My Herbs 1

Cannabis is a plant with a rich and
long history of interactions with humans.
Researchers assume that it spread
around the world from Central and
South Asia – hillsides of the Himalayas
and the Altai Mountains (today’s territories
of Russia, Ka zakhstan, Mongolia,
and China). It is supposed to have
grown there first more than 30 million
years ago, while the oldest known evidence
of its use by man dates back to
12 000-10 000 BC – that is the estimated
age of the pieces of pottery
found in Taiwan the sides of which had
been decorated by pressing strips of
hemp cord ("hemp"
is another
Dried flowers of female plants
name for cannabis; nowadays the term
means mostly industrially grown strains
with no psychoactive compounds, thus
legal).
As a nutritious source of food,
cannabis was already grown and
processed, according to archaeological
findings, in ancient China at least
8 000 years ago. The Chinese consumed
seeds and oil made out of
them; however, the findings do not
confirm smoking of flowers in order
to “get high” – this was first done by
Scythian tribes about 5 000 BC in
today’s Romania, where burnt remains
of cannabis flowers were found in burial
mounds of the so-called Kurgan
culture (nomadic tribes of the first
Indo-Europeans).
FIRST EVIDENCES
OF MEDICAL USE
The first written evidence of the use
of cannabis for medical purposes dates
back about 5 000 years ago to the reign
of legendary Chinese emperor Shennong,
who recommended cannabis in
his pharmacopoeia for the treatment of
malaria, beriberi, constipation, rheumatic
pain, and women’s issues.
From China, knowledge spread
gradually to Korea, Japan, and India,
where cannabis became an essential
part of not only diet and medicine,
but also religious and spiritual traditions
and practices. The Vedas contain
information about the ritual drinking
of a sacred beverage called “bhang,”
which “reduces fever, improves sleep,
helps against diarrhea, stimulates appetite,
and prolongs life.” And the
main ingredient of this drink, of
course, was cannabis, the “gift from
the Gods,” as Ayurveda describes it.
Apart from medical and spiritual use
there were other advantages of
cannabis as well, thanks to which it
spread practically all around the world
in the next centuries. Its growing did
not require any particular treatment of
soil nor complicated irrigation, and
the plant offered more than flowers
and seeds; it also had a universally exploitable
stalk. People began to produce
cloths and clothes, ropes, cords,
and later even whole sails (also called
canvas – a derivative of cannabis)
from hemp fibre. Columbus discovered
the New World with ships
equipped with around 80 tons of material
made from cannabis fiber.
CANNABIS AS MEDICINE
IN 19 TH CENTURY
Back to the medical uses of cannabis.
Chinese and Indian knowledge about
40 MY HERBS MAGAZINE