Cannabis is one of the first crops to be cultivated by mankind and its use is as old as agriculture. It is the only plant that yields both a drug and a fibre and has been used for thousands of years.

It was first used by the ancient Chinese to make rope, cloth, and even paper. A Chinese treatise on pharmacology, alleged to date from 2737 BC, and attributed to the Emperor Shen Nung, contains probably the earliest reference to cannabis and its potential as a medicine, also to its hallucinogenic properties. The Emperor recommended cannabis for malaria, beri-beri, constipation, rheumatic pains, absent-mindedness and female disorders. Another Chinese herbalist, Hoa-Glio, recommended a mixture of hemp resin and wine as an analgesic during surgery.

It was said that Ma-fen (hemp fruit) 'if taken to excess will produce hallucinations [literally 'seeing devils']. If taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one's body'. Other early references come from India in the Atharva Veda, from the second millennium BC, and from tablets from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian King, who lived around 650 BC.

A Taoist priest wrote in the fifth century BC, that cannabis was employed by 'necromancers, in combination with ginseng, to set forward time and reveal future events.' In these early periods, use of cannabis as an hallucinogen was undoubtedly associated with Chinese shamanism, but by the time of European contact 1500 years later, shamanism had fallen into decline, and the use of the plant for inebriation seems to have ceased and had been forgotten. Its value in China then was primarily as a fibre source. There was, however, a continuous record of hemp cultivation in China from Neolithic times.
There is no doubt that the production of hempen fibre represents an early use of cannabis, but perhaps consumption of its edible akenes as food predated the discovery of the useful fibre. These akenes are very nutritious, and it is difficult to imagine that early man, constantly searching for food, would have missed this opportunity. Archaeological finds of hemp akenes in Germany, dated with reservation at 500 BC, indicate the nutritional use of these plant products. From early times to the present, hemp akenes have been used as food in Eastern Europe, and in the United States as a major ingredient of bird food. However, bearing in mind that plant uses normally proceed from the simple to the more complex, one might presume that its use as a fibre first attracted man's attention, but we cannot be certain. Remains of hempen fibres have been found in the earliest archaeological sites of Asiatic civilisation and evidence of fibre in China dating from 4000 BC, as well as hempen rope and thread from Turkestan from 3000 BC. Stone beaters for pounding hemp fibre and impressions of hempen cord bakery into pottery have been found in ancient sites in Taiwan and hempen fabrics have been found in Turkish sites of the late eighth century BC. There is even a questionable specimen of hemp in an Egyptian tomb dated between three and four thousand years ago.

Cannabis arrived in Europe from the north, in classical Greece and Rome it was not cultivated as a fibre plant. Filter for ropes and sails, however, was available to the Romans from Gaul as early as the third century BC. The Roman writer Lucilius mentioned it in 120 BC, Pliny the Elder described the preparation and grades of hempen fibres in the first century AD, and hempen rope was found in a Roman site in England dated AD 140-180. It is not know whether the Vikings used hemp rope, but there is evidence to indicate that the cultivation of hemp existed from the early Anglo-Saxon period to late Saxon and Norman times, from 400 to 1100.

The ancient Greeks used alcohol rather than cannabis as a recreational drug but they traded with people who ate and inhaled cannabis. Consequently some of the references in Homer may be to cannabis, including his reference to the drug which Helen brought to Troy from Egyptian Thebes. Undoubtedly, the Greek traveller Herodotus (circa 500 BC) was referring to cannabis when he wrote about the Scythian warriors, a barbaric tribe from the Caucasus, in 5 BC that they purified themselves in steam baths filled with smoke from burning hemp seeds: -

'They make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined toward one another and stretching around them woollen pelts 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... immediately it smokes and gives out such a vapour that no Greek steam bath can surpass...the Scyths howl with pleasure at these baths.'

Herodotus also described people living on islands who :

'meet together in companies, throw cannabis on a fire, then sit around in a circle; and by inhaling the fruit that has been thrown on, they become intoxicated by the odour, just as the Greeks do by wine; and more fruit is thrown on, the more intoxicated they become, until they rise up and dance and betake themselves to singing.'

Herodotus' claims have recently been born out by archaeological finds of tripods, braziers and hemp seeds in frozen Scythian tombs in central Asia - exactly as he had described. There are also other passage from Pliny, Marco Polo, Abu Mansur Muwaffaq and The Arabian Nights showing that cannabis was cultivated both for its fibre and for its psychoactive properties throughout Asia and the Near East from the earliest known times. The Greeks and the Romans cultivated hemp mainly for medicinal use, although there are indications that they were aware of the psychoactive effects of the drug. Democritus reported that it was occasionally drunk with wine and myrrh to produce visionary states, and in about 200 AD, Galen, referred to its use as a social lubricant at banquets 'to promote hilarity and enjoyment'.

It is not known when cannabis was introduced to Europe, but it must have been very early. As already mentioned, an urn containing cannabis leaves and seeds, unearthed near Berlin, is believed to date from 500 BC. Cloth made from hemp was common in central and southern Europe in the 13th century and remained popular with succeeding generations. Fine Italian linen was made from hemp as well as flax and in many cases the two were mixed in the same material. Europeans had knowledge of the recreational potential of cannabis; Francois Rabelais (1490-1553) gave a full account of what he called 'the herb Pantagruelion'.

While the therapeutic properties were virtually ignored by the Europeans, in India entire systems of medicine were being created. It was in ancient India that this 'gift of the gods' founded excessive use in folk medicine. It was believed to quicken the mind, prolong life, improve judgement, lower fevers, induce sleep, cure dysentery. Because of its psychoactive properties it was more highly valued than medicines. Several systems of Indian medicine acclaimed cannabis; the medical work Sushruta claimed that it cured leprosy, the Bharaprakasha of about AD 1600 described it as antiphlegmatic, digestive, bile affecting, pungent, and astringent, prescribing it to stimulate the appetite, improve digestion, and better the voice. It was prescribed for many different ailments, including the control of dandruff and relief of headache, mania, insomnia, venereal disease, whooping cough, earaches, and tuberculosis.

In India, tradition maintains that the gods sent man the hemp plant so that he might attain delight, courage, and has heightened sexual desires. When nectar or Amrita dropped down from heaven, cannabis sprouted from it. Another story tells how, when the gods, helped by demons, churned the milk ocean to obtain amrita, one of the resulting nectars was cannabis. It was consecrated to Shiva and was [the goddess] Indra's favourite drink. After the churning of the ocean, demons attempted to gain control of amrita, but the gods were able to prevent this seizure, giving cannabis the name Vijaya ('victory') to commemorate their success. Ever since, this plant of the gods has been held in India to bestow supernatural powers on its users.

Even before Europeans moved into Africa, the fame of cannabis as a medicine spread with the plant. It was valued in treating dysentery, malaria, anthrax and fevers and even today the Hottentots and Mfengu claim its efficacy in treating snakebites. The Suto women in South Africa smoke the plant before giving birth and they also grind up the seeds with bread or mealie pap, giving it to children when they are weaned. In 1916, a report noted that South African mine workers were encouraged to smoke because it made them work harder and they showed very little fatigue. The practice was to allow three smokes a day – similar to coffee breaks. Further north, the lives of some tribes in the Congo centred on cannabis, which is cultivated and smoked regularly and whenever the tribe travelled, they took the Riamba (a huge calabash pipe more than a yard in diameter) with them. Any man committing a misdeed is condemned to smoke until he passes out.

Cannabis occupies fourth place in worldwide popularity among the mind-affecting drugs – preceded only by caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. Attempts have been made to suppress the trade in all these drugs, and in 1378, Emir Soudom Sheikhouni of Joneima in Arabia is said to have ordered all cannabis plants in his territory to be destroyed and that anyone caught eating cannabis would have their teeth pulled out; fifteen years after his decree the use of cannabis increased. No successful efforts to suppress the use of the drug has ever existed and in 1969 the UN estimated that there were between 200,000,000 and 250,000,000 cannabis users in the world.

The relationship between cannabis and man has now probably existed for over ten thousand years as a five-purpose plant. As a source of hempen fibres, for its oil, for its seeds eaten for food, for its narcotic properties and therapeutically to treat a wide spectrum of ailments in folk medicine and modern pharmacopoeias. Because of its various uses, cannabis has been taken to many regions around the world.

The botanical classification of Cannabis is uncertain as botanists do not seem to agree to which family it belongs. Early investigators put it in the Nettle family (Urticaceae), later it was accommodated in the Fig family (Moraceae), but the general trend today is to assign it to a special family, Cannabaceae, in which only Cannabis and Humulus, the genus of Hops, are members. There has even been disagreement as to how many species of Cannabis exist: whether the genus comprises one highly variable species or several distinct species. Evidence now strongly indicates that three species can be recognised: C. indica, C. ruderalia, and C. sativa. These various species are distinguished by different growth habits, characters of the akenes, and especially by major differences in structure of the wood. Although all species possess cannabinols, it is possible that there may be significant chemical differences, but the evidence is not yet available.

Henry VIII fostered the cultivation of hemp in England. The maritime supremacy of England during Elizabethan times greatly increased the demand. Hemp cultivation began in the British colonies in the New World: first in Canada in 1606, then in Virginia in 1611; the Pilgrims took the crop to New England in 1632. In pre-Revolutionary North America, hemp was employed even for making work clothes. Hemp was introduced quite independently into Spanish colonies in America: Chile, 1545; Peru, 1554.

Although cannabis does not seem to have been used in medieval Europe as an hallucinogen, it was highly valued in medicine and its therapeutic uses can be traced back to early classical physicians such as Dioscorides and Galen. Medieval herbalists distinguished 'manured hempe' (cultivated) from 'bastard hempe' (weedy), recommending the latter 'against nodes and wennes and other hard tumors,' and the former for a variety of uses from curing coughs to jaundice. They cautioned, however, that in excess it might cause sterility, that 'it drieth up… the seeds of generation' in men 'and the milke of women's breasts.'
A use in the sixteenth century – source of the name Angler's Weed in England – was locally important: 'poured into the holes of earthwormes [it] will draw them forth and… fishermen and anglers have used this feate to baite their hooks.'

The value of cannabis in folk medicine has clearly been closely tied with its euphoric and hallucinogenic properties, the knowledge of which may be as old as its use as a source of fibre. Primitive man, trying all sorts of plant materials as food, must have known the hallucinatory effects of hemp, and intoxication introducing him to another worldly plane leading to religious beliefs. Early on, the plant was viewed as a special gift of the gods, a sacred medium for communion with the spirit world. Although cannabis today is the most widely employed of the hallucinogens, its use purely as a narcotic, except in Asia, does not appear to be ancient. In classical times its euphoric properties were, however, recognised. In Thebes, hemp was made into a drink said to have opium-like properties.

It is perhaps in the Himalayas of India and the Tibetan plateau that cannabis preparations assumed their greatest hallucinogenic importance in religious contexts. Bhang is a mild preparation: dried leaves or flowering shoots are pounded with spices into a paste and consumed as candy – known as maajun – or in tea form. Ganja is made from the resin-rich dried pistillate flowering tops of cultivated plants which are pressed into a compacted mass and kept under pressure for several days to induce chemical changes; most Ganja is smoked, often with tobacco. Charas consists of the resin itself, a brownish mass which is employed generally in smoking mixtures.

The Tibetans considered cannabis sacred. A Mahayana Buddhist tradition maintains that during the six steps of asceticism leading to his enlightenment, Buddha lived on one hemp seed a day. He is often depicted with 'Soma leaves' in his begging bowl and the mysterious god-narcotic Soma has occasionally been identified with hemp. In Tantric Buddhism of the Himalayas of Tibet, cannabis plays a very significant role in the meditative ritual used to facilitate deep meditation and heighten awareness. Both medicinal and recreational secular use of hemp is likewise so common now in this region that the plant is taken for granted as an everyday necessity.

According to Folklore, the use of Hemp was introduced to Persia during the reign of Khursu (AD 531-579), but it is known that the Assyrians used hemp as incense during the first millennium BC.

Although at first prohibited among Islamic peoples, hashish spread widely west throughout Asia Minor. As early as 1271, the eating of hemp was so well known that Marco Polo described its consumption in the secret order of Hashishins, who used the narcotic to experience the rewards in store for them in the afterlife.

Cannabis extended early and widely from Asia Minor into Africa, partly under the pressure of Islamic influence, but the use of hemp transcends Mohammedan use. It is widely believed that it was introduced also with slaves from Malaya. Commonly known in Africa as Kif or Dagga, the plant has entered into primitive native cultures in social and religious contexts. The Hottentots, Bushmen, and Kaffirs used hemp for centuries as a medicine and as an intoxicant. In an ancient tribal ceremony in the Zambesi Valley, participants inhaled vapours from a pile of smouldering hemp; later, reed tubes and pipes were employed, and the plant material was burned on an altar. The Kasai tribes of the Congo have revived an old Riamba cult in which hemp, replacing ancient fetishes and symbols, was elevated to a god – a protector against physical and spiritual harm. Treaties are sealed with puffs of smoke from calabash pipes. Hemp-smoking and Hashish-snuffing cults exist in many parts of east Africa, especially near Lake Victoria.

Hemp has spread to many areas of the New World, but with few exceptions the plant has not penetrated significantly into many Native American religious beliefs and ceremonies. There are, however, exceptions such as its use under the name Rosa Maria, by the Tepecano Indians of Northwest Mexico who occasionally employ hemp when Peyote is not available. It has recently been learned that Indians in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, and Puebla practice a communal curing ceremony with a plant called Santa Rosa, identified as Cannabis sativa, which is considered both a plant and a sacred intercessor with the Virgin. Although the ceremony is based mainly on Christian elements, the plant is worshipped as an earth deity and is thought to be alive and to represent a part of the heart of God. The participants in this cult believe that the plant can be dangerous and that it can assume the form of a man's soul, make him ill, enrage him, and even cause death.

Sixty years ago, when Mexican labourers introduced the smoking of Marihuana to the United States, it spread across the south, and by the 1920s, its use was established in New Orleans, confined primarily among the poor and minority groups. The continued spread of the custom in the United States and Europe has resulted in a still unresolved controversy.

Cannabis sativa was officially in the United States Pharmacopoeia until 1937, recommended for a wide variety of disorders, especially as a mild sedative. It is no longer an official drug, although research in the medical potential of some of the cannabinolic constituents or their semi-synthetic analogues is at present very active, particularly in relation to the side-effects of cancer therapy.

The psychoactive effects of Cannabis preparations vary widely, depending on dosage, the preparation and the type of plant used, the method of administration, personality of the user, and social and cultural background. Perhaps the most frequent characteristic is a dreamy state. Long forgotten events are often recalled and thoughts occur in unrelated sequences. Perception of time, and occasionally of space, is altered. Visual and auditory hallucinations follow the use of large doses. Euphoria, excitement, inner happiness – often with hilarity and laughter – are typical. In some cases, a final mood of depression may be experienced. While behaviour is sometimes impulsive, violence or aggression is seldom induced.

In relatively recent years, the use of Cannabis as an intoxicant has spread widely in Western society – especially in the United States and Europe – and has caused apprehension in law-making and law- enforcing circles and has created social and health problems. There is still little, if any, agreement on the magnitude of these problems or on their solution; opinion appears to differ. On one hand, there is a view that the use of cannabis is an extreme social, moral, and health danger that must be stamped out, and, on the other, that it is an innocuous, pleasant pastime that should be legalised.
It may be some time before all the truth concerning the use in our times and society of this ancient drug is fully known. An understanding of the history and attitudes of peoples who have long used the plant may play a part in the future handling of the situation in modern society. It would appear that it is necessary for us to consider the role of cannabis in man's past and to learn what lessons can be learnt. Whether we should maintain wise restraint in our urbanised, industrialised life or free it for general use. Whatever decision is taken in the future, it seems obvious that cannabis will be with us for a long time to come.