“From more than 1000 years before the time of Christ until 1883 AD, cannabis hemp – indeed marijuana – was our planet’s largest agricultural crop and most important industry for thousands of products and enterprises: most of the earth’s fiber, fabric, lighting oil, paper, incense and medicines, as well as a primary source of essential food oil and protein for humans and animals.” -Jack Herer
Historically, cannabis has been known for its safety and efficacy throughout the globe; the leaves and colas have been used to make medicine for at least 3000 years. Cannabis extracts were among the top three most prescribed medicines in the US from 1842 – 1890s. Its use as a medicine for humans and animals continued through the 1930s. You may recognize the pharmaceutical companies which were producing cannabis extracts during this time, including Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Tildens, Brothers Smith, Squibb, as well as many other American and European companies – and of course, apothecaries.
Cannabis is a truly remarkable species, imbued with the wisdom of adapting and thriving for thousands of years. A member of the most advanced plant family, Cannabaceae, the cannabis plant makes the most efficient use of the sun, grows up to 20 ft in a season, and thrives in all but the least hospitable climates and conditions. Hemp fiber is the strongest, most durable and long-lasting soft fiber “on the planet” and is recorded to have been used to make the first woven fabric from 8000 – 7000 BC.
Globally, and since the age of antiquity, cannabis has been considered sacred. Language codes indicate the prehistoric use of cannabis by Germanic peoples: The word hemp derives from Old English hænep, from Proto-Germanic *hanapiz, from the same Scythian word that cannabis derives from.
Cannabis has served as an entheogen – a chemical substance used in religious or spiritual contexts – dating back to approximately 1500 BC. It has been identified by academics and scholars as a sacred substance used to alter consciousness during ceremonies which inspired many of the rituals and practices we participate in today.
In the temples of Assyria and Babylon, cannabis was used as an incense in religious rituals because “its aroma was pleasing to the Gods”. It was found in the Israelite sanctuary altar at Tel Arad dating to the 8th century BCE of the Kingdom of Judah.
Atharva Veda, estimated to have been written sometime around 2000–1400 BCE, recognizes cannabis as one of the “five sacred plants… which release us from anxiety” and states that a guardian angel resides in its leaves.
In Tantric Buddhism, it is taken to facilitate meditation and plays a valuable role in ceremony. Cannabis is used in three forms, some eaten and others drunk in Indian subcontinent. For at least two millennia, cannabis effects were known in Ancient China, in Taoist circles, and by Chinese shamans in religious ceremony.
Medicinal and spiritual use in Africa is documented as far back as 1881, with whole villages devoted to large-scale cultivation of hemp. The elders of the Rastafari movement consider cannabis to be a eucharist, linking it to an Ethiopian oral tradition from the time of Christ.
In ca. 440 BCE, Herodotus described Scythians using cannabis in steam baths:
“[T]hey make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around them woollen 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. … The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy, and this vapour serves them instead of a water-bath; for they never by any chance wash their bodies with water.” –Histories written by Horodotus
Across cultures and continents, the ancient history of cannabis provides ample evidence that this plant has been cherished for its medicinal and psychoactive properties throughout civilization. Perhaps it is the biological connection we share – our endocannabinoid system evolving specifically to bind with cannabinoid compounds with the goal of maintaining health, balance, and spiritual connection.
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