When Did Ancient Humans Start Smoking Weed?

When did early humans start smoking weed? This video traces the full history of cannabis — from a 2,700-year-old shaman's tomb in western China, to the smoke-filled burial caves of the Pamir Mountains, the golden cups of Scythian warriors, the sacred altars of ancient Judah, the bhang rituals of India, a Chinese physician's lost anesthesia formula, a Congolese tribe that traded war for hemp, and the political machine that turned a 12,000-year-old plant into one of the most dangerous substances on Earth. By the end, you might start seeing this plant a little differently. All research and sources are linked below. ———————————————————— 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ Yanghai Tombs — "Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia" (2008, Journal of Experimental Botany) https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ern260 ▸ Jirzankal Cemetery — "The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs of western China" (2019, Science Advances) https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1391 ▸ Herodotus — "The Histories," Book IV, on Scythian cannabis use (c. 440 BCE) ▸ Sergei Rudenko — "Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen" (1970, UC Press) ▸ Scythian Gold Cups — "Residue analysis of golden artifacts from Scythian kurgan in the Caucasus" (2015, Antiquity) ▸ Tell Arad Shrine — "Cannabis and Frankincense at the Judahite Shrine of Arad" (2020, Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology) https://doi.org/10.1080/03344355.2020.1732046 ▸ Atharva Veda — Ancient Vedic text listing cannabis among five sacred plants ▸ Robert Dudley & Dušan Borić — Research on anandamide and the endocannabinoid system ▸ Harry Anslinger — Federal Bureau of Narcotics records, the Gore Files, and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 ▸ John Ehrlichman — Interview quote on Nixon's drug policy, published in Harper's Magazine (2016) by Dan Baum: "Legalize It All" https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ ▸ DEA Judg