The Journey
China is known principally for its tea and opium, the great number of its people, and the huge amount of Chinese restaurants. also hemp originates from China. The Chinese were already cultivating cannabis 4500 years BC. They were able to spin yarn for clothing, and make fishing nets and rope with it. The first medicinal applications were described two thousand years later. It was used for rheumatism, gout, malaria, and a number of other disorders.
From China, hemp travelled to Arabia, and appeared in the writings of the Greek philosopher Herodote. He describes ritual use of burning hemp by the Syrian Skytes.
Hemp grows everywhere. It came to Europe via India and the Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, hemp’s intoxicating effect was described by Boccaccio and Rabelais, among others. Later, it was used by Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas in the Latin Quarter in Paris.
Scholars do not agree as to whether the Spaniards were the original importers of cannabis to America. It is certainly true that Colombus’ ships were outfitted with hemp rope, and sails made from hemp cloth. The plant spread quickly in America, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, large-scale hemp plantations proceeded in order to supply the needs of the ship- and clothing industries.