"Hey! Hands off my stash!"
Posted on 11/30/2008 12:31:53 PM PST by BGHater
Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.
The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.
The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.
"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.
Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.
The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.
The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.
Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Dude.
Sinatra Ping.
‘The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.’
It’s called a “tomb” - you can hide your weed in it.
Far out.
"Hey! Hands off my stash!"
Did they find any munchies?
Did they find any rice paper? Zig Zags or Easy Widers perhaps?
“Faw owt, due!”
Are they sure it’s a tomb, and not just his parents’ basement?
"Wow, thatz some ancient shiite, dewd!"
Remote kin of Timothy Leary?
“Dave’s not here!”
The corpse was reported to have said, “That’s not mine dude.”
Proof that smoking marijuana will kill you. Are you kids out there listening?
“You know, bend and stoop... You can pick strawberries with that g.damn Finklestein sh!t kid, sonofab!tch!!!”
“I wasn’t lookin’ at his neck...”
“Starbuck, Starbuck”
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