Cannabis 101: Cannabis education & History

Cannabis 101: Cannabis education

Cannabis 101: Cannabis education. I am writing this to educate the ignorant. Yes the ones against it, but also those  cannabis smokers who have no clue about the different aspects of this wonderful plant.  All we know is that it get’s us high.  So we go on clueless about cannabis and all we can say is legalize it.

When we should be educated on every facet of this plant, so that we may educate others of this beneficial plant to all. It has been kept in the dark with unscrupulous facts. No one wants to do any research. Well hopefully you take something away here.

I will provide you with a brief history of this wonderful plant and about its different aspects. I will also provide you with a link to some wonderful videos, for those who can’t read more than one paragraph, you know since people have no “time” to educate themselves, but have time for utter nonsense since we live in a world that wants to be kept entertained and distracted. I did the research for you and provided links to various sources below.

History

Marijuana has a long history, almost unknown to most people today. The very name “marijuana” is a recent innovation. For the first ten thousand years it went by other names. In English, it was referred to as “hemp” by farmers, while doctors used the scientific term “cannabis”.

Since cannabis is the only plant on the planet that yields both a drug and a useful fiber its no surprise that it has been used for thousands of years. A Chinese treatise on pharmacology attributed to the Emperor Shen Nung and alleged to date from 2737 B.C. contains probably the earliest reference to cannabis and its potential as a medicine. Other early references to cannabis come from India in the Atharva Vedafrom the second millennium BC and from tablets from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian King, who lived around 650 BC. Gautama Buddha is said to have survived by eating only cannabis seeds.

Historians generally agree that cannabis was the world’s largest agricultural crop from before 1000 B.C. until the late 1800’s A.D. During this time period, cannabis was used for the majority of the world’s fiber, fabric, lighting oil, paper, incense, medicines, and as food for humans and animals. Hemp seed was regularly used in porridge, soups and gruels by most people in the world up until the 20th century. Cannabis has been used for building material, too. A bridge made of hemp hurds mixed with lime dating from about 600 A.D. has been discovered in southern France.

In 1619. The Virginia Assembly passed legislation requiring farmers to grow hemp. This sparked America’s first ever “hemp law” to be enacted. Throughout the 17^th century, colonists in Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut were ordered by law to grow Indian hemp seed on their land. A person could be fined or sentenced to jail if they weren’t growing hemp on their land, especially during periods of shortages.  How weird, you could be jail if you DID NOT grow cannabis, now you would go to jail if you did. The government are a bunch of hypocrites.

Cannabis was used as legal tender from 1631 to the early 1800′s.  Money owed to the government of the United States could be paid with cannabis. That meant citizens paid their taxes with hemp throughout America for over 200 years! . Cannabis provided the colonists with medicine, shelter, fuel, and clothing.  Dr. Burke, a Smithsonian consultant, discovered evidence linking seven presidents with growing cannabis: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Franklin Pierce. Benjamin Franklin used the fiber of cannabis for paper.

Cannabis was important to the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin started one of America’s first paper mills using cannabis. The revolutionary newspapers and pamphlets like Common Sense would probably not have been published if they had to procure paper from England. Until 1883, 80 to 90% of all paper in the world was made from hemp. Books, bibles, maps, money and newspapers were usually made from cannabis.

About 80% of all mankind’s textiles and fabrics, including the flag “Old Glory”, were made principally from cannabis fibers until the 1820’s in America and until the 20th century in most of the rest of the world. Ireland made fine linens and Italy produced cloth for clothing with cannabis, at least until the 1830’s. Contary to popular belief, the majority of linen used to be made from hemp, not flax.

1850 Cannabis is added to The U.S. Pharmacopoeia.

1850-1915 Marijuana was widely used throughout United States as a medicinal drug and could easily be purchased in pharmacies and general stores.

In 1937 the United States passed the Marihuana Tax Act, (which historians argue was really a ploy by wealthy families like DuPont, Mellon and Hearst who were interested in restricting the use of industrial hemp) which put limits on the sale and prescription of the cannabis and levied a $1 fine on anyone caught with it.  In 1942 cannabis was removed from the United States Pharmacopoeia, labeled as an “addictive and harmful” drug. The social backlash against cannabis was partly in response to the Jazz age, when it became the drug of choice for what mainstream America considered a “seedy underworld” of musicians, artists and writers.

During the 50s, 60s and 70s studies continued on the medicinal properties of cannabis in other parts of the world, but in the US in 1970 the Government passed the Controlled Substances Act, which placed cannabis in the same category as highly addictive drugs like LSD and heroin and, most importantly, as a Schedule I drug,  deemed that cannabis has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States“.

the origins of the term “marijuana,” it was introduced into popular use by Hearst-era newspapers as a way to instill fear of pot-smoking Mexicans.

What can we use this plant for?

Cannabis is a very versatile plant and has so many uses that i could not list them all here. From paper to bio fuel, from houses to clothes, this plant does it all. Here is a picture that illustrates the uses and you can further research on each one.

 

Medical uses

Cannabis has many medicinal uses. Ails most ailments. Even children benefit from this plant.

Ask yourself if your child was suffering with something or a loved one, would you not consider cannabis. Why wait for someone close to you to get something that chances are cannabis could alleviate, when we should be fighting for our natural right to this plant now. not only for the what if’s of the future, but for those suffering now.

One of the compounds that many people are unaware of is CBD. You can have a cannabis that is very high in cbd and very low in THC. THC being the compound that makes you high. What is cbd?

Uppers and downers

Many people are unaware that cannabis has uppers and downers. Some might try it for the first time and find themselves on the coach and with a downed feeling. Chances are they smoked an indica. So let’s look at the differences of varieties. We have indica and sativa. The downer being the indica and the upper being the sativa.

You will find that most strains are hybrids. In which it might be 70 percent indica and 30 percent sativa and vice versa, and there are pure landraces strains with 100 percent of each, although most of what you find will be a mix of the two. The effects could be that you are hyper one minute and come crashing down the next.

Many people don’t know that we have receptors in our bodies that the cannabanoids  latches on to.  cb1 and cb2 receptors. You can also research that further.

I will leave you with some videos and sources below

 

Even after they made it illegal, they became hypocritical and made this video urging people to grow for the war.

This was the propaganda video, reefer madness  created to scare people in 1936. Please watch it stoned.

The jackass who started it all.

The last 2 short videos were taken from this documentary.

Well if you like to add anything feel free to comment and please keep educating yourselves so that you may educate others. Please share this. thanks

Sources

http://cannabis.org/legislation/cannabis-is-medicine-and-always-has-been-a-brief-history

http://biodiesel.engr.uconn.edu/research.html

http://www.hemp.com/hemp-education/uses-of-hemp/hemp-fuel/making-hemp-biodiesel/

http://hempethics.weebly.com/industrial-hemp-vs-cannabis.html

http://hempethics.weebly.com/hemp-and-sustainability.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025/the-mysterious-history-of-marijuana

http://kannaway.com/magazine/history-of-hemp/hemp-used-legal-tender-america/