Cannabian history lesson.
6000 B.C. Cannabis seeds used for food in China.
4000 B.C. Textiles made of hemp are used in China. (Pharmacotheon)
2727 B.C. First recorded use of cannabis as medicine in Chinese pharmacopoeia. In every part of the world humankind has used cannabis for a wide variety of health problems.
1500 B.C. Cannabis cultivated in China for food and fiber.
1500 B.C. Scythians cultivate cannabis and use it to weave fine hemp cloth. (Sumach 1975)
1200-800 B.C. Cannabis is mentioned in the Hindu sacred text Atharvaveda (Science of Charms) as "Sacred Grass", one of the five sacred plants of India. It is used by medicinally and ritually as an offering to Shiva.
700-600 B.C. The Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta, an ancient Persian religious text of several hundred volumes, and said to have been written by Zarathustra (Zoroaster), refers to bhang as Zoroaster's "good narcotic" (Vendidad or The Law Against Demons).
700-300 B.C. Scythian tribes leave Cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs.
500 B.C. Scythian couple die and are buried with two small tents covering censers. Attached to one tent stick was a decorated leather pouch containing wild Cannabis seeds. This closely matches the stories told by Herodotus. The gravesite, discovered in the late 1940s, was in Pazryk, northwest of the Tien Shan Mountains in modern-day Khazakstan.
500 B.C. Hemp is introduced into Northern Europe by the Scythians. An urn containing leaves and seeds of the Cannabis plant, unearthed near Berlin, is dated to about this time.
500-100 B.C. Hemp spreads throughout northern Europe.
430 B.C. Herodotus reports on both ritual and recreation use of Cannabis by the Scythians (Herodotus The Histories 430 B.C. trans. G. Rawlinson).
100 B.C.-0 The psychotropic properties of Cannabis are mentioned in the newly compiled herbal Pen Ts'ao Ching which is attributed to an emperor c. 2700 B.C.
0-100 A.D. Construction of Samartian gold and glass paste stash box for storing hashish, coriander, or salt, buried in Siberian tomb.
70 A.D. Dioscorides mentions the use of Cannabis as a Roman medicament.
170 A.D. Galen (Roman) alludes to the psychoactivity of Cannabis seed confections.
500-600 A.D. The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of Cannabis. (Abel 1980)
900-1000 A.D. Scholars debate the pros and cons of eating hashish. Use spreads throughout Arabia.
1090-1256 A.D. In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, recruits followers to commit assassinations...legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of Cannabis and the supposed use of Hashish. (1256 Alamut falls)
1200s Cannabis is introduced in Egypt during the reign of the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic devotees coming from Syria. (M.K. Hussein 1957 - Soueif 1972)
Early 1200s Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.
1155-1221 Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haidar's of Khorasan's personal discovery of Cannabis and it's subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the ealiest written narratives of the use of Cannabis as an inebriant.
1300s The oldest monograph on hashish, Zahr al-'arish fi tahrim al-hashish, was written. It has since been lost.
1300s Ibn al-Baytar of Spain provides a description of psychaoctive Cannabis.
1300s Arab traders bring Cannabis to the Mozambique coast of Africa.
1231 Hashish introduced to Iraq in the reign of Caliph Mustansir. (Rosenthal 1971)
1271-1295 Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his "assassins" using hashish. First time reports of Cannabis have been brought to the attention of Europe.
1378 Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues one of the first edicts against the eating of hashish.
1526 Babur Nama, first emperor and founder of Mughal Empire learned of hashish in Afghanistan.
mid 1600s The epic poem, Benk u Bode, by the poet Mohammed Ebn Soleiman Foruli of Baghdad, deals allegorically with a dialectical battle between wine and hashish.
1700s Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople.
Late 1700s Hashish becomes a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia.
1798 Napoleon discovers that much of the Egyptian lower class habitually uses hashish (Kimmens 1977). He declares a total prohibition. Soldiers returning to France bring the tradition with them.
1900s Hashish production expands from Russian Turkestan into Yarkand in Chinese Turkestan.
1809 Antoine Sylvestre de Sacy, a leading Arabist, reveals the etymology of the words "assassin" and "hashishin".
1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a Cannabis base are available. Hashish available in Persian pharmacies.
1843 Le Club des Hachichins, or Hashish Eater's Club, established in Paris.
after 1850 Hashish appears in Greece.
1856 British tax ganja and charas trade in India.
1870-1880 First reports of hashish smoking on Greek mainland.
c. 1875 Cultivation for hashish introduced to Greece.
1877 Kerr reports on Indian ganja and charas trade.
1890 Greek Department of Interior prohibits importance, cultivation and use of hashish.
1890 Hashish made illegal in Turkey.
1893-1894 The India Hemp Drugs Commission Report is issued.
1893-1894 70,000 to 80,000 kg of hashish legally imported into India from Central Asia each year.
Early 1900s Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.
1915-1927 Cannabis begins to be prohibited for nonmedical use in the U.S., especially in SW states...California (1915), Texas (1919), Louisiana (1924), and New York (1927).
(History of Marijuana & Cannabis Timeline courtesy erowid.org)
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Originally Posted by sidewayz
