8,000+ BCE Use of hemp cord in pottery identified at ancient village site dating back over 10,000 years, located in the area of modern day Taiwan. Finding hemp use and cultivation in this date range puts it as one of the first and oldest known human agriculture crops. As explained by Richard Hamilton in the 2009 Scientific American article on sustainable agriculture "Modern humans emerged some 250,000 years ago, yet agriculture is a fairly recent invention, only about 10,000 years old ... Agriculture is not natural; it is a human invention. It is also the basis of modern civilization." This point was also touched on by Carl Sagan in 1977 when he proposed the possibility that marijuana may have actually been world's first agricultural crop, leading to the development of civilization itself (see 1977, below).
6,000 BCE Cannabis seeds and oil used for food in China.
4,000 BCE Textiles made of hemp are used in China and Turkestan.
2,737 BCE First recorded use of cannabis as medicine by Emperor Shen Neng of China.
2,000-800 BCE Bhang (dried cannabis leaves, seeds and stems) is mentioned in the Hindu sacred text Atharvaveda (Science of Charms) as "Sacred Grass", one of the five sacred plants of India. It is used by medicinally and ritually as an offering to Shiva.
1,500 BCE Cannabis cultivated in China for food and fibre. Scythians cultivate cannabis and use it to weave fine hemp cloth.
700-600 BCE the Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta, an ancient Persian religious text of several hundred volumes refers to bhang as the "good narcotic."
600 BCE Hemp rope appears in southern Russia.
700-300 BCE Scythian tribes leave Cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs.
430 BCE Herodotus reports on both ritual and recreation use of Cannabis by the Scythians (Herodotus the Histories 430 B.C. trans. G. Rawlinson).
200 BCE Hemp rope appears in Greece. Chinese Book of Rites mentions hemp fabric.
100 BCE First evidence of hemp paper, invented in China.
100-0 BCE the psychotropic properties of Cannabis are mentioned in the newly compiled herbal Pen Ts'ao Ching.
23-79 Pliny the Elder's The Natural History mentions hemp rope and marijuana's analgesic effects.
47-127 Plutarch mentions Thracians using cannabis as an intoxicant.
70 Dioscorides, a physician in Nero's army, lists medical marijuana in his Pharmacopoeia.
130-200 Greek physician Galen prescribes medical marijuana.
200 First pharmacopoeia of the East lists medical marijuana. Chinese surgeon Hua T'o uses marijuana as an anaesthetic.
300 A young woman in Jerusalem receives medical marijuana during childbirth.
500-600 The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of Cannabis.
900-1000 Scholars debate the pros and cons of eating hashish. Use spreads throughout Arabia.
1000 Arabic physician Ibn Wahshiyah's On Poisons warns of marijuana's potential dangers.
1090-1124 In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, recruits followers to commit assassinations...legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of Cannabis and the use of Hashish by a paramilitary organization as a hypnotic. Early 12th Century Hashish smoking becomes very popular throughout the Middle East.
1155-1221 Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haydar's personal discovery of Cannabis and his own alleged invention of hashish with its subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the earliest written narratives of the use of Cannabis as an inebriant.
1200 1,001 Nights, an Arabian collection of tales, describes hashish's intoxicating and aphrodisiac properties.
13th Century The oldest monograph on hashish, Zahr al-'arish fi tahrim al-hashish, was written. It has since been lost. Ibn al-Baytar of Spain provides a description of the psychoactive nature of Cannabis. Arab traders bring Cannabis to the Mozambique coast of Africa.
1271-1295 Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his "assassins" using hashish. First time reports of Cannabis have been brought to the attention of Europe.
1378 Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues one of the first edicts against the eating of hashish.
1532 French physician Rabelais's gargantua and Pantagruel mentions marijuana's medicinal effects.
1533 King Henry VIII fines farmers if they do not raise hemp for industrial use.
1549 Angolan slaves brought cannabis with them to the sugar plantations of north-eastern Brazil. They were permitted to plant their cannabis between rows of cane, and to smoke it between harvests.
1550 The epic poem, Benk u Bode, by the poet Mohammed Ebn Soleiman Foruli of Baghdad, deals allegorically with a dialectical battle between wine and hashish.
1563 Portuguese physician Garcia da Orta reports on marijuana's medicinal effects.
1578 China's Li Shih-Chen writes of the antibiotic and antiemetic effects of marijuana.
1600 England begins to import hemp from Russia.
1606-1632 French and British cultivate Cannabis for hemp at their colonies in Port Royal (1606), Virginia (1611), and Plymouth (1632).
1621 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy suggests marijuana may treat depression.
1600-1700 Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople. Hashish becomes a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia.
1753 Linnaeus classifies Cannabis sativa.
1764 Medical marijuana appears in The New England Dispensatory.
1794 Medical marijuana appears in The Edinburgh New Dispensary.
1798 Napoleon discovers that much of the Egyptian lower class habitually uses hashish. Soldiers returning to France bring the tradition with them, and he declares a total prohibition.
1809 Antoine Sylvestre de Sacy, a leading Arabist, suggests a base etymology between the words "assassin" and "hashishin" -- subsequent linguest study disproves his theory.
1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a Cannabis base are available. Hashish is available in Persian pharmacies.
1842 Irish physician O'Shaughnessy publishes cannabis research in English medical journals.
1846 French physician Moreau publishes Hashish and Mental Illness
1850 Cannabis is added to The U.S. Pharmacopoeia.
1850-1915 Marijuana was widely used throughout United States as a medicinal drug and could easily be purchased in pharmacies and general stores.
1854 Whittier writes the first American work to mention cannabis as an intoxicant.
1856 British tax "ganja" and "charas" trade in India.
1890 Greek Department of Interior prohibits importance, cultivation and use of hashish. Hashish is made illegal in Turkey. Sir J.R. Reynolds, chief physician to Queen Victoria, prescribes medical marijuana to her.
1893-1894 The India Hemp Drugs Commission Report is issued. 70,000 to 80,000 kg per year of hashish is legally imported into India from Central Asia.
1906 In the U.S. the Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, regulating the labeling of products containing Alcohol, Opiates, Cocaine, and Cannabis, among others.
1910 The Mexican Revolution caused an influx of Mexican immigrants who introduced the habit of recreational use (instead of it's generally medicinal use) into American society.
1914 The Harrison Act in the U.S. defined use of Marijuana (among other drugs) as a crime.
1915-1927 In the U.S. cannabis begins to be prohibited for nonmedical use. Prohibition first begins in California (1915), followed by Texas (1919), Louisiana (1924), and New York (1927).
1924 Russian botanists classify another major strain of the plant, Cannabis ruderalis.
1936 The American propaganda film Reefer Madness was made to scare American youth away from
1941 Cannabis is removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia and it's medicinal use is no longer recognized in America. The same year the Indian government considers cultivation in Kashmir to fill void of hashish from Chinese Turkestan. Hand-rubbed charas from Nepal is choicest hashish in India during World War II.
1960 Czech researchers confirm the antibiotic and analgesic effects of cannabis.
1965 First reports of the strain Cannibis afghanica and was used for hashish production in northern Afghanistan.
1967 "Smash", the first hashish oil appears. Red Lebanese reaches California.
1971 First evidence suggesting marijuana may help glaucoma patients.
1975 Nabilone, a cannabinoid-based medication appears.
1977 Carl Sagan proposes that marijuana may have been the world's first agricultural crop, leading to the development of civilization itself: "It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization." Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Origin of Human Intelligence p 191 footnote.
1995 Introduction of hashish-making equipment and appearance of locally produced hashish in Amsterdam coffee shops.
1996 California (the first U.S. state to ban marijuana use, see 1915) became the first U.S. State to then re-legalize medical marijuana use for people suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses. A similar bill was passed in Arizona the same year. This was followed by the passage of similar initiatives in Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
