sooooooo,
the ice melted way back, there was some kind of 'big flood', and we rapidly moved our game up from monkey times, including a greater tendency to not wander around so much, since we now had bread and cheeseburgers in the back yard. at ground zero of the transformation, the head of the persian gulf, a quite lovely garden popped up, folks there decided to shelter in place, and them yogurt chomping sumerians said 'let's do this! put some dang clothes on, as we don't need to see ur junk everday. just chillax, and have a bowl instead of running around like a nut chasing wild animals or looking for kale.'
'Hebrew קַנַּבּוֹס (
qannabbôs) from קְנֵה בֹּשֶׂם (
qěnēh bośem) may derive from
Sumerian kunibu,' and 'Leading authorities on the etymology of both the German and Russian languages list a Sumerian cognate.' wiki.
fast forward a bunch of millenia later, when folks really started to write stuff down, as ol Herodotus noted in his (c. 440 BCE)
Histories,
"The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed [presumably, flowers], and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Greek vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy.' party on, wayne
. Classical Greeks and Romans also used cannabis.
finally, millenia later, ol carl linnaeus slapped a label on it. He considered the genus to be monotypic, having just a single species that he named
Cannabis sativa. tru dat, cuz many genetic researchers today still conclude that 'analyses confirm the continuity of the
Cannabis gene pool throughout the studied accessions, and provide further confirmation that the genus consists of a single species.'
too much thc, from newfangled lab concoctions where the naturally-occurring percentages were say, 8-15, and now boosted up to 30%, is bad, 'fry ur brain' bad. as a comestible, there is minimal historical evidence, other than old school breakfast gruel (seed), largely consumed by the poor. a bowl of that now 'super food,' when the next meal coming was unknown, made a lot of sense. on the udder hand, those hash eaters
'Assassin,
Hashishin, meaning hashish eaters ...
'a member of the Nizari branch of Ismaili Muslims at the time of the Crusades, when the newly established sect ruled part of northern Persia (1094–1256). They were renowned as militant fanatics, and were popularly reputed to use hashish before going on murder missions,' were nuts. cf, 1938's 'reefer madness' and 'assassin of youth' flix.
plain vanilla smoked cannabis been around a long, long time. many, like me, see no evidence of it being carcinogenic.
'Results from our pooled analyses provide little evidence for an increased risk of lung cancer among habitual or long-term cannabis smokers, although the possibility of potential adverse effect for heavy consumption cannot be excluded.'
Cannabis smoking and lung cancer risk: Pooled analysis in the International Lung Cancer Consortium - Zhang - 2015 - International Journal of Cancer - Wiley Online Library
in fact, i expect, eventually, the research to demonstrate quite the opposite, that it acts as a pulmonary anti-bacterial, anti-viral therapy, but i won't be holding my breath until then, cuz like these current legalizations, everything takes forever, including a long-overdue treatise on 'smoked cannabis and it's effect on covid lung infection.'
if nothing else, and u've got some physical injury healing to do, it can make you sleep a bit more, as well as get u to eat. hmmm, rest and nutrition to heal what ails you?
imagine that.
treat all the modern hype nonsense warily. as always, moderation.
rest in peace, Clifford. you were The Big Dog.