When did humans start smoking cannabis?
This video traces the full history of cannabis — from a 2,700-year-old shaman's tomb in western China to the smoke-filled burial caves of the Pamir Mountains, the golden cups of Scythian warriors, the sacred altars of ancient Judah, the bhang rituals of India, a Chinese physician's lost anesthesia formula, a Congolese tribe that traded war for hemp, and the American political machine that turned a 12,000-year-old plant into one of the most dangerous [Schedule 1] substances on Earth.
By the end, viewers might start seeing this plant a little differently. All factual research sources are linked below.
Cross faded humans/monkeys?
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📚 RESEARCH AND SOURCES: ▸ Yanghai Tombs — "Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia" (2008, Journal of Experimental Botany) doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ern260 ▸ Jirzankal Cemetery — "The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs of western China" (2019, Science Advances) doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1391 ▸ Herodotus — The Histories, Book IV, on Scythian cannabis use (c. 440 BCE) ▸ Sergei Rudenko — Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen (1970, UC Press) ▸ Scythian Gold Cups — "Residue analysis of golden artifacts from Scythian kurgan in the Caucasus" (2015, Antiquity) ▸ Tell Arad Shrine — "Cannabis and Frankincense at the Judahite Shrine of Arad" (2020, Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology) doi.org/10.1080/03344355.2020... ▸ Atharva Veda — Ancient Vedic text listing cannabis among five sacred plants ▸ Robert Dudley and Dušan Borić — Research on anandamide and the endocannabinoid system ▸ Harry Anslinger — Federal Bureau of Narcotics records, the Gore Files, and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 ▸ John Ehrlichman — interview quote on Pres. Dick Nixon's drug policy, published in Harper's Magazine (2016) by Dan Baum: "Legalize It All" harpers.org/archive/2016/04/l... ▸ DEA Judge Francis Young — "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition" (1988, Docket No. 86-22)
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ Shen Nong — legendary Chinese emperor, traditionally credited as the author of the Pen Ts'ao Ching, one of the world's earliest medical texts, which recommended cannabis for joint pain and malaria. ▸ Herodotus — Ancient Greek historian (c. 484–425 BCE). Traveled through Central Asia and documented Scythian cannabis rituals in vivid detail. His accounts were confirmed by archeological discoveries nearly 2,400 years later. ▸ Sergei Rudenko — Soviet archeologist who in 1947 excavated frozen Scythian tombs in Siberia's Altai Mountains, confirming Herodotus's descriptions of cannabis use with perfectly preserved tent frames, heated stones, and cannabis seeds. ▸ Hua Tuo — Chinese physician (c. 140–208 AD). Mixed cannabis with wine to create an anesthetic and performed surgery during which patients felt nothing — 1,800 years before modern anesthesia, executed by warlord Cao Cao. His formula was lost when he burned his own writings in prison. ▸ Cao Cao — One of the most powerful warlords in Chinese history (155–220 AD). Had Hua Tuo arrested and executed after the physician refused to serve as his personal doctor. ▸ Harry Anslinger — head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. Criminalized cannabis through racist propaganda, fabricated evidence (the Gore Files), and targeted Black musicians including Billie Holiday. ▸ Billie Holiday — legendary jazz singer targeted by Anslinger, not for drug use but for performing "Strange Fruit," a protest song about American lynchings. ▸ John Ehrlichman — Pres. Nixon's domestic policy advisor, who in a 2016-published interview admitted the War on Drugs was designed to target anti-war protesters and Black communities. ▸ Francis Young — DEA administrative law judge who, after two years of reviewing evidence in 1988, concluded that cannabis should not be classified as a Schedule 1 drug alongside heroin. The DEA rejected and ignored his recommendation.
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🎨 Animation by Ink explainer
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#cannabishistory #weedhistory #history #ancienthistory #cannabis #marijuana #explainer #animation #education #HarryAnslinger #SilkRoad #archeology #humanhistory
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"The Cave of the Body" (Guhatthaka Sutta)
Clinging to this cave heavily defiled [1]
one is stuck, bewildered, far from seclusion
from craving for the sensual pleasures [2]
of the world, which are hard to let go.
Those chained to craving
bound by the allure of becoming
find no release
for there is no liberation by others.
Intent, before and behind [3], on thirst
for sensual pleasure here or before —
full of lust for sensual pleasures,
busy, deluded, greedy, entrenched
in the wobbling way [4] they —
impelled into pain — lament:
"What will we be
when we pass away from here?"
So one ought to train here and now.
Whatever one knows as wobbling
in the world, do not, for its sake, behave,
for such life, the enlightened say, is short.
I see them in the world
floundering
men immersed in craving
for new states of becoming.
Base people moan in the mouth of death, their craving
for states of eternal becoming and annihilation [5] unallayed.
See them floundering in their sense of mine like fish in the
puddles of a dried-up stream — and, seeing this,
live with no sense of mine, not forming
attachments to states of becoming.
Subdue craving for both sides [6],
comprehending [7] sensory contact free of greed.
Doing nothing for which one would oneself
rebuke oneself, for the enlightened person
adheres not to what is seen, to what's heard.
Comprehending perception, one crosses over the flood —
the sage unstuck from possessions.
One, with arrow removed, lives heedful,
longing for neither
this world nor the next.
ENDNOTES
- Nd.I: Covered with defilements and unskillful mental states, characteristics, qualities.
- "Sensual craving" and "sensual pleasures" are two possible translations of kama ("sensuality"). According to Nd.I, both meanings are intended here.
- Nd.I: "Before" ("in front") means experienced in the past; "behind" means to-be-experienced in the future.
- Nd.I: "Wobbling way" means the karma of the Ten Courses of Unwholesome Action. (See AN 10.176).
- States of not-becoming = "oblivion." These are states of becoming that people can get themselves into through a desire or craving for annihilation, either after death or as a misguided goal of their spiritual striving. (See Iti 49, ucchedavada, annihilationism). As with all states of becoming, these states are impermanent (transient) and disappointing (painful).
- According to Nd.I, "both sides" has here several possible meanings: sensory contact and the origination of sensory contact; past and future; name-and-form; internal and external sense media; self-identity (view) and the origination of self-identity. It might also mean the states of becoming and not-becoming (eternalism and annihilationism) mentioned in the previous verse and below, in Sn 4.5.
- Nd.I: Comprehending sensory contact has three aspects: (1) being able to identify and distinguish types of sensory contact; (2) contemplating the true nature of sensory contact (e.g., impermanent/inconstant, disappointing/unable to fulfill, and impersonal/not-self); and (3) abandoning attachment to sensory contact. The same three aspects apply to comprehending perception, as mentioned in the following verse.
- See also: AN 4.184
- Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Guhatthaka Sutta, based on translation and notes by Ven. Thanissaro (accesstoinsight.org, Sn 4.2 PTS: Sn 772-779), Wisdom Quarterly
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