Bread or Beer?  Which came first?

 

Humankind has always enjoyed getting high, whether it be naturally or unnaturally.  However, this poses a question. If nature provides us with a plant for leisurely enjoyment, does this classify itself as unnatural? Alcohol is made from a variety of natural substances and is not classed as unnatural. It is also abused and can have far reaching consequences. Drugs pose the same problem. What is a drug? Opium is both a drug and a painkiller.  Cannabis is both a drug and a painkiller. While both are devastating in the wrong hands, there is no denying the medicinal properties of both plants.

 

Hemp was the first plant known to be cultivated for the production of a textile fibre. About 10,000 years ago, hemp industries appeared simultaneously in China and Eurasia.  The oldest relic of human industry is a bit of hemp fabric, made in Catal Huyuk (today in modern Turkey) dated around 8,000 BC.  The Egyptians spun hemp around 4000 BC. Mention of hemp is made in texts of the Babylonians, Persians, Hebrews and Chaldeans.  During the Bronze Age, the Scythians introduced the plant to Europe during their westward migration in 1500 BC.

 

By 2700 BC cannabis (Indica and sativa) was being used extensively in medicines, food and in sacrificial ceremonies. However from around 1000 AD when the Inquisition reared its ugly head, many people were tortured or put to death for owning a dinner fork, taking a bath, or using cannabis as a medicine. For example, during 1430-31, Joan of Arc was accused of using cannabis and other herbs as a religious sacrament. In the 1470’s the Guttenberg Bible was printed on hemp paper and by 1610 so was the King James version.

 

According to Herodotus (+500 BC), the Scythians used to breathe in the fumes with the steam of their primitive sauna baths.   The herb was also known to the accomplished builders of Great Zimbabwe. It was the Arabs who invented the elegant centrepiece of relaxed conversation; the hookah for smoking both hashish and opium.  It was Al-Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah who gave his name to both the pure resin of the female plant and to a class of crime, assassination.  He was a devotee of Islam and was determined to stop the moral decline and the encroachments of Christianity.  100 years later Genghis Khan finally put an end to the assassins.

 

The earliest evidence for cannabis in Africa outside of Egypt comes from fourteenth-century Ethiopia, where two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls containing traces of cannabis were discovered during excavations. From Ethiopia, Africans who originally lived in North Africa carried cannabis seeds to the south, and from them the use of cannabis as an intoxicant spread to the people of Southern Africa. Another theory is that when the first explorers arrived at the tip of Africa they found cannabis, already thriving, having been brought to the area by AWOL soldiers from the Egyptian army. In 1658, Jan van Riebeeck, the first governor of the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope, described the use of cannabis by yet another tribe, the Khoisan who were probably the offspring of Egyptian soldiers who had deserted their posts in Ethiopia around 650 B.C., and San women. The custom that most intrigued the Dutch was their unique use of hemp, which they called dagga. “Dagga”, van Riebeeck incredulously noted, was more valued than gold by the locals, adding that it "drugs their brain just as opium”.  The leaves were eaten and it was the introduction of tobacco smoking that taught the local community the art of smoking “dagga”. Intoxication by means of smoking instead of chewing also altered African culture. No longer was dagga consumed alone. Smoking transformed the taking of dagga into a communal event, especially among those tribes that had few pipes.

 

One of the books about the people of Africa to mention the cannabis habit was written by a Dominican priest, Joao dos Santos, in 1609. The plant, he said, was cultivated throughout Kafaria (near the Cape of Good Hope) and was called bangue. The locals were in the habit of eating its leaves, and those that used it to excess, he said, became intoxicated as if they had drunk a large quantity of wine.

 

While many early explorers condemned the use of cannabis as making their servants lazy, David Livingstone wrote of the Zulu, that the warriors "sat down and smoked it in order that they might make an effective onslaught.” In other words cannabis was used communally to psyche the mind to the task at hand.

 

In 1923, South Africa tried to enlist the aid of the League of Nations in outlawing cannabis on an international scale, but to no avail. Five years later, the country passed yet another anti cannabis law. This was followed by still more anti cannabis laws. The result was always the same - try though they might to legislate cannabis out of existence, South African lawmakers were never a match for the plant's tenacious hold over its devotees.

 

The hemp plant produces the strongest natural fibre known. It is 3 times stronger than cotton and is softer, warmer, more absorbent, and longer wearing. Hemp has no natural insect enemies and is disease and drought resistant, therefore hemp cultivation requires no chemical pesticides, herbicides, nor fertilizers. Throughout history, hemp seed --- which contains one of the most complete and ‘readily available’ vegetable proteins known --- was routinely used in porridge, soup, and gruel by virtually all the peoples of the world. Sprouted hemp seed was used in salads and stir-fry cooking. Hemp seed was also pressed for vegetable oil and the high-protein cake by-product provided an excellent source of nutrition for farm animals.

 

1964 The Himalayan region of Bangladesh (from “bhang” cannabis, “la” land, and “desh” people) signed an anti-drug pact with the U.S. not to grow hemp. As a result, the steep slopes of this flash-flood region which once were lush with hardy hemp, are reduced to a light covering of moss. Millions of acres of topsoil are washed away and native peoples of the country suffer disease, starvation, and decimation due to unrestrained flooding.

 

AGRICULTURAL USES 

Hemp seedlings do well in a moderately cool, temperate climate. The seedlings can tolerate a small amount of frost. Cannabis on the other hand does not do as well in swampy or clay soils. Hemp is used as a green manure, preparing the soil for new planting. Hemp improves the physical condition of the soil and when dug into the ground returns vital nutrients (nitrogen, potassium, manganese, traces of boron, copper, zinc, calcium, iron etc) to the soil. It rarely needs pesticides and because of this is used as a highly effective insect repellent. Hemp makes an excellent companion plant for tomatoes and prevents potato blight. Shredded and soaked in water for 3 months or more makes an effective natural liquid fertilizer and pest repellent.  An historical note of some significance is that during the 18th century when sail sea power ruled, hemp was one of the most important agricultural crops in the southern United States. It was with the decline in sail power and the increase of the use of fossil fuels and synthetics that relegated hemp to a backseat.

MEDICINAL USES 

• In natural form, cannabis has therapeutic value and complete safety in the treatment of asthma, glaucoma, nausea, tumours, epilepsy, infection, stress, migraines, anorexia, depression and rheumatism.

• The plant is a common folk remedy for the swelling of joints, childbirth, inflammation, and fever and to prevent convulsions.

• Relieves chronic pain and small aches / Stimulates the appetite

• Helps with sleeping disorders / Creates a feeling of calmness

• Prevents nausea.

• Suppresses convulsions / Eases muscle spasms

• Hemp can be smoked, eaten, drunk, used as a poultice or made into a tincture.

• AIDS relief – eating hemp supports the immune system.  This is due to the complete protein in hempseed, which gives the body the combination of essential amino acids and essential fatty acids needed to maintain health.  It provides the components necessary to make human serum albumen and the serum globulins, including the immune enhancing gamma globulin antibodies.  People living with AIDS who use hemp medicinally report that this allows a more normal life with relatively few side effects.

• Hemp is a vasodilator – it opens up the blood vessels.  It dilates the arteries to lower blood pressure as well as inner eye pressure.

• Hemp treats persons with anorexia nervosa and wasting syndrome.

• Is a valuable aid in alleviating depression.

• It is a gentle means of managing constipation.  The oil lubricates the bowels and the hulls (of the seed) provide roughage to flush the system.

• It reduces nausea in cancer and chemotherapy and radiation treatment.  Mixed with a soothing ointment, hemp relieves and fades burn marks caused by the radiation treatment.

• Hemp flower juice is used for earache.  The boiled root is made into a salve to treat burns.  The resin is an effective antibiotic against bacterial infections of the ear, nose, throat, wounds and oral herpes.

• Hemp is used to relieve symptoms of epilepsy, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.

• Hemp smoke is an expectorant that clears out air passages.  Taken in tincture or tea form it is an excellent dilator of the airways (the bronchi) opening them up to allow more oxygen into the blood.  It is highly effective in dealing with asthma and also relieves symptoms of emphysema.

• Hemp is taken in a weak infusion to treat many common ailments such as colds, flu, coughs, hay fever, sinus, bronchitis etc. It is highly effective used as a wash for skin conditions such as eczema, shingles, allergy rashes and acne.

• Is a valuable additive in soothing salves for rheumatism, arthritis, muscular aches and pains, etc.