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Chapter 10
Myth, Magic & Medicine:
A Look at the Sociology of Cannabis Use
Throughout World History
Contrary to popular conception,
"marijuana" is not a phenomenon rooted in the 1960s.
Cannabis hemp is part of our heritage and was the
backbone of our most stable and longest surviving cultures.
Recent psycho-pharmacological studies have
discovered THC has its own unique receptor sites in the brain,
indicating man and marijuana have a pre-cultural relationship indeed,
human culture could very well prove to be the blossom of our symbiosis
with cannabis.
What's in a Name (Part 2)
The following is derived from the 1913 U.S.D.A. Agriculture
Yearbook section on hemp by Lyster Dewey, p. 283-293:
The name "hemp," derived from the Old English "hanf,"
came into use in Middle English by 1000 C.E. and still belongs
primarily to cannabis sativa. It is also used to designate the long
fiber obtained from that plant: the earliest, best-known, and, until
recently, the most widely used textile fiber on Earth.
It has long been regarded as the standard among long fibers. As
such, its name has come to be used as a generic term for all long
fibers, whereas Indian hemp or true hemp denotes cannabis hemp. Now
commodity markets list names like "Manila hemp," abac¦;
"sisal hemp," sisal, and henequen; "Mauritius
hemp," for Furcraea fiber; "New Zealand hemp," phormium;
"Sunn hemp," Crotalaria; and "India hemp," for
jute. All these plants are unlike true hemp in appearance and in
economic properties. Curiously, the name "hemp" is never
applied to flax, which is more nearly like hemp than any other
commercial fiber.
True hemp is known in different languages by the following names: cannabis,
Latin; chanvre, French; canamo, Spanish; canhamo,
Portuguese; canapa, Italian; canep, Albanian; konopli,
Russian; konopi and penek, Polish; kemp, Belgian;
hanf, German; hennup, Dutch; hamp, Swedish; hampa,
Danish; kenevir, Bulgarian; ta-ma, si-ma, and tse-ma,
Chinese; asa and taima, Japanese; nasha, Turkish;
kanabira, Syrian; kannab, Arabic.
First Known Cannabis Users
Ancient and modern historians, archaeologists, anthropologists,
philologists cite the physical evidence (artifacts, relics, textiles,
cuneiform, languages, etc.) indicating that cannabis is one of
humanity's oldest cultivated crops. The weaving of hemp fiber as an
industry began 10,000 years ago, at approximately the same time as
pottery making and prior to metal working.*
* Columbia History of the World, Harper & Row, NY, 1981.
From at least the 27th Century B.C.E. until this century, cannabis
was incorporated into virtually all cultures of the Middle East, Asia
Minor, India, China, Japan, Europe, & Africa. By the 27th Century
B.C.E., the Chinese cultivated "Ma" (cannabis hemp) for
fiber, medicine, and herbal use. 3,700 years later (circa 1000 C.E.),
China called cannabis "Tai-Ma," or "great hemp,"
to differentiate it from the minor fiber plants, which were grouped
under the generic fiber term "Ma." Their pictogram for true
hemp is a large "man," indicating the strong relationship
between man and hemp.
(Shen Nung Pharmacopoeia; Ponts'ao Ching; Han Dynasty classics;
et al.)
Between 2300 B.C. & 1000 B.C.:
Nomadic tribes, probably from central Asia and Persia (Iran and
Iraq), and referred to in legend as "Aryans," invaded and
overran virtually the entire Mediterranean and Middle East and spread
out over the Caucasus and west into Europe.
In the course of these movements and invasions the nomads
introduced cannabis and its various uses north and west through
Greece, Europe, the Middle East, to Egypt and Africa, and south and
east "over" the Himalayas to India.
Hemp was incorporated into the cultures of the Middle East and
India for its vast food, oil, fiber, medicinal, and drug uses. Not
only was hemp a staple of everyday life; hemp medicines and drugs were
a ritual link to the gods.*
* Generally, those who grew and/or used hemp for everyday
industrial uses did not know and were not taught (by religious
law/threat/taboo) that their priest/shaman/witch doctor/etc. used
different extractions from different parts of the exact same plant for
sacrament, medicine, unguent, and as a commune with the Gods.
Hemp and the Scythe
Cannabis was undoubtedly used by the Scythians for many reasons.
For example, the ancient Scythians grew hemp and harvested it with a
hand reaper that we still call a scythe. Cannabis inhalation by the
Scythians in funeral rituals was recorded by the Greek Historian
Herodotus (circa 450 B.C.E.) in the early 5th Century B.C.E. The
nomadic Scythians introduced the custom to other races such as the
Thracians.
(Emboden, W.A., Jr., Flesh of the Gods,
Praeger Press, NY, 1974.)
Thread of Civilization
From at least the 27th Century B.C.E. up until this century,
cannabis was incorporated into virtually all the cultures of the
Middle East, Asia Minor, India, China, Japan, Europe, and Africa for
its superior fiber, medicines, oils, food, and for its meditative,
euphoric, and relaxational uses.
Hemp was one of our ancestors' most important overall industries,
along with toolmaking, animal husbandry, and farming.
Hemp to Enforce the Law
The hemp plant has had a curious relationship with the world's
legal codes throughout the ages. As noted before, it has variously
been illegal to grow hemp and not to grow it at different times. But
hemp has also played a direct role in law enforcement.
For example: The most serious punishment/rehabilitation meted out
in many African tribes for capital crimes was forcing the transgressor
to smoke massive amounts of dagga (cannabis) non-stop for hours on end
in a small, enclosed hut until he passes out literally unconscious
from inhaling the fumes. The equivalent of a year or two's supply for
a heavy American smoker is consumed in just an hour or so. Does it
work? African users say the rate of repeat criminal offenses after
dagga treatment is virtually non-existent.
European and American cultures used hemp to enforce their laws in a
more terminal form of capital punishment: the hangman's noose* of
hempen rope.
* "Merry boys are we / As e're did sing / In a hempen
string / Under the gallows tree." John Fletcher Rollo, Duke of
Normandy; Act III, sc. 3; 1639. "We're bound to stop this
business, or hang you to a man / For we've hemp and hand enough in
town to hang the whole damn clan." From a horse thief's tombstone
in Rapid City, SD, 1877: Shushan, E.R.; Grave Matters; Ballantine
Books, NY, 1990. Also see Hemp for Victory, USDA film; 1942.
Cannabis Herbal Medicines
The secret art of hemp medicine was found effective as wound
healer, muscle relaxant, pain reliever, fever reducer, and
unparalleled aid to childbirth, not to mention hundreds of other
medicinal applications.
(Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839-1972,
Medi-Comp Press, Oakland, CA 1973; Shultes, R.E., Harvard Botanical;
Ency. Brittanica; Abel, Ernest, Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years;
Plenum Press, 1980; Vera Rubin, Cannabis and Culture, Institute for
the Study of Man; et. al.)
The division of information about this sacred herb and its
industrial hemp uses were strictly maintained by the priests for
thousands of years, up until the last few centuries. Those outside the
priestly class who possessed drug knowledge were considered (by the
priests, of course) to be witches/soothsayers/outlaws and the ilk, and
were often condemned to death.
The Mystic Philosophers
Cannabis legend and consumption are fundamental aspects of many of
the world's great religions. For example:
SHINTOISM (Japan)Cannabis was used for the binding
together of married couples, to drive away evil spirits, and was
thought to create laughter and happiness in marriage.
HINDUISM (India)The God Shiva is said "to have
brought cannabis from the Himalayas for human enjoyment and
enlightenment." The Sardu Priests travel throughout India and the
world sharing "chillum" pipes filled with cannabis,
sometimes blended with other substances. In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna
states, "I am the healing herb" (Ch. 9:16), while the
Bhagarat-purana Fifth Canto describes hashish in explicitly sexual
terms.
BUDDHISTS (Tibet, India, and China)From the 5th
Century B.C.E. on ritually used cannabis; initiation rites and
mystical experiences were (are) common in many Chinese Buddhist Sects.
Some Tibetan Buddhists and lamas (priests) consider cannabis their
most holy plant. Many Buddhist traditions, writings, and beliefs
indicate that "Siddhartha" (the Buddha) himself, used and
ate nothing but hemp and its seeds for six years prior to announcing
(discovering) his truths and becoming the Buddha (Four Noble Truths,
the Eightfold Path). Regarding the
ZOROASTRIANS or Magi (Persia, circa 8th to 7th
Centuries B.C.E. to 3rd to 4th Centuries C.E.), it is widely believed
by many Christian scholars, commentators, etc., that the three
"Magi" or Wise Men who attended the birth of Christ were
cult references to the Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrian religion was
based (at least on the surface) on the entire cannabis plant, the
chief religious sacrament of its priest class, and its most important
medicine, (e.g., obstetrics, incense rites, anointing and christening
oils), as well as lighting or fire oils in their secular world. The
word "magic" is generally considered derived from the
Zoroastrians"Magi."
The ESSENES (ancient Israeli sect of extreme
Hebrewites approx. 200 B.C.E. to 73 C.E.) used hemp medicinally, as
did the THERAPUTEA (Egypt), from whom we get the term
"therapeutic." Both are believed by some scholars to be
disciples of, or in a brotherhood with, the priests/magician of the
Zoroastrians.
EARLY JEWS As part of their holy Friday night
services in the Temple of Solomon, 60-80,000 men ritually passed
around and inhaled 20,000 incense burners filled with kanabosom
(cannabis), before returning home for the largest meal of the week
(munchies?).
SUFIS OF ISLAM (Middle East)Moslem
"mystical" priests who have taught, used, and extolled
cannabis for divine revelation, insight, and oneness with Allah, for
at least the last 1,000 years. Many Moslem and world scholars believe
the mysticism of the Sufi Priests was actually that of the
Zoroastrians who survived Moslem conquests of the 7th and 8th
Centuries C.E. and subsequent conversion (change your religion and
give up liquor or be beheaded).
COPTIC CHRISTIAN (Egypt/Ethiopia)Some sects believe
the sacred "green herb of the field" in the Bible ("I
will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more
consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the
heathen any more." Ezekiel 34:29) and the Biblical secret
incenses, sweet incenses, and anointing oils to be cannabis.
The BANTUS (Africa) had secret Dagga Cults,*
societies which restricted cannabis use to the ruling men. The
Pygmies, Zulus, and Hottentots all found it an indispensable
medication for cramps, epilepsy, and gout, and as a religious
sacrament.
*Their "Dagga" cults believed Holy Cannabis was brought
to earth by the Gods, in particular from the "Two Dog Star"
system that we call Sirius A and B. "Dagga" literally means
"cannabis." Interestingly, the surviving Indo-European word
for the plant can also be read as "canna," "reed"
and "bi," "two," as well as 'canna,' as in canine;
and 'bis,' meaning two (bi) ß "Two Dogs."
The RASTAFARIANS (Jamaica and elsewhere) are a
contemporary religious sect that uses "ganja" as its sacred
sacrament to communicate with God (Jah).
"Natural Mind"
United States government-funded studies at St. Louis Medical
University in 1989 and th eU.S. government's National Institute of
Mental Health in 1990 moved cannabis research into a new realm by
confirming that the human brain has receptor sites for THC and its
natural cannabis cousins to which no other compounds known thus far
will bind.
In order for a chemical to affect the brain it must bind to a
receptor site capable of receiving it.
(Omni, August 1989; Washington Post, Aug 9, 1990)
Although morphine fits the receptor sites of beta-endorphin
roughly, and amphetamines correspond loosely to dopamine, these drugs
as well as tricyclics and other mood altering drugs present grave
danger to the subtle balance of the nerves' vital fluids. Omni
and the Washington Post cited no physical dangers in natural
cannabis.
One reason cannabis is so safe to use is that it does not affect
any of the involuntary muscles of breathing and life support. Rather,
it affects its own specific receptor cites for motion (movement
strategy) and memory (mental strategies).
On the molecular level, THC fits into receptor sites in the upper
brain that seem to be uniquely designed to accommodate THC. This
points to an ancient symbiosis between the plant and people.
Perhaps these neuronal pathways are the product of a pre-cultural
relationship between humans and cannabis. Carl Sagan proposes evidence
using the Bushmen of Africa to show hemp to have been the first plant
cultivated by humanity dating to when he was a hunter-gatherer. Some
scientist assume that these receptor sites did not evolve for the
purpose of getting high: "There must be some kind of neuronal
pathway in the brain that developed, whether there were cannabis
plants or not," speculated mystified St. Louis University
pharmacology professor Allyn Howlett in 1989.
But, maybe not. In his book Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of
Artificial Paradise, Dr. Ronald K. Siegel, psycho-pharmacologist at
UCLA indicates the motivation to achieve altered states of
consciousness or moods is a fourth drive akin to hunger, thirst, and
sex. And humans aren't the only ones to get high. Siegel recorded
numerous observations of animal intentionally getting intoxicated
during his experiments.
Cannabis hemp is part of our cultural, spiritual, and physiological
heritage, and was the backbone of our most stable and long surviving
cultures. So, if you want to know the long term effects of marijuana
use look in the mirror!
Cloaked in Secrecy
The dawn of religious beliefs for all races and peoples Japanese,
Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian, Greek, Doric, Germanic
and other European tribes, and even those of Africa and North, South,
and Central American derived from accidental discoveries.
There were near-death experiences, deprivations starvation,
fasting, breath control, thirst, fever and uncontrolled revelry due to
accidental fermentation or extraction of wine, beer, psilocybe and
Amanita mushrooms, cannabis wine (bhang), and other psychoactives
which, when consumed, induced inexplicable, elevated experiences
(compared to normal brutish experience). Chemicals in these sacred
plants and herbs gave our ancestors unexpected, unprepared for,
unbelievable visions and journeys into the far corners of incredible
consciousness and, sometimes into feelings of universal brotherhood.
Understanding these drug-induced experiences and medications
eventually became the most wondrous, desirable, and necessary
spiritual knowledge for each tribe. Healing! From which extraction? At
what dose?
Holding this mystical tribal knowledge for future generations was a
priceless task. To know which plants induced which experiences at what
level and mixture meant power for the bearer of such wisdom!
Thus, this "sacred store" of knowledge was jealously
guarded by the herbal doctor/priest, and cryptically encoded in oral
and written traditions and myths. Plants with psychoactive powers were
embued with human or animal attributes, for example, the Amanita
Muscaria mushroom ring was represented by faeries.
To keep their political power, the priests, witch doctors, and
medicine men deliberately withheld these traditions from the
"common" tribal members (and all other tribes). This also
prevented the dangerous "sin" of accidental ingestion,
concoction, or experimentation by the children of the tribe; nor could
captured tribal members give up this sacred knowledge to their
enemies.
These "old-time" drug and out-of-body religions and
rituals, dating back to pre-history, were called "Oriental
Mystery Religions" by the Romans from the Caesars' time on.
Judaic Line
Hemp was a major industry in biblical times. As in other cultures
throughout the Middle East, the Hebrew tradition of mysticism (e.g.,
Cabala) was aware of, and entwined with, regional sects using natural
intoxicants in their rituals. As usual, they hid this knowledge behind
rituals, symbols and secret codes to protect natural sacraments like
"sacred mushrooms" and mind-elevating herbs, including
cannabis.
Allegro, J.M.; Sacred Mushroom & the Cross, Doubleday
Co., 1970.
What Does the Bible Say?
Finding the encoded references to cannabis and other drugs is made
more difficult by the lack of botanical names, discrepancy in
translations, use of different "books" by different
denominations, commentaries added to original texts, and periodic
priestly purges of material considered inappropriate.
However, we find that the use of cannabis is never forbidden or
even discouraged in the Bible. Some passages directly refer to the
goodness of using herbs like cannabis - and even go on to predict
prohibition.
"And the Earth brought forth grass and herb-yielding seed
after its kind and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed after its kind
and: and God saw that it was good." Genesis: Chapter 1: Verse
12 (King James Version of the Bible, unless noted).
"God makes the Earth yield healing herbs, which the prudent
man should not neglect." Sirach: 38:4 (Catholic Bible).
"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; That
which cometh out of the mouth defileth a man." Jesus quoted:
Matt. 15:11.
"In later times, some shall . . . speak lies in hypocrisy . .
. commanding to abstain from that which God hath created to be
received with thanksgiving of them which believe and now the
truth." Paul: 1 Tim. 4:1
Early Christianity
Historians, early artworks, Bibles, manuscripts, Dead Sea Scrolls,
Gnostic Gospels, letters from early church fathers, etc., indicate
that for the first 300-400 years A.D., many early Christian sects were
gentle and loving. They were usually open, tolerant and unstructured:
a poor man's or slave's religion.
Rome considered Christianity to be simply another bothersome
Oriental Mystery Cult, like those of Mithra or Isis, then the most
popular in the Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire
Faced with a crumbling empire, political corruption, and a series
of ruinous wars with barbarians, the old Roman Empire hovered on the
brink of disaster. The religious contortions undertaken by the ruling
body in Rome to maintain its earthly power led the political leaders
to crack down on healthy diversity in the field of individual cults
and religions.
To save itself politically, the formerly pantheistic (meaning
tolerant of different worships) government of the empire changed its
policy.
Starting in 249 C.E., various emperors launched a string of bloody
persecutions, which included the troublesome Christians. By 306 C.E.,
it was clear that this was not working. Emperor Constantine called off
the executions and began to patronize the Christian clergy, which
promptly adopted a dogma lifted from "Mithraism," among
other religions: "Royal Blood by Birth," the "Divine
Right to Rule other humans."
The ambitious Constantine saw that while underground, the church
had developed into an intolerant, tightly-knit hierarchy; a well
organized network second in influence only to his own. By combining
church and state, each was able to double its power and seek out the
crimes/sins of all its political rivals and enemies with the full
support/blessing of the other.
Columbia History of the World, Harper & Row, NY, 1981.
Constantine soon converted to Christianity and declared one
mandatory, monistic, state-empowered religion: the Roman Catholic
Church (R.C.Ch.); literally, the Roman Universal Church
("catholic" is Latin for "universal"). This was
now the absolute and official religion of the empire. In one sweep,
all secret societies were outlawed which might have threatened his
(and Rome's) mandate to rule the known world, as they had for the
previous 400 consecutive years.
Church/State Aristocracy
After running from the Roman Empire's police for almost 300 years,
Christian Orthodox priests had become their bosses. Starting in the
4th, 5th, and 6th Centuries C.E., pagan religions and all the
different Christian sects, belief systems, knowledge, gospels, etc.,
such as the Essenes, Gnostics, and Merovingians (Franks), were either
incorporated into or edited out of official doctrine and hierarchy.
Finally, in a series of councils, all contrary dogmas (e.g., that
the Earth was round, and the sun and stars were more than five to 17
miles away) were summarily outlawed and driven underground during the
Dark Ages, 400-1000+ C.E.
By the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the 11th Century C.E.,
virtually all powers were placed in the hands of the Church and Pope;
first, by Germanic conquerors, and later by powerful Spanish and
French Kings and powerful Italian merchants and nobles (the Borgias,
Medicis, and other megalomaniacs) probably to protect their trade
secrets, alliances, and sources of wealth.
All European people were forced to adhere to the "Holy"
Roman Empire policy: Zero tolerance by a fundamentalist
church/police-state with blind faith in one, unquestioned version of
how to worship God and the Pope's infallibility.
Political rulers aided and abetted the Church in this fraud, as
their power now rested only on their new Christian dogma, the
patriarchal "Divine right" to rule.
They enacted laws with fantastically vicious punishments for even
the slightest infraction or heresy.* Heretics were mercilessly sought
out by fanatical, sadistic inquisitors using perverted forms of
torture to extract confessions and as punishment.
* Webster's dictionary defines "Her-e-sy (her‘e se)"
as 1: a religious belief that is opposed to church dogma. 2: any
opinion (in philosophy, politics, etc.) opposed to official or
established views or doctrines. 3: the holding of any such belief or
opinion.
This system kept most of the Western world's inhabitants in a state
of constant terror, not only for their own physical safety and
freedom, but also for their eternal spirit, with "Hell"
lurking mere inches below the surface for those excommunicated by the
church.
The Politics of Paper
Reference to cannabis and other spiritual drug use is often hidden
in art during periods of repression. Stylized hemp leaves surround the
angels' heads, and their halos resemble the cap of the amanita
muscaria mushroom in The Third Day of Creation, entrance hall of San
Marco painted in Venice, Italy. (Sixth to Seventh Century C.E.)
The masses of people, "the commons," were kept in check
through a dual system of fear and enforced ignorance. All learning
except the most rudimentary was controlled and strictly regulated by
the priests.
The commons (about 95% of the people) were forbidden to learn to
read or write not even an alphabet and often were punished or put to
death for doing so.
The people were also forbidden to learn Latin, the language of the
Bible. This effectively enabled the few priests who could read to
interpret the scriptures any way they pleased for about 1,200 years,
until the reformation in Europe, circa 1600.
To prohibit knowledge, people were literally kept in the dark,
without a piece of paper to write on. The monasteries preserved and
guarded hemp's secrets. They saw that it held two threats to this
policy of absolute control: papermaking and lamp oil.
Something had to be done.
Cannabis Medicines Forbidden
While embracing wine as a Sacrament, and tolerating beer and hard
liquor, the Inquisition outlawed cannabis ingestion in Spain in the
12th Century, and France in the 13th. Many other natural remedies were
simultaneously banned. Anyone using hemp to communicate, heal, etc.
was labeled "witch."
Saint Joan of Arc, for example, was accused in 1430-31 of using a
variety of herbal "witch" drugs, including cannabis, to hear
voices.
Church Sanctioned Legal Medicines
Virtually the only legal medical cures allowed to people of Western
Europe by the Roman Catholic Church Fathers at this time were:
1. (a) Wearing a bird mask for plague (see picture). (b) Setting
fractured bones or cleaning burns.
2. Bleeding pints and even quarts of blood from all flu, pneumonia,
or fever patients (victims) was the most used treatment in Europe and
America by doctors until the beginning of the 1900s. It does not work!
And did not work for thousands of years no matter how much blood they
took.
3. Praying to specific Saints for a miraculous cure, e.g., St.
Anthony for ergotism (poisoning), St. Odilla for blindness, St.
Benedict for poison sufferers, St. Vitus for comedians and
epileptics\.
4. Alcohol was legal for a variety of problems. In 1484, Pope
Innocent VIII singled out cannabis healers and other herbalists,
proclaiming hemp an unholy sacrament of the second and third types of
satanic mass. This persecution lasted for more than 150 years.
Satanic knowledge and masses, according to the Medieval
Church, came in three types:
To Summon or Worship Satan; To Have Witch's Knowledge (e.g.,
herbalists of chemists) of making, using, or giving others any unguent
or preparation including cannabis as medicine or as a spiritual
sacrament;
The Mass of the Travesty, which can be likened to "the
Simpsons", "In Living Color", rap music, Mel Brooks,
"Second City-TV", "Monty Python", or
"Saturday Night Live" (Father Guido Sarducci-type group)
doing irreverent, farcical, or satirical take-offs on the dogmas,
doctrines, indulgences, and rituals of the R.C.Ch. mass and/or its
absolute beliefs.
Because medieval priest bureaucrats thought they were sometimes
laughed at, ridiculed, and scorned by those under its influence often
by the most learned monks, clerics, and leading citizens ingesting
cannabis was proclaimed heretical and Satanic.
Contradictions
Despite this centuries-long attack by the most powerful political
and religious force in Western civilization, hemp cultivation
continued in Northern Europe, Africa, and Asia. While the church
persecuted cannabis users in Europe, the Spanish conquistadors were
busy planting hemp everywhere around the world to provide sails, rope,
oakum, clothes, etc.
Yet, Hemp Endured
The then sadistic Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and, in the 16th
Century C.E., tried to outlaw cannabis because Egyptian hemp growers
along the Nile were leading tax revolts. The Turk complained that
cannabis use caused Egyptians to laugh and be disrespectful to their
Sultan and his representatives. In 1868, Egypt became the first
modern(?) country to outlaw cannabis ingestion, followed in 1910 by
white South Africa to punish and stop the blacks practicing their
ancient Dagga cult and religions.
In Europe, hemp was widely used both industrially and medicinally,
from the Black Sea (Crimean) to the British Isles, especially in
Eastern Europe. The papal ban on cannabis medicines in the Holy Roman
Empire in 1484 was quite unenforceable north of the Alps, and to this
day the Romanians, Czechs, Hungarians, and Russians dominate the world
cannabis agronomy.
In Ireland, already world famous for its cannabis linen, the Irish
woman who wanted to know whom she would eventually marry was advised
to seek revelation through cannabis.
Eventually, the hemp trades once again became so important to the
empire builders who followed (in the Age of Discover/Reason, the 14th
to 18th Centuries) that they were central to the intrigues and
maneuverings of all the World's great powers.
The Age of Enlightenment
The 18th Century ushered in a new era of human thought and
civilization; "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!"
declared the colonists in America. "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity!" replied their French cousins. The concepts of modern
constitutional government, which guaranteed human rights and
separation of church and state, were unified into a policy designed to
protect citizens from intolerant and arbitrary laws.
In his landmark essay, On Liberty, Ogden Livingston Mills, whose
philosophy shaped our democracy, wrote that "Human liberty
comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness in the most
comprehensive sense: liberty of thought and feeling, Scientific, moral
or theological, Liberty of tastes and pursuits."
Mills asserted that this freedom of thought or of "mind"
is the basis for all freedoms. Gentleman farmer Thomas Jefferson's
immortal words, "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,"
are engraved into the marble of his Memorial in Washington D.C.
Abraham Lincoln was an avowed enemy of prohibition. His wife was
prescribed cannabis for her nerves after his assassination. Virtually
every president from the mid-19th Century up until prohibition
routinely used cannabis medicines (See chapter 12: 19th Century use).
Close acquaintances of John F. Kennedy, such as entertainers Morey
Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon* say the president used cannabis regularly
to control his back pain (before and during his term) and actually
planned on legalizing "marijuana" during his second term a
plan cut short by his assassination in 1963. "How Heads of State
Got High," High Times, April, 1980 (see appendix in paper version
of this book).
* As reported directly to this author by Eddie Gordon, reknowned
harmonica virtuoso, member of the Harmonicats, and the number-one
harmonicist in the world, who smoked with Kennedy and performed
numerous times for him.
More recently, former president Gerald Ford's son Jack and Jimmy
Carter's son Chip admit to having smoked pot in the White House.
George Bush's vice president Dan Quayle* had a reputation for smoking
grass and using drugs in college. Ronald and even former first lady
Nancy "Just Say No" Reagan are reported to have smoked pot
in the California Governor's mansion.
* "Smoke Screen: Inmate Sues Justice Department Over
Quayle-Pot Cover-up," Dallas Observer, August 23, 1990. Kelley,
Kitty, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography, Doubleday Co., NY,
1991.
General Footnotes/Bibliography:
Hindu Vedas; Shen Nung Pharmacopoeia Herodotus; Abel, Ernest,
Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years; Plenum Press, 1980; Dead Sea
Scrolls; High Times Encyclopedia; Encyclopaedia Britannica,
"Pharmacological Cults;" Roffman, Marijuana and Medicine,
1982; Ohio State Medical Society, 1860; British Indian Hemp Report,
1894; Ungerleider UCLA, 1982; U.S. Army, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland
(Multiples); Shultes, Harvard Botanical; EmBowden, UC Northridge;
Micahel Aldrich, Ph.D.; Vera Rubin, Institute for the Study of Man;
Wasson, R. Gordon, SOMA, Divine Mushroom of Immortality, Roffman,
Marijuana and Medicine; etymologist Jay Lynn; Allegro, J.M., Sacred
Mushroom and the Cross, Doubleday & Co., 1970, et al; "How
Heads of State Got High," High Times, April, 1980 (see Appendix).
Economics: The Very Model of a Modern Inquisition
For cannabis-related knowledge, or hundreds of other "sins"Owning
a devil's tool (dinner fork), reading a sorcerer's book or speaking in
tongues (foreign language), having a different faith, having a witch's
habit (taking a bath or falling into a river), etc.From 10% to as many
as 50% of the people in Western Europe were tortured or put to death
without trial during the medieval Roman Catholic Church's 500-year
Inquisition (12th to 17th Centuries).
While most suffered, some profited handsomely. The Pope could
declare anything "heresy," and use it as an excuse to
legally rob, torture, and kill his enemies or anyone else accused. For
more than 300 years, inquisitors divided up the property forfeited to
them by suspected witches and heretics. Whoever denounced you got 1/3
of your property, 1/3 went to the government, and 1/3 went to the
Papal hierarchy.
"Beware the scribes which devour widow's houses." Jesus,
quoted: Luke 20:46
This perverted prosecution-for-profit model, used almost exactly
the same way today by state and federal drug warriors, and just as
self-righteously, was given to us at the insistence of president
Ronald Reagan in 1984 and was written for Congress by then Congressman
Dan Lungren, former California Attorney General. In actuality, once
the government seizes a property, more than 90% are never returned by
the courts. Everyone from informant, to the police and the prosecutor
now share in the bounty of forfeited goods.
In fact, while British common law is the basis for our modern legal
system, forfeiture law relies on the medieval concept of the cursed
object"deodand" (from the Latin "deo", god, and
"dand", give; meaning that any object causing human death
was forfeited to the crown)Is the basis for American laws of seizure
and confiscation of property rather than against persons.
Why? Simple. People have guaranteed legal rights; property does
not! Thomas Jefferson wrote and acted on behalf of hemp many times,
smuggling rare seeds into America, redesigning the hemp brake, keeping
his farm and garden journals in which, on March 16, 1791, he wrote:
"The culture [of tobacco] is pernicious. This plant greatly
exhausts the soil. Of course, it requires much manure, therefore other
productions are deprived of manure, yielding no nourishment for
cattle, there is no return for the manure expended.Ú "It is
impolitic. The fact well established in the system of agriculture is
that the best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil.
The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine,
in other words to the wealth and protection of the country. The
latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation
from caprice, and its value from the taxes to which it was formerly
exposed. The preference to be given will result from a comparison of
them: Hemp employs in its rudest state more labor than tobacco, but
being a material for manufactures of various sorts, becomes afterwards
the means of support to numbers of people, hence it is to be preferred
in a populous country. "America imports hemp and will continue to
do so, and also sundry articles made of hemp, such as cordage, sail
cloth, drilling linen and stockings"
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