Marijuana has a wealthy historical past. California’s legalization of medical marijuana by means of Proposition 215, and the general public debate surrounding it, has introduced a renewed curiosity within the hashish sativa plant from which marijuana is harvested. The rising public acceptance of medicinal marijuana helps to dispel myths about hashish.
Solely lately has marijuana been handled like a harmful drug. Historic cultures appreciated the numerous sensible and medicinal makes use of of hashish. As a meals, as a fiber, and as a medicinal preparation, hashish has an interesting historical past.
The historical past of marijuana use goes again greater than ten thousand years to the place it seems to have originated: in China. Hemp rope imprints on damaged pottery dated at about 10,000 B.C. present one of many earliest recognized makes use of of the plant. Hashish was extensively grown and cultivated in historical China.
The oldest is aware of Neolithic tradition in China made clothes, fishing nets, and ropes from the hemp fibers separated from the stems of Hashish vegetation. The fibers could possibly be spun into yarn or woven into material. Hemp fibers have been used starting within the second or first century B.C. to make the primary paper, which was very sturdy and sturdy.
Hashish seeds have been counted as one of many “5 grains” of historical China, together with barley, rice, wheat, and soybeans. Marijuana seeds have been roasted or used to make meal. Cannabis in Africa seeds may be cooked in porridge. These marijuana seeds remained an necessary a part of the Chinese language weight-reduction plan till they have been changed with greater high quality grains within the tenth Century.
The traditional Chinese language individuals discovered to press marijuana seeds to acquire the oil, which could possibly be used for cooking, lamps, or lubrication. The leftover hashish residue supplied feed for home animals.
Medicinal marijuana was additionally utilized in historical China. China’s oldest recognized pharmacological work described marijuana preparations to deal with circumstances from constipation to malaria. Marijuana therapies included grinding the roots right into a paste for treating ache. Chinese language surgeon Hua To even used the hashish plant for surgical anesthesia in the course of the second century.
The earliest information of the psychoactive results of marijuana are additionally present in China, courting again to round 2000 B.C. This doc, Materia Medica Sutra, notes that the hashish seed “if taken in extra” will permit the person to see spirits. “If taken over a long-term, it makes one talk with spirits and lightens one’s physique.” Later writers, resembling fifth Century Chinese language doctor T’ao Hung Ching, believed that the hallucinatory results of hashish, mixed with ginseng, would permit customers to see into the longer term.