A brief history of getting high

Today, people associate the cannabis plant with Mexico, and with good reason. For decades, narcos smuggled their crops to the United States and Europe. Along with California, Mexico is known for producing some of the best cannabis strains in the world. The states of Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Durango — where the largest farms are located — all have climates perfect for growing cannabis: year-round temperatures between 22 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit, with cool, long nights and low humidity.

But long before cannabis was introduced to the New World—and became synonymous with it—it was cultivated in the lands of Central Asia. Initially, however, the cannabis or hemp plant was not grown for its leaves, but for its stems, which could be made into a strong and durable rope.

Excavations show that people have been using hemp rope since the Neolithic period. The earliest evidence of cannabis burning dates back to 3,500 BC. BC and are attributed to the kurgans of present-day Romania. This Proto-Indo-European tribe likely burned the plant as part of their rituals and ceremonies, a practice that spread east as its practitioners migrated. Why the kurgans burned cannabis is difficult to say. They may have accidentally discovered the psychoactive properties of the plant, only to find that the smoke enhances their connection to all things spiritual.

The earliest evidence of cannabis smoking comes from the Pamir Mountains of western China. There, in 2,500-year-old tombs, researchers discovered THC residues in the burners of charred pipes likely used for funeral rites. (Similar whistles from the 12th century BC were later found in Ethiopia and left there by another culture). These devices would have produced a much stronger high compared to pyres. However, given their placement in a crypt, it is safe to say that they were only used ceremonially and not for recreational purposes.

Some scholars have argued that cannabis was an important ingredient in soma, a ritual drink prepared by the Vedic Indo-Aryans of northern India. Described in the Rigveda, a collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns, soma was made by extracting sap from an unknown plant. Soma has been reported to induce a feeling of euphoria when taken in small doses. In higher doses, it caused hallucinations and lost track of time. All three effects have been attributed to cannabis, but even if cannabis wasn’t the main ingredient in Soma, it may have been combined with psychedelics like psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms.

Aside from rope, cannabis was most commonly processed into medicines. When the Indian Hindus contracted a “hot breath of the gods,” healers treated the disease with cannabis smoke. The logic behind this treatment wasn’t exactly scientific; Cannabis was said to have healing powers because it was the favorite food of supreme deity Shiva, also known as the “Lord of Bhang”. In reality, cannabis could have reduced fevers because its active ingredient, THC, acts on the hypothalamus to lower body temperature.

The Assyrians used cannabis in a religious rather than medicinal context and burned it in their temples to release an aroma said to appease their gods. Local sources refer to cannabis as qunubu, which provides a possible origin for the word we use today. The Assyrian Empire was founded in the 21st century B.C. Founded and lasted until the 7th century. During that time, it engulfed much of what is now Iraq, as well as parts of Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey. Through trade and conquest, Assyrian traditions spread to neighboring societies, including the Dacians, Thracians and Scythians, the latter of which were among the first to use cannabis in a distinctly recreational way.

The Scythians were part of a Central Asian nomadic culture that lived from 900 to about 200 BC. flourished. Originating from northern Siberia, Scythian tribes settled as far as the shores of the Black Sea, where they came into contact with the ancient Greeks. When Scythians died, their friends and family burned hemp in tents to commemorate their deaths. While the Kurgans and Assyrians burned their cannabis outdoors or in large indoor spaces, the Scythians basically burned themselves at every funeral. At least that is the picture we are given by the historian Herodotus, who wrote: “The Scythians enjoy [the hemp smoke] so much so that they would howl with delight.” So the main purpose of this ritual was to drive away the dead, it was clearly also to entertain the living.

Herodotus did not live among the Scythians, but excavations seem to have confirmed his observations. Archaeologists have discovered fossilized hemp seeds in a Scythian camp in western Mongolia, dating from between the 5th and 2nd centuries BC. were left behind.

The Romans also used cannabis for their own pleasure, but not in the way one might expect. Like many societies of classical antiquity, they harvested the plant for its seeds rather than its leaves, which were discarded as waste. The seeds were ground and used in medicine. Fried, they were served as a delicacy at lavish dinner parties. Roman cooks mentioned cannabis seeds in the same breath as caviar and cake. Galen, the famous Roman physician, wrote that they were consumed “to whet the appetite for drinking.” Today it is the seeds – not the leaves – that are considered useless. However, the Romans believed that they too had some intoxicating properties; Galen adds that the seeds, if consumed in large quantities, would send people into a “warm and poisonous vapor.”

Cannabis was so widely used in classical antiquity that people raised the same questions and concerns we are discussing today. The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides, for example, wrote that the plant’s spherical seeds “decrease sexual potency if consumed in excess.” Today’s cannabis users are all too aware of the connection, even if they don’t eat seeds. As stated by Healthline, cannabis “is commonly associated with side effects that can affect sexual health, including erectile dysfunction.” Similar to some psychedelics, the general feeling of euphoria produced by cannabis can counteract or override the reception of sexual stimuli.

Let’s jump ahead a little. Recreational smoking became particularly popular after the 9th century AD. In the Middle East and West Asia, followers of Islam adopted the habit for the simple but somewhat amusing reason that their holy scripture, the Koran, forbade the consumption of alcohol and various other intoxicating substances. Luckily for Muslim stoners, the Koran doesn’t say anything about weed. Of course, they didn’t smoke just any weed, but hashish.

Fast forward again, this time to the 16th century – the century when cannabis came to the New World for the sole purpose of making rope. In fact, Americans only started smoking weed about a hundred years ago, when Mexican immigrants came to the country to seek refuge from the Mexican Revolution. For decades, the US government ignored this harmless, multicultural, and age-old practice. However, that all changed during the Great Depression, when Washington redirected the anger of unemployed workers to their Mexican brethren. After millennia of peaceful consumption, cannabis was suddenly decried as a “bad weed” and in 1937 the US became the first country in the world to criminalize cannabis nationally.

The rest is also history at this point.