8 surprising cannabis facts you probably didn’t know

Cannabis in all its forms is more common and accessible in this country than ever before. Still, it often seems that much of its history is mysteriously unknown. Health studies are still very new, and at times it seems like the plant had no relevant history prior to 1900.

With cannabis growing in abundance, it may be time to discover the lesser-known facts about this iconic plant to understand what makes cannabis so interesting and important. Here are eight fun facts you might not have known about this elusive organism we call weed.

Cannabis is thousands of years old

It is easy to assume that marijuana cultivation began relatively recently. However, the first documented use of cannabis dates back thousands of years before the United States even had an idea.

Photo by Olena Ruban / Getty Images

RELATED: You Probably Didn’t Know that cannabis was domesticated that long ago

Cannabis was mentioned in the sacred Hindu texts known as. are known The Vedas, estimated around 2000 to 1400 BC Manufactured Woven hemp fibers were even made at. discovered a 10,000 year old tomb in Taiwan.

Pharmacies are becoming more popular than Starbucks and McDonalds

As marijuana becomes legal for recreational use, its retail popularity skyrockets. In recent years, marijuana dispensaries have become more plentiful than Starbucks and even McDonalds in some areas.

“For example, in Denver and Portland, Oregon, Starbucks marijuana retailers are nearly double the number,” she said MJBizDaily. Some states have caps on the number of licensed pharmacies, but this statistic is certainly instructive.

Photo by TR via Unsplash

Beer and weed are cousins

If you’ve ever smelled a particularly hoppy craft beer and thought you smelled weed, your nose wasn’t far. As it turns out, beer hops (or humulus) belong to the same family of flowering plants as cannabis.

RELATED: Cannabis and Hops: A Family Reunion After 27 Million Years

“You have confirmed that Humulus and cannabis were very closely related and belonged to a single family, the Cannabinaceae ”, so Popular science. The two plant species can inspire two very different end products, but sometimes the smell is practically indistinguishable.

Photo by Sarah Pender / Getty Images

Weed affects men and women differently

It may sound strange, but it’s new Studies have concluded that marijuana affects women differently than men. The overall THC experience can be different for men and women, from the amount needed to get high to a tolerance level. The main reason cannabis works differently in women than men is because of its interaction with female estrogen production.

‘Canvas’ comes from ‘cannabis’

Canvases have been the landing site for some of the most important works of art over time. Historically, canvases were often made with the help of cannabis. In fact, cannabis was so important to canvas production that it inspired the name.

“The word ‘canvas’ is related to the word ‘cannabis’. Historically, canvases were made from hemp ”, so Vokabeln.com.

The birth of e-commerce was a marijuana sale

There is big debate about who exactly started e-commerce. Still, there was a day in the early 1970s that is often viewed as the first internet transaction involving marijuana.

Photo from rupixen.com via Unsplash

“In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University conducted a commercial transaction with their colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” wrote John Markoff in his 2005 novel What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. “Before Amazon, before eBay, the groundbreaking act of e-commerce was a drug business.”

Marijuana affects your heart

Although marijuana is often considered “safe” today, it has some potential health side effects that are not always known. One potential health side effect of marijuana is adding extra stress to your cardiovascular system.

Marijuana can affect your heart in a number of ways, “including increasing your resting heart rate, widening your blood vessels, and making your heart pump stronger,” so said Harvard Medical School.

Hemp is woven into American history

Hemp has a long history in the United States. Not only did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both have it on their property, but the famous Mayflower had hemp sails and ropes.

The first two drafts of the United States Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper. The icing on the cake of this hemp-woven story lies in the nation’s first manufactured symbol.

Photo by wildpixel / Getty Images

Betsy Ross’s first American flag was made from industrial hemp.

“Many of the very first American flags were made from hemp fabric. So there is a real connection to our country’s history and the important rule that industrial hemp has played in our country’s agriculture, ”said Jared Polis, D-Colo MP, who drafted an amendment to the Farm Bill that addressed research Industrial hemp allowed in states where it is legal.

From the Mayflower to the American flag and its first online purchase, cannabis has been hiding in public. The plant has spun a sometimes hidden but always interesting path over time.