,500 years. Under the cold conditions, her tattoos remained beautiful and well-preserved. Dubbed an “Ice Princess” because of the expensive clothes she wore and the fine jewelry and craft of her coffin. The items she was buried with gave us a wealth of clues about her life.
One mystery was the cause of death. She was in her early 20s. That is until a team of Russian scientists used MRI scans to diagnose the ice princess had breast cancer. This may explain why a pouch of cannabis was buried with her.
Elizabeth Wayland Barber thinks cannabis’s rapid westward move “in the first millennium BCE. was the spread of the habit of pot-smoking from somewhere in south-central Asia.” She wrote, “the linguistic evidence strongly supports this theory, both as to time and direction of spread and as to cause.”
By the 8th century BCE, the Scythians had introduced cannabis to most of today’s Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. Many of the hemp-related rituals of eastern Europe, such as the throwing of hemp seeds into a fire to commemorate the dead, have roots in Scythian tradition. Germanic tribes brought the drug into Germany, and marijuana went from there to Britain during the 5th century with the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
“For the most part, it was widely used for medicine and spiritual purposes,” during pre-modern times, said Barney 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. “Cannabis seeds have also been found in the remains of Viking ships dating to the mid-ninth century.”
Moving south and east
The warmer regions also induced newer strains. These newer varieties had a distinctly fruity, citrus odour. Citrus fruits, by the way, also first appeared here in southern India, Indonesia, Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. These regions produced pure Sativa landraces like Aceh, Luang Prabang, and Thai landrace strains. The warmer temperatures and higher humidity transformed this once short shrub into a tall, over a six-foot plant.
Agriculture, to be sure, isn’t a normal human activity. Hunting and gathering are. It takes time to plant a seed and tend to it before harvesting. The first record of farmed hemp comes from Oki Islands, near Japan. Evidence dating back to 8000 BCE shows images of hemp-made canvas in temples. Here we see cannabis used to mostly produce a strong, durable textile fiber.
Japan might be the first recorded place to farm cannabis for food and clothing, dating back 10,000 to 300 BCE; but China definitely has the longest continuous history with cannabis — over 6000 years. The earliest written reference to cannabis as a remedy for treating aches, pains, and infections comes from the Chinese, in 2727 BCE, under the Chinese emperor Shen Nung. Around 150 BCE, the Chinese were the first to use hemp to make paper. Today you can read the oldest documents written on hemp paper from a 2nd and 3rd century AD Buddhist text found in Japan.
India’s influence
For centuries India’s sadhus — those dreadlocked, ash-smeared faces, renouncers of all worldly possessions who survive on yoga, meditation, and the goodwill of others — smoked ganja to, well, see god.
There’s a lot of words for cannabis. “Ganja” comes from Sanskrit, one of the world’s oldest written languages — thousands of years old. Some believe the word “soma” found in ancient texts refers to “cannabis,” but most scholars disagree. Hindu shamans, who used cannabis in religious ceremonies, called it “qunubu” (meaning “way to produce smoke”), a probable origin to the word “cannabis.”
Shiva — the Hindu god of transformation — is well-known for enjoying bhang (a cannabis drink), which is also a recognized part of Ayurvedic medicine to treat fevers, digestive problems, immune support, and even a low sex drive. “Bhanga” is another word for cannabis in India. It’s mentioned in several Indian texts dating to before 1000 CE.
Bhang itself is made in a mortar and pestle, by grinding cannabis into a paste. Bhang lassi is an intensely flavorful milkshake-like beverage with spices and an earthy taste of cannabis. With both spiritual and medicinal traditions well-documented, bhang offers some of the earliest accounts of cannabis use in the ancient world. It’s a tradition that continues today in parts of India to use bhang to celebrate festivals in honor of Shiva.
Moving to north Africa and middle-east
Migrants would spread cannabis seeds across the Middle-East and then into Africa, Southeast Asia, and eventually the New World. Between 2,000 and 500 years ago, trading of all sorts grew all along the African and Asian coasts.
Jews living in Palestine in the 2nd century, for example, were familiar with growing hemp, as referenced in the Mishna (Kil’ayim 2:5). An anointing oil mentioned in Exodus is, according to some translation, said to contain cannabis. In another example, Sufis followers of Islam have used cannabis in spiritual ceremonies in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Turkey, and Pakistan, since the 13th century CE. Pakistan’s Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar is renowned for the widespread use of cannabis at the shrine’s annual Urs celebration and on Thursdays during dhamaal, meditative dance sessions.
However, the first known prohibition of cannabis didn’t happen until 1253 AD, when Egyptian authorities started targeting a group of hashish-smoking Sufis for arrest who planted a cannabis garden in a public park in the middle of Cairo. Those caught growing cannabis faced the death penalty and those who ate hash had their teeth yanked out — ouch.
But thankfully, of all the cultures written about in this article, the North Africans and people in the Middle-East are among today’s biggest cannabis-loving countries. For example, Morocco has been known for centuries as a premier hashish-making and consuming culture in the world. Today, Morocco is designated by the United Nations as the world’s leading producer of cannabis. Much of Morocco’s hashish is produced in and around the Rif Mountains, where Berber villages have been cultivating cannabis and dry-sifting it into potent concentrates using traditional methods for generations. The Berbers are also credited with creating mahjong, a 1,000-year-old recipe for hashish-infused edibles.
Over the next few centuries, cannabis would migrate to regions of the world traveling through Africa, reaching South America in the 19th century and being carried northward, eventually reaching North America.
Arabian traders would spread cannabis from North Africa and the Middle East to southern Africa, where today’s popular African landraces grow (Swazi Gold, Kilimanjaro, and Durban Poison). Tribes in the region used these strains for their energizing effects. Sooner or later, cannabis would move to the Caribbean, as Spaniards and the Portuguese naval ships would colonize the New World.
Old to the New World
The Old World of Europe has a long history with hemp. France and Spain have cultivated hemp for at least 700 years. Russia has been a major grower of hemp for hundreds of years. In late medieval Germany and Italy, hemp filled pies and tortes and was added to soups. However, hemp was mainly grown as a fiber for ropes and plugs on ships, including those used by Christopher Columbus.
Growing hemp in the Portuguese New World began around the 14th century. To recover after the Restoration of Independence in 1640 and ship battles with Spain, King John IV, seeing a weakened Portuguese naval fleet, demanded farmers to produce more hemp from its colonies in Brazil. The Spaniards spread hemp in their colonies as well, starting in Chile in 1545. Several attempts were made in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, but only in Chile did the crop find success.
Mexico, however, did give the world “Acapulco Gold,” a potent Sativa landrace strain known for its energizing and uplifting effects. Jamaica gave us “Lamb’s Bread” and “King’s Bread,” reported for its mellowing and euphoric cerebral effects. South and Central America offer “Panama Red” and “Columbian Gold,” pure Sativas said to energize and uplift the mood without the paranoia or anxiety.
Coming to America
Cannabis did not originally come from North America. The recent discovery of cannabis pollen at a Viking settlement in L’Anse aux Meadows, in northern Newfoundland, sparked questions. This site dates back to the early 1300s and that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the 1970s. Where did this pollen come from?
The remnants from L’Anse aux Meadows most likely came from Newfoundland’s indigenous peoples, the “Beothuk.” There is no evidence cannabis was ever used in North America by the Vikings. But how the Beothuk people first came into contact with cannabis is the real mystery.
It’s possible birds flying across the Atlantic brought cannabis seeds with them stuck to their feet. This is how most trees and plants spread across the world to distant islands and regions in the east to west directions, then north to south.
When it comes to the US, you might think of California as the home of unique strains but none of these strains would exist there if not for the Mexican migrants, Hippie Trail small farmers, Filipinos, Rastafari Jamaicans, out-of-work lumberjacks, and motorcycle gangs along the California coast. In fact, so successful that about 79 percent of all cannabis sold in the United States — legal and illegal — comes from California.
The earliest record of cannabis as a medicine in the United States happened in the 19th century. Irish physician William Brooke O’Shaughnessy recommended cannabis for muscle spasms, menstrual cramps, and rheumatism, as well as convulsions of tetanus, rabies, and epilepsy.
Prohibition of cannabis first began along the US borders with Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1911. Mexican migrants were demonized for using “marijuana,” even if it had been called “cannabis” throughout the 19th century. “Mexicans were frequently blamed for smoking marijuana, property crimes, seducing children and engaging in murderous sprees.”
The plant was first outlawed in Utah in 1915, and by 1931 it was illegal in 29 states. In 1930, Harry Aslinger became the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who turned to making cannabis illegal in all states shortly after the end of alcohol Prohibition. In 1972, the Nixon administration placed cannabis as a Schedule I, defined as “drugs with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
Cannabis with high-THC was being re-introduced to Europe and North America in the 1960s and 1970s through the Hippie Trail, by smugglers stretched across Asia to the Middle East to Europe to Britain and North America. US soldiers returning home from the Vietnam War carried the cannabis seeds in their pockets.
Hybrids Everywhere
Cat Piss, Green Crack, and Buddy Fucker were introduced in the late 20th century in California and Hawaii, each strain now a popular name with a unique flavor. The sad truth is we also lost mother strains, some of the original landrace plants — a loss of unique pharmacological properties to hybridized plants that replaced them. Varieties were re-named and many of the original genetics bred out.
For example Chocolate Thai, a flavorful pure Sativa landrace that grew in Thailand. Immigrants first brought Chocolate Thai to California in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Chocolate Thai has a medium-to-dark brown color and a unique chocolate-coffee aroma. This legendary landrace strain is renowned for its potent high.
It’s hard to grow Chocolate Thai indoors, though. The tropical climate is too hard to replicate in other climates. Chocolate Thai is a low-yield, long growth cycle, and slow flowering plant. Chocolate Thai always produces male flowers and seeds and is difficult to clone and grow. But impatient growers wanted them to grow plants faster and more potent. So growers crossbred varieties. Chocolate Thai now no longer exists in its original form. Although several seeds are sold under the name, all have been crossbred.
After years of prohibition, hybridization, and consumer demands, many of the original plant genetics have disappeared. Most cannabis breeders selectively bred for higher THC. According to a study by the University of Mississippi, today’s strains are three times more potent with THC than in the 1990s. Some carefully selected and grown varieties could yield as much as 34 percent THC.
In the previously illegal cannabis market, it makes sense for growers to want to produce high-potency strains so consumers get more THC — and growers get paid more. But this attention to having THC has led to the exclusion of all other varieties.
As a result of having an almost exclusive demand for plants with high-THC, over the past 40 years almost every black market cannabis plant was selectively bred to grow for high THC and had high-myrcene. This also now extends to high-CBD, which also has high myrcene varieties.
Medical cannabis is a thing
The recent revival of high-CBD cannabis is expanding its potential. Medical cannabis first came to public attention in a 2013 CNN documentary called ‘Weed.’ The piece, reported by Dr. Sanjay Gupta featured a little girl in Colorado named “Charlotte” who had a rare life-threatening form of epilepsy called ‘Dravet syndrome.’
At age five, poor Charlotte suffered up to 300 seizures a week. Through online research, Charlotte’s desperate parents heard of treating Dravet with CBD. It still is controversial to offer medical cannabis to a child, but when they gave Charlotte oil extracted from high-CBD cannabis, her seizures stopped almost completely. In honor of her, a high-CBD cannabis strain has been named ‘Charlotte’s Web.’ After Charlotte’s story got out, hundreds of families began to relocate to Colorado. Most families found CBD oil through illegal networks.
Even the U.S. government shows support for cannabis as a medicine. In June 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Epidiolex, a pharmaceutical form of CBD for several severe pediatric seizure disorders. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, CBD appears to reduce seizures by more than 40 percent. It’s the first time the FDA approved a drug from the cannabis plant. The US FDA has even approved dronabinol, nabilone, and nabiximols. Dronabinol and nabilone are cannabinoids used for nausea. Nabiximols treats multiple sclerosis.
We owe so much.
Medical cannabis is what brought us to recreational cannabis. We needed to get past when cannabis was avoided by doctors and patients. These are some of the heroes we should never forget. They fought for us.
Mary Jane “Brownie Mary” Rathbun (December 22, 1922 — April 10, 1999) is the original Mary Jane, which is a code word for cannabis. She baked cannabis-infused brownies as a hospital volunteer at the San Francisco General Hospital to help AIDS patients. Her arrests and voice brought awareness to medical cannabis in California. Today, San Franciso celebrates a holiday on her behalf.
Alice Babette Toklas (April 30, 1877 — March 7, 1967) was an American-born writer living in Paris in the early 20th century. She was a life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein and remained a couple until Stein died in 1946. Their memories are part of LGBT history.
In 1954, Toklas published The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. The most famous recipe, contributed by her friend Brion Gysin, is for “Haschich Fudge.” It’s a tasty mixture of fruit, nuts, spices, and cannabis. This recipe was even mode into a 1968 film, I Love You, starring Peter Sellers. Never underestimate the power of a book’s reference in pop culture.
Dennis Robert Peron (April 8, 1945 — January 27, 2018) was an outspoken American activist and businessman arrested during the 1990s, becoming a pivotal part of the legalization of cannabis in California and (more possibly) in the rest of the United States.
Jack Herer (June 18, 1939 — April 15, 2010) is known as the “Emperor of Hemp”, after writing The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book looking at cancer and cannabis. It was frequently cited as an academic work to decriminalize and legalize cannabis and to expand the use of hemp for industrial use. Herer advocacy led to starting Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP), now a worldwide political movement. Jack Herer also has a strain named after him.
Robert C. Randall (1948–2 June 2001) was the first legal medical cannabis user in the United States since 1937. He documented his accounts in his book, co-written with wife Alice O’Leary: Marijuana Rx. Randall needed cannabis to treat his glaucoma.
The San Marcos Seven were seven demonstrators — Angela Atkins, Jody Dodd, Daniel Rodrigues Scales, Bill O’Rourke, Joe Gaddy, Jeffrey Stefanoff, and Joe Ptak — arrested following protests at the San Marcos, Texas, police station in March 1991. They were convicted of misdemeanor possession of cannabis. Three (Gaddy, Stefanoff, and Ptak) pleaded not guilty, but two received prison sentences and one a probation. The remaining four who pleaded guilty were sentenced to do community work.
In 1993, while in prison, Gaddy and Stefanoff went on hunger strikes. A protest camp supporting the San Marcos Seven grew outside the Hays County Law Enforcement Center in June 1993.
This is only a short-list. We should remember the patients, the families and friends of those involved in medical cannabis. We must remember our roots.
We’re now entering a modern era with weed. Today there’s a trend in marketing to present cannabis as medical-specific or event-specific. It’s helpful to think of what you want to use cannabis for — such as “good for morning,” “good for muscles” or “good for sleep” — which is helping to humanize and de-stigmatize cannabis use and to present products as more approachable.
So that’s what we know about the earliest known stories of cannabis. Count yourself lucky, it’s a history few will ever hear or read about. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.
Here is an actual list of medical problems recognized by the US State for Massachusetts, Act for the Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana:
- ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis)
- Cancer
- Crohn’s Disease
- Glaucoma
- Hepatitis C
- HIV/AIDS
- Multiple Sclerosis)
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Anorexia
- Anxiety
- Back Pain
- Chronic Insomnia
- Chronic Pain
- Depression
- RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis)
- Ulcerative Colitis
If you’ve ever been diagnosed with any of these conditions and have had limited success with traditional treatments, cannabis might help you to manage your pain and boost your mood.
Now that you (hopefully) feel a little more comfortable with the history of cannabis, it’s time we start talking about the “nuts and bolts” of cannabis. Actually, it might be time to talk to your doctor. Maybe it’s time to ask them what they think about medical cannabis.
Yes, certainly, we have come a long way. We still have more road to travel, since many places still have yet to legalize cannabis. In the experience of the writer, I know even with legalization that many people have to learn about cannabis. The history of cannabis is far deeper than what I have written here. My hope is that this inspires you to dig deeper, to find and share your own stories.
About the author
Milton Wani lives in Montreal and works at Consult & Grow, a cannabis consulting firm with expertise in GMP-compliant building design and completing the licensing application process for those who want to enter the cannabis industry. Milton has a masters in public administration and business degree. He wrote a bestseller Retail Cannabis Handbook and is currently completing his second book, High Performance: Cannabis and Health.
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Milton works with Coverleaf, a cannabis clinic based in Montreal. If you live in Canada, you can access medical cannabis through a video-conference with a doctor. If you have questions about medical cannabis, contact Coverleaf at info@coverleaf.ca.
Milton can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/miltonwani/