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Sunday 8 December 2013

Cannabis

Archaeologists report that cannabis was most likely the first plant cultivated by humans. Cannabis was used for linen, paper, and garments.

In 2016 archaeologists discovered the first incidence of cannabis being used as a “shroud” covering in a human burial. The 2,400 year old tomb also contained 13 complete cannabis plants, suggesting that it was locally grown along the Silk Road.

In 2008, 789 grams of 2,700-year-old marijuana was found inside a Chinese tomb.


Captain Robert Knox (1641 – 1720) of the British East India Company was imprisoned for 20 years in the south Asian island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Upon his escape he bought back a "strange intoxicating herb" unheard of in Europe. The herb is known today as Cannabis Indica.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis sativa (marijuana) on their plantations.

Washington used cannabis to ease the pain from his bad fitting false dentures.

The UK Parliament passed the Dangerous Drugs Act on September 28, 1928 outlawing cannabis.

The actor Robert Mitchum was jailed for cannabis possession, at the age of 31. When asked what prison was like, replied: "It’s just like Palm Springs without the riff-raff."

The Beatles song "Got to Get You into My Life" is actually an ode to pot.

Six weeks before taking his O-Levels at Eton, the former British Prime Minister David Cameron was caught smoking cannabis. He admitted the offence and was fined, prevented from leaving school grounds, and given a "Georgic" (a punishment which involved copying 500 lines of Latin text).

When Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) was arrested in 1983 for possession of marijuana, his punishment was to write, produce and finance his own anti-drug PSA.

In Bhutan, marijuana plants were historically used as pig food—until the country got television in 1999 and learned cannabis was a drug.

When New York City beekeepers noticed their bees making red honey in 2010, it led to an investigation that ultimately exposed the city's largest marijuana farm in the basement of a Brooklyn cherry factory.

Uruguay became the world's first country to legalize recreational marijuana on December 10, 2013. This groundbreaking decision was made by the Uruguayan government under the leadership of President José "Pepe" Mujica. The legalization process was gradual, with the first legal sales of marijuana starting in July 2017.


Five friends at San Rafael High School in California coin the term "4:20" as a euphemism for smoking pot. April 20th becomes a popular day to spark one up, as does 4:20 pm.

1% of all electricity consumed in the USA is used in the growing of marijuana.

The world's largest cannabis grow-op is Canada's Aurora Sky near Edmonton, Alberta. The 800,000 square foot greenhouse is the size of 14 football fields and produces 8,000 kg (17,363 lbs) of marijuana (roughly 12 million joints) per month.

Worldwide, about 162 million adults use marijuana at least once a year, while 22.5 million use it daily.

A survey conducted from 2012 to 2014 found that San Francisco has the highest rate of marijuana use of any city in the U.S.

In India, it is not uncommon to consume cannabis in milkshake form.

There are over 200 slang terms for cannabis in the popular vernacular.

The word 'marijuana' entered English usage in the late 19th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known appearance of a form of the word in English is in Hubert Howe Bancroft's 1873 The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America.

The main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is available legally as a prescribed drug in capsule form. In 1998 US researchers found that THC targets the same pain centres in the brain that morphine does, proving its usefulness in pain relief, and in November 1998, cannabis was legalized for medical use in six US states.

Marijuana today contains more than four times the THC it did in the mid 1980s.

According to the U.N., 158.8 million people around the world use marijuana, which is over 3.8% of the world’s population.

Iceland has the highest population percentage of pot smokers at 18.3% of their country smoking weed.

The country dial-code of the Czech Republic is 420 and the rate of cannabis use there is one of the highest in the world. In 2016, renowned cannabis smoker Snoop Dogg was a contestant on The $100,000 Pyramid, and replied without delay that the country code for the Czech Republic is 420.

Inhaling secondhand marijuana smoke even for just one minute may temporarily and negatively affect how blood vessels function.

Compared to those who don't use marijuana, cannabis users are 26% more likely to have a stroke and 10% more likely to develop heart failure.

There is an average of 8 points drop in the IQ's of teen who smoke marijuana, before reaching the age of 40.

THC, the most psychoactive part of cannabis, is believed to be involved in the plant's self-defense against insect predation, ultraviolet light, and environmental stress. But humans use it to get high.

Marijuana prevents vomiting, so drinking alcohol while smoking weed has the potential to lead to deadly alcohol poisoning.

Source Hutchinson Encyclopedia © RM 2013. Helicon Publishing is division of RM.

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