Posted on 06/12/2019 7:28:00 PM PDT by KC_Lion
WASHINGTON (AP) - Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest direct evidence of people smoking marijuana from a 2,500-year-old graveyard in western China.
In a complex of lofty tombs in the Pamir Mountains - a region near the borders of modern China, Pakistan and Tajikistan - excavators found 10 wooden bowls and several stones containing burnt residue of the cannabis plant. Scientists believe heated stones were used to burn the marijuana and people then inhaled the smoke as part of a burial ritual.
"It's the earliest strong evidence of people getting high" on marijuana, said Mark Merlin, a botanist at the University of Hawaii. He was not involved in the research published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
The history of ancient drug use has long intrigued scholars. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of people in Central Asia smoking cannabis around 440 B.C. In the past century, archaeologists have found cannabis seeds and plants buried in tombs across Central Asia's highlands, including in southern Siberia, and elsewhere in western China's Xinjiang region.
Today, scholars don't consider ancient accounts trustworthy without corroborating evidence. And since the cannabis plant has other uses - seeds are pressed for oil and fibers used for cloth - the presence of seeds alone doesn't confirm drug use.
Using new techniques for chemical analysis, the study's scientists examined the residue and found evidence of THC, the compound that gives pot its high. Most wild cannabis plants have low levels of THC, so the researchers believe the people who built the graves deliberately selected or cultivated plants with higher amounts.
"During funeral rites, the smokers may have hoped to communicate with the spirit world - or with the people they were burying," said study co-author Yimin Yang of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktva.com ...
“Dave’s not here”
Assuming that to be true: inhaling the airborne particulate and gaseous residue from burning the leaves of its artificial cultivar was not.
Well according to the article, it was not even smoked,
It was put on hot rocks, not lit on fire...
so in reality, this would have been the first evidence of vaping.
The Chinese use to have round eyes but after millennium of smoking marijuana their eyes changed.... : )
Twelve-year-old male marijuana smoker to a nine-year-old male, while proffering a lit doobie:
“Here. Try this. It’s good for you!”
Nine-year-old male to twelve-year-old:
“If I want to breathe smoke, I’ll find the nearest house fire.”
That was my brother, at 12, and I, at 9.
He went on to become sociopathic with several arrests for violence among other things. He now lives in the desert somewhere as a nomad.
He was once very popular, King of the Prom, and recipient of a Who’s Who Award at Palo Alto High School.
I no longer see him, since he dislocated my jaw the last time I did.
I was never very popular. On the other hand, I managed to avoid being psychotic, assaulting people, and ending up in jail.
(Having grown up surrounded by hippie types in Palo Alto, I have seen plenty of evidence of just how “harmless” smoking marijuana is.)
Nota Bene: Inhaling smoke of any kind is absolutely unnatural snd unhealthful.
Had you been repeatedly droning on about all your amazing accomplishments at the time?
I was never very popular.
Astonishing.
Not the least bit surprising to me.
The demonization of cannabis is a historically recent thing that continues to makes less sense as time goes on. So much LYING about a plant that can & does provide a lot of good for humanity.
The whole country was addicted to opium once.
What did they find? Ancient roaches? Why would they be smoking pot in graves?................
Just the clips.
Homegrown! Michoacan, it's michoacan.
Propganda noted
I watched some of that really badly made propaganda flick. But in it’s time it was taken as gospel, sadly.
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