Cannabis in Ancient China

Marijuana features a rich history. California’s legalization of medical cannabis through Proposition 215, and the public debate surrounding it, has had a renewed desire for the cannabis sativa plant from which marijuana is harvested. The growing public acceptance of medical cannabis is helping to dispel myths about cannabis.

Only recently has marijuana been treated like a dangerous drug. Ancient cultures appreciated the countless practical and medicinal reason for cannabis. Like a food, as a fiber, and as a medicinal preparation, cannabis carries a fascinating history.

A history of marijuana use dates back more than ten thousand many years to where it appears to get originated: in China. Hemp rope imprints on broken pottery dated at about 10,000 B.C. show among the earliest known reason for the guarana plant. Cannabis was widely grown and cultivated in ancient China.

The oldest knows Neolithic culture in China made clothing, fishing nets, and ropes through the hemp fibers separated from the stems of Cannabis plants. The fibers may be spun into yarn or woven into cloth. Hemp fibers were utilized beginning in the other or first century B.C. to help make the first paper, which was very durable and sturdy.

Cannabis seeds were counted as the “five grains” of ancient China, along with barley, rice, wheat, and soybeans. Marijuana seeds were roasted or accustomed to make meal. Cannabis seeds may be cooked in porridge. These marijuana seeds remained a fundamental part of chinese people diet until these were substituted with top quality grains within the 10th Century.

The ancient Chinese people learned to press marijuana seeds to search for the oil, which may provide to cook, lamps, or lubrication. The leftover cannabis residue provided feed for domestic animals.

Medical cannabis seemed to be used in ancient China. China’s oldest known pharmacological work described marijuana preparations to treat conditions from constipation to malaria. Marijuana treatments included grinding the roots right into a paste to treat pain. Chinese surgeon Hua To even used the cannabis plant for surgical anesthesia in the second century.

The first records with the psychoactive results of marijuana can also be within China, dating back around 2000 B.C. This document, Materia Medica Sutra, notes that the cannabis seed “if drawn in excess” allows the user to determine spirits. “If bought out a long-term, it can make one talk to spirits and lightens your whole body.” Later writers, like 5th Century Chinese physician T’ao Hung Ching, thought that the hallucinatory effects of cannabis, along with ginseng, would allow users to view into the future.

California marijuana laws are making an effort to restore cannabis for the rightful place like a useful and medicinally valuable plant.

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