Marijuana and hashish come from Cannabis sativa L.,[b] an herbaceous plant which readily grows wild or is cultivated in most of the tropical and temperate areas of the world including Canada. Cannabis is one of man's oldest cultivated non-food plants and is thought to have originated in Asia. Although many varieties with somewhat different physical and chemical characteristics are often distinguished, most botanists consider these to be members of a single species. Some confusion has been caused by the botanically incorrect use of the word hemp in referring to the commercial fibres obtained from a variety of other fibre-producing plants[c]. In this report, hemp is taken to mean "true hemp" or Cannabis sativa. Cannabis is closely related to Humulus, the genus of the hop plant.
What is commonly referred to as marijuana (often called 'grass', 'pot', 'weed(s)', 'bush', 'tea', 'reefer', 'boo', 'Mary Jane' or the more general 'dope' or'shit') in North America, is usually a mixture of crushed cannabis leaves, flowers, and often small twigs, and may vary considerably in potency from one sample to another. Similar preparations are known as bhang (the more potent and carefully prepared flowering tops as ganja) in kief in Morocco, and dagga in southern Africa. In Jamaica, ganja may refer generally to marijuana. The plant produces a resin which, in relatively pure form, is called hashish ('hash') in the West and much of the Middle East, and charas in India. Hashish is usually prepared by shaking, pressing or scraping the amber resin from the plant, although solvent techniques might be used. In general, hashish is several times as potent on a weight basis as marijuana, although this is not always the case. The label hashish has sometimes been applied to special flower and leaf preparations of the plant, as well as to the resin, although this broad use of the term is now uncommon except in parts of Egypt. In addition to these common forms of cannabis, concentrated extract is available in some countries in an alcohol solution (tincture of cannabis) designed for medical or research purposes, and several of the cannabinoid compounds present in the natural plant material and related synthetics are available in relatively pure form for research. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the principal active compound, is rarely, if ever, available on the 'black market'. In this report, the general term cannabis will be taken to cover all the various forms of hemp drugs (marijuana, hashish, THC, etc.).
There are several hypotheses regarding the etymology of the word marijuana or marihuana. Many believe it derives from the Mexican name for 'Mary Jane', or "Mary and Jane' (Maria y Juana). Others have suggested that Mexican-Spanish word for 'intoxicant'), or its linguistic relative maraguango (a Panamanian provincialism). Numerous other derivations of marijuana have also been proposed.
Centuries ago, the Arabic word hashish was generally equivalent to 'dry herb' or 'grass' and later, more specifically, 'hemp' and often 'cannabis resin . It has often been said that the present English word assassin is developmentally linked with the word hashish. A variety of interesting and conflicting tales have been told of the legendary Hassan, "The Old Man of the Mountain" of 11th Century Persia, and his religious followers, called by some the "ashashin", and the possible role of cannabis and other drugs in connection with their religious, political and military endeavours. Both the validity of this linguistic derivation and the ultimate historical veracity and pharmacological significance of the legend are still matters of some dispute.
In many societies, Cannabis sativa has been a highly valued crop for reasons other than the plant's medical and non-medical pharmacological uses. The durable fibres of the woody trunk are used in the production of hemp rope and twine, and are woven into fine or rough cloth for such diverse products as blankets, clothes, flags and boat sails. The plant is one of the most efficient producers of cellulose pulp employed in paper production and is used in the manufacture of some paper money. The seeds are an abundant source of oil (similar to linseed oil) used in paint and soap. The seeds are also used as food for man, animals and, most commonly, for poultry and other birds. Seedlings and seed cake are used for fish bait in some countries. The plants have been grown to control soil drift and have been used as windbreak fence in Canada and many other countries.
It is often said that the first detailed description of cannabis appeared in a medical book prepared by the legendary Chinese Emperor, Shen Nung (Circa 2700 B.C.). This pharmacy treatise, attributed to the mythical Shen Nung, was actually written by early Han dynasty scholars only a few centuries B.C. Archaeological data suggest that the knowledge of the use of hemp for various purposes goes back at least 6,000 years. Evidence of cannabis has been discovered in an Egyptian site considered to be between three and four thousand years old, and the Scythians are reported to have grown hemp in the Volga region during the same period. Herodotus wrote of the Scythian practice of inhaling the fumes of burning cannabis as part of a funeral purification rite about 450 B.C. The earliest Indian Vedas, composed before 1400 B.C., refer to the pharmacological virtues of cannabis and the Sanscrit manuscript Zend-Avesta, written in Northern Iran about 600 B.C., mentions the inebriating properties of cannabis resin. The Hindu deity Shiva is the Lord of bhang among many other things, and bhang still plays an important symbolic and pharmacological role in the religious practices of many Hindus today. Charas (hashish), however, has not been traditionally involved in the worship.
Cannabis is said to have reached Spain approximately one thousand years ago, during the Moslem occupation, but Europeans appear to have had little acquaintance with the drug at that time. There was some importation into Europe during the seventeenth century, but serious European investigation of the social, religious or medical uses of cannabis did not occur until after the entry of Napoleon's expeditionary force into Egypt in 1798. The use of cannabis in Western medicine was reinforced in 1843 by O'Shaughnessy, a British physician returning from India, and, in France, Moreau de Tours wrote extensively on the therapeutic uses and abuses of cannabis during the same period.
Some European adventurers had used the drug earlier as a consequence of their travels through the Arab world. But it was not until 1844, with the founding of the famed Club des Hachischins in Paris, that the use of cannabis gained an appreciative, if very small and temporary, European following. The members of this club (including such French authors as Balzac, Hugo, Baudelaire and Gautier) used cannabis out of artistic and intellectual curiosity, and their personal experiences with the drug, as recounted by Baudelaire and Gautier, outraged the French bourgeoisie of the midnineteenth century.215,432 The Club des Hachischins, however, must be viewed as an exceptional episode in the European history of cannabis, as marijuana and hashish have only very recently (following the popularization of American practices) been used to any significant extent in Western Europe.
Bloomquist states that the use of cannabis was already firmly established among the indigenous peoples of Central and South America by the time the Spanish Conquistadores arrived in the sixteenth century. The Spaniards did, however, introduce the cultivation of cannabis for its hemp fibre to Chile about 1545, and consumption of the drug is said to have gained currency in Brazil with the arrival of African slaves who were familiar with its use.
The cultivation of hemp was apparently introduced to North America by Louis Hebert, Champlain's apothecary, in 1606 in Nova Francia (Nova Scotia).21 The pilgrims planted hemp soon after that in New England. First France and then England encouraged hemp cultivation in the their New World colonies, both for domestic requirements such as clothing and cordage, and to provide sails and rigging for their ships. Cannabis fibre was needed by the major naval powers of the time to outfit their sailing fleets, and when British access to such supplies in the East Indies was restricted by their Dutch rivals in the late sixteenth century, the British were forced to develop other hemp sources. Consequently, King James I commanded the American colonists to produce hemp, and, by 1630, cannabis was a staple crop on the East Coast. Later, the government of Virginia awarded bounties for hemp culture and manufacture, and imposed penalties on those who did not produce it.75 Similar stern attempts to stimulate the industry occurred in Eastern Canada. The wagons which carried the pioneers westward were covered with hempen fabric and approximately half of the clothing worn by the colonials during the seventeenth century and almost all of the clothing worn by the slaves until 1847 is said to have been made from this material.
Apparently the colonists did not use hemp for its intoxicating effects. But there is some possibility that certain individuals, including George Washingtion (who cultivated cannabis on his Mount Vernon plantation), were aware of its medicinal properties. 19,653 Some North American Indians, most notably Sitting Bull, incorporated cannabis into the smoking mixtures used in their peace pipes. It is also likely that African slaves brought with them knowledge of the pharmacological properties of hemp.
During the nineteenth century, the non-medical use of cannabis as a psychotropic substance in North America was apparently quite limited. At approximately the same time as Baudelaire was recording his experiences with hashish in Paris, a few Americans were also experimenting with the drug. Bayard Taylor, a popular novelist and foreign diplomat, reported his adventures with hashish in Egypt and Damascus in 1855. F. H. Ludlow, a college junior in Poughkeepsie, New York, legally procured a sample of cannabis resin from his local pharmacist after having his curiosity aroused by the mention of hashish in The Arabian Nights. His experiments with the drug resulted in his publication of a monograph on the subject of cannabis in 1857. Around the same time, Dr. Horatio Wood recounted his personal use of hashish to the American Philosophical Society676 and cannabis was recommended as a therapeutic aphrodisiac in a marriage guide. In 1912, Dr. Victor Robinson published two articles in a professional medical review detailing the effects of hashish as experienced by both himself and friends. These accounts, however, do not reflect general drug use patterns at that time. Popular non-medical consumption of cannabis in North America is a 20th century phenomenon, although quasi-medical and medical use of a variety of cannabis preparations, including elixirs and medicines, occurred earlier.
North American hemp farming became less profitable after the advent of steam power around 1770 (which reduced the need for sails and rope) and with the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 (which diminished the market for textiles produced from hempen fibre). The commercial value of cannabis consequently declined and cultivation was later abandoned in New England, although it was maintained in other areas of the United States, particularly in the Midwest. The commercial cultivation of cannabis for both domestic and export purposes continued at a limited level in Canada until the early 1930s, when the stock market collapsed and the subsequent reduction in the demand for and value of hemp made further production uneconomical. In 1938 an amendment to The Opium and Narcotic Drug Act prohibited the cultivation of cannabis without special authorization, and hemp fibre used in Canada since then has been imported.
The severing of Far Eastern supply routes during the Second World War led to a temporary resurgence of United States hemp production. The plant strains grown were generally selected for high fibre content and low pharmacological activity. The reopening of foreign fibre sources and the introduction of synthetic substitutes at the conclusion of the war drastically curtailed domestic cultivation and there is currently no legal commercial production of hemp in North America. The major hemp-producing countries today (for example, Russia, Italy and Yugoslavia) consume most of their domestic stock and export very little. In many areas, hemp plants have escaped cultivation and now exist as weeds. Despite the lack of a legitimate commercial market, cannabis still grows untended throughout most of the United States and Southern Canada. It has recently been suggested that a modern hemp industry be encouraged in North America for ecological as well as economic reasons, since cultivated cannabis is several times more efficient in producing pulp for paper on an annual acreage basis than is forest woodland.
