Historical and cultural aspects of use of cannabis Mari Järvelaid MD PhD Kaunas, 27.11.2015 Cannabis is Europe’s most commonly used illicit drug, 20 million have used it in the last year, 11 million have used it in the last month, 3 million have used it daily or almost daily in the last month. People take cannabis of its pleasurable and rewarding effects. Source: http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/topics/pods/frequent-cannabis-users The plant is believed to have originated in the mountainous regions northwest of the Himalayas. It is a complex plant with about 426 chemical entities, of which more than 60 are cannabinoids. Cannabis as a source of food, chothes ... and medicine vs „high“ for thousands of years • Hemp seed has been documented as a source of food throughout recorded history whether raw, cooked or roasted. • In Japan hemp was the primary material in their clothes, bedding, mats and nets. • Until the 1880s, almost all of the world´s paper was made from hemp, and even today many bank notes are still printed on cannabis paper because of its toughness and durability. Most of the great artwork is painted on canvas, and the first Levi jeans were made from canvas cloth. • In contrast, the use of cannabis for its psychoactive properties has been endemic in India for more than a thousand years. Cannabis use was known by the nomadic tribes of northeastern Asia in Neolithic times (in the practice of shamanism and medicine). The use of cannabis for purposes of healing • 1500 BC - Earliest Written Reference to Medical Marijuana in Chinese Pharmacopeia • The earliest written reference is found in the 15th century BC Chinese Pharmacopeia, the Rh-Ya." • 1213 BC - Egyptians Use Cannabis for Glaucoma, Inflammation, and Enemas • 1000 BC - Bhang, a Drink of Cannabis and Milk, Is Used in India as an Anesthetic • Bhang, a cannabis drink generally mixed with milk, is used as an anesthetic and anti-phlegmatic in India. Cannabis begins to be used in India to treat a wide variety of human maladies. Ca 2900 BC - Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi references cannabis as a medicine Chinese ideogram for marijuana "ma" The Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi (ca. 2900 BC), whom the Chinese credit with bringing civilization to China, reference to Ma, the chinese word for cannabis, noting that cannabis was very popular medicine that possessed both yin and yang." 1 AD - ancient chinese text recommends cannabis for More Than 100 Ailments Robert Deitch. Hemp: American History Revisited: The Plant with a Divided History, 2003. • The Yanghai Tombs, a vast ancient cemetery (54 000 m2) attributed to this culture, have revealed the 2,700-year-old grave of a shaman. Near the head and foot of the shaman lay a large leather basket and wooden bowl filled with 789g of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial conditions. An international team demonstrated that this material contained tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis. The cannabis was presumably employed by this culture as a medicinal or psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. This is the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent. • The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China. The photograph of the tomb, as excavated in situ in 2003. Containers in which 789 g cannabis was stored in tomb. http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/suppl/2008/10/03/ern260.DC1/000275 16-file001.pdf Study site at the Yanghai Tombs with Huoyan Shan mountain range in background (photo EBR). Turpan is principally an agricultural oasis, famed for its grape products – seedless white raisins and wines. It is some 80 metres below sea level, and nearby Aiding Lake, at 154 metres below sea level, is the lowest continental point in the world.” They spoke celtic, they had light hair and blue eyes. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue- eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China. India and cannabis There are legends of how their god Siva brought the marijuana plant down from the Himalayas for their use and enjoyment. In Hindu mythology hemp is a holy plant given to man for the “welfare of mankind.” It is considered to be one of the divine nectars able to give man anything from good health, to long life, to visions of the gods. In another Indian belief is that the “Siddhartha” (the Buddha), used and ate nothing but hemp and its seeds for six years prior to discovering his truths and becoming the Buddha. • Ganja is the Hindi word used for marijuana. • Bhang is a preparation from the female cannabis plant’s leaves and flowers /buds. It is consumed as a beverage in the Indian subcontinent. „Ganja“ • Bhang is also part of many ayurvedic medicinal preparations. • Bhang has been used as an intoxicant for centuries in the Indian sub-continent. Bhang recipe Required ingredients: • - hemp flowers (ganja) • - spices (e.g. cardemom, cinnamon, pepper, ...) • - sugar or honey • - milk or yogurt Optional ingredients • - poison nut (Strychnos nux-vomica = strychnine tree) • - opium (Papaver somniferum) • - thorn apple seeds (Datura metel, hallucinogenic) • - ground nuts (e.g. almonds) • - ghee (clarified butter) Finely chop the hemp flowers and mix with the spices. Dissolve sugar or honey in the milk, then mix in the hemp and the spices. The Chillum is the typical smoking device, a conical pipe traditionally made of burned clay, of sadhus and yogis, who use it in their rituals and meditation in the Himalayas and India. In the 1960s western travelers – „hippies“ journeyed to India and Nepal quickly learned to use it. A chillum is smoked in circle (chilam chakri). Egyptians used cannabis as medicine for glaucoma, inflammation, enemas etc. • Cannabis pollen is found on the mummy of Ramses II (1279–1213 BC). • Prescriptions for cannabis in Ancient Egypt included treatment for the eyes (glaucoma), inflammation, and cooling the uterus, as well as administering enemas. Roman medical text cites cannabis to treat pain and suppress sexual longing AD 40-90, a Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides, a Roman army doctor, who traveled widely on campaigns throughout the Roman empire, studied many plants, gathering his knowledge into a book he titled De Materia Medica (On Medical Matters). It became the most important medical textbook for the next 1500 years. Dioscorides stated that the plant which was used in the making of rope also produced a juice that was used to treat earache and suppress sexual longing. Source: M.Booth Cannabis: A History, 2005; internet AD 1500 Muslim doctors use cannabis Once islam spread to India, muslim doctors used the persian theories to guide their use of cannabis. Their applications tended to stress the late effects, rather than the early ones, so they used it, for instance, as a means of reducing sexuality rather than increasing it. Source: M.Touw "The Religious and Medicinal Uses of Cannabis in China, India, and Tibet," J Psychoactive Drugs, 1981; 13:23-34. Jesus 'healed using cannabis' AD 30 - Jesus uses anointing oil made with cannabis "In the Bible’s New Testament, Jesus... anointed [his disciples] with [a] potent entheogenic [psychoactive substance] oil, sending out the 12 apostles to do the same [around the year 30 AD]...“ Jesus used cannabis: a cannabis-based oil. The ancient recipe for this oil flowering cannabis tops, extracted into olive oil, with a variety of other herbs and spices. 1799 Napoleon's Forces Bring Cannabis from Egypt to France. From Egypt the use of cannabis as a psychoactive drug first spread to Europe and then to the Americas. Napoleon invades 1799 Egypt and his soldiers soon started to use cannabis in this wine-free country. In 1800 Napoleon prohibited the use of cannabis: „The preparation of hashish as a beverage is prohibited throughout Egypt. The doors of those cafes and restaurants where it is supplied are to be walled up, and their proprietors imprisoned for three months.“ As with all the earlier bans, this one was ignored too; French army brought to Europe many colourful tales of hashish and its intoxicating effects. The Club des Hashischins was founded in Paris (Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo etc.) AD 1840 Cannabis becomes mainstream medicine in the West Studies in the 1840s by a French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau found that marijuana suppressed headaches, increased appetites, and aided people to sleep. Jacques-Joseph Moreau Source: American Journal of Psychiatry (accessed Aug. 17, 2011) AD 1850 Cannabis added to US pharmacopeia • By 1850, cannabis had made its way into the United States Pharmacopeia, an official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the counter medicines, which listed marijuana as treatment for numerous afflictions, including: neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding, among others. AD 1800 For the next hundred years from the mid 19th century until 1937 cannabis enjoyed a brief vogue in Western medicine. Following its introduction from Indian folk medicine, first to Britain and then to the rest of Europe and the United States, a variety of different medicinal cannabis products were used.