Cannabis, now, is not a recent discovery. It was used much earlier, in what is now being called the 'Stoned Age'. Experts even think that the plant was transmitted through the Bronze Road, which later began to be called the Silk Road---to the Asian countries.
The difference is that the marijuana plant was picked for its "hemp and nutritional seeds" that could be used to make clothes, not for its addictive or psychoactive properties. It began to be used for clothing and food almost 10,000 years ago. The first to harness the plants were the European and the Asian tribes, once European glaciers began to retreat.
Its addictive and tipping characteristics began to influence humans about 3,000 years before they started on alcohol. The plant began to get distributed about 10,000 years ago, German Archaeological Institute researcher Tengwen Long said.
Still, it did not become a money spinner till 5,000 years ago, when Bronze Age herders started to trade cannabis with other tribes for animals.
However, much more research and information need to be gathered from Central Asia and south Russia, before we can understand the complexity of the issue, according to Long.
"It is generally thought that mind-altering substances, or at least drugs, are a modern-day issue, but if we look at the archaeological record, there are many data supporting their consumption in prehistoric times. As soon as drug plants and fermented drinks were first consumed, there is uninterrupted evidence for such use over centuries, and occasionally, the relationship that began in prehistoric times has continued into the present day," associate professor of prehistory at the University of Valladolid in Spain, Dr. Elisa Guerra-Doce said.
How do we overcome the deathly habit? "Considering the failures of the war on drugs, perhaps our modern societies should look into the past and learn something from 'the primitive' so that we might find out how to maximize the potential benefits and minimize the potential for harm of substances that humans have been using for millennia," Guerra-Doce added.
