Hemp is native to central Asia and was first cultivated in large quantities in China more than 6,000 years ago. Hemp is a high-value crop with a variety of uses, and in addition to extracting addictive products, products include edible oil, edible hemp seeds, livestock feed, and hemp fiber. Chinese hemp fiber is used to make ropes, fishing nets, and clothing materials for the common people—because silk fabrics are only affordable for the wealthy.
Because of its versatility and resilience – it can be grown in a variety of climate zones from sea level to altitudes above 3,000 metres above sea level – it is bound to become a widely cultivated crop. The psychoactive effects of cannabis are valued in many societies, with India being the most important. As early as 2000 BC to 1400 BC, there are records of cannabis medicine in ancient Indian books. Ancient cannabis medicine was made from dried leaves, seeds and stems of wild or cultivated male and female cannabis plants, usually mixed with sugar, black pepper, water or milk, which is the lightest of the traditional hashishi preparation methods. Cannabis smoke is made by drying the flower corolla of an artificially grown female plant and is rich in THC, which is 2 to 3 times more effective than cannabis medicine. Marijuana cigarettes can be smoked or taken orally, and it is not clear when people began to smoke it in ancient India. The pure resin processed product drawn from female cannabis is cannabis resin.
India is known as the first country in the world to embrace the use of cannabis, and patients are prescribed oral cannabis to treat infectious diseases such as malaria or pain such as rheumatism. Marijuana is also used in general folk remedies and is used to combat irritability and fatigue, especially during the harvest season. Warriors drank marijuana to bolster their courage, ascetics borrowed it to calm their minds, and newlyweds used it to enhance their pleasures.
After the British occupied India, they considered cannabis to be a narcotic and opposed its use. In the 20th century, the Westernized Indian ruling class also opposed it. The general public and elites mostly tolerate mildly effective cannabis drugs, after all, people in all walks of life are taking them. As for smoking marijuana smoke and cannabis resin, it will be reminiscent of outlaws at the bottom of society, so it is becoming less and less acceptable.
The Spanish began cultivating hemp in the colonies in the 16th century until the early 19th century, when hemp farming flourished in California. The French and British also cultivated marijuana in colonial areas, and the colonial powers cultivated marijuana to collect hemp fibers, mainly for the ropes and cables of ships, and never paid attention to the medicinal value of marijuana and its efficacy in affecting mental states.
The view of slave labor introduced by the great powers is different. Slaves from Angola brought hemp to sugar cane plantations in northeastern Brazil, where it became a regular crop after about 1549. Local Indians and countrymen of mixed European and Indian descent learned to use marijuana as a medicine and for bonding, and later urban laborers also learned to do so. Anthropologist Vera Rubin calls this pattern of use the "cannabis complex" and includes ropes and clothing, food and spices, refreshings and tonics, herbs and recreational depressants.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the center of gravity of cannabis smoke in the Americas shifted from Brazil to the Caribbean. The transfer process is similar to the globalization of opium smoking, with migration and long-distance transport all being the key factors. From 1838 onwards, slavery ended in the American colonies, and sugar plantations faced a shortage of cheap labor. The owners of colonial farms imported indentured servants from India, nearly 500,000 of whom went to the Caribbean. The marijuana complex also came with them, which was quite dissatisfied with white society. A 1913 editorial in Jamaica's Gleaner Daily said, "We have seen coolie gardeners who are quiet and shy by nature go crazy after smoking this plant." The article also pointed out that the spread of this thing to the islands with African communities and became a crop that the African community likes to grow, which is a bad phenomenon and may be similar to China's opium problem in the future.
The truth is not far from this prophecy. By the 70s of the 20th century, 60% of the male adult population in rural Jamaica smoked cannabis, half of them were very strong smokers, and the folk medicinal use of cannabis for tea or as a tonic and refresher was also common.
American cannabis complex
In the 30 years after 1900, more than 1 million Mexican laborers entered the American Southwest, and the practice of smoking marijuana followed them into the United States. Tens of thousands of people fanned out into the Midwest, finding work on railroads, construction sites, factories, and as far as Chicago. The ongoing cigarette revolution taught Americans to use their lungs to inhale addiction, which incidentally led to the spread of marijuana smoke, and the abundant supply of marijuana in the United States was another boost. Tennessee criminals simply pick up the flower crown of marijuana found on the side of the road and dry it, and there is marijuana smoke to smoke. Inmates at San Quentin simply planted marijuana for their own use in open spaces inside the prison. During 1936, the NYPD destroyed 18,000 kilograms of marijuana grown within the city limits.
Because of their general availability, cannabis cigarettes are inexpensive, with a (cannabis-packed cigarette) costing between 5 and 50 cents. That's an affordable price for young urban blacks who identify with this emerging pop subculture. The heroes of this subculture are jazz musicians who lead by example by smoking marijuana.
The use of marijuana by working-class men to escape reality and have fun in time is nothing new. But at that time, the marijuana consumed by Americans was not the same as the traditional Indian hemp, which was more limited to meet the needs of pleasure, and was not used as a medicinal tea or folk medicine, just to smoke it to enjoy.
The cannabis complex in the United States began to enter the mainstream society in the 60s of the 20th century. Since the heyday of the "marijuana club" in Paris in the 1940s, highly educated people have smoked marijuana in search of new excitement and what the poet Baudelaire called "reinforced personal traits." But very few people take the lead, and few follow up. By the '60s, when millions of students in flared pants lit up marijuana cigarettes, the situation was different. Psychologist William McGlautling summed up this phenomenon succinctly: "Through the mediation of the hippie movement, marijuana smoke has been born from an addiction at the bottom of society to an addiction of the middle class and high society." Hippies emerged from the "decadent movement" that formed a small number of people in the 50s of the 20th century but led the intellectual world. Media coverage of hippie favor (if not intentional partiality, but not factuality), combined with the antipathy of apartheid and urban materialism, has led to a rush of young people to follow suit. Marijuana smoke can be a symbol of the multiple values of rebellious behavior, so it has become popular among high school and college students. According to a University of Michigan study, the number of marijuana users from freshman to senior year is increasing year by year, but the number of graduate students is decreasing because graduate students prefer sedatives.
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