Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia (1975)

Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia

Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia

Publication

Author	Marie Alexandrine Martin(1932–2013)
Editor	Vera Rubin
Language	English
Composed	1973–1974
Published	1975
Publisher	De Gruyter Mouton
Place	Berlin / New York
Volumes	1 (chapter in edited volume)

Cannabis Content

Pages	63–76
Chapter	Part One: Ethnobotany and Diffusion
Regions documented	Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam
Preparations	Smoked with tobacco (wrapped in paper, maize leaf, banana leaf, or Combretum leaf; or in bamboo water pipe); culinary (soup, curry, fritters, condiment); medicinal (decoction, inhalation, alcoholic extract)
Uses documented	Culinary, medicinal, recreational, work-enhancement
Taxonomic significance	Last systematic ethnobotanical documentation of traditional Khmer cannabis culture before the Khmer Rouge period; records two pre-1996 prohibition statutes (1955, 1972) that were entirely unenforced

Access

Digital facsimile	View on BHL

"Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia" is a chapter by Marie Alexandrine Martin (1932–2013), a French ethnobotanist and ethnologist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), published in Vera Rubin (ed.), Cannabis and Culture (De Gruyter Mouton, 1975, pp. 63–76). Based on fieldwork conducted in 1973, the chapter is the last systematic academic documentation of traditional cannabis cultivation, trade and use in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979) destroyed much of the country's traditional knowledge infrastructure.

The chapter also covers cannabis use in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, but its primary contribution to the historical record is the detailed documentation of Cambodian practices: domestic cultivation, market economics, culinary and medicinal applications, smoking customs, and the legal framework governing cannabis in the Khmer kingdom and republic.

Author

Marie Alexandrine Martin was a botanist and ethnologist attached to the Centre de Recherche sur l'Extrême-Orient de Paris-Sorbonne (CREOPS), and later a Directeur de recherche at CNRS. Between 1965 and 1972, she conducted ethnobotanical and ethnolinguistic research in the Cardamom Mountains region among Khmer and Pear communities, as well as among Khmer populations in eastern Thailand. She lived in Cambodia for approximately ten years, remaining until 1975.

Her earlier monograph, Introduction à l'ethnobotanique du Cambodge (Éditions du CNRS, Paris, 1971), provides broader botanical context for the country's traditional plant use. She also published extensively on the Khmer Rouge period, including Cambodia: A Shattered Society (University of California Press, 1994), drawing on twenty-five years of research and fieldwork in the country.

Cannabis content

The cannabis material in Martin's chapter draws on observations made during her 1973 fieldwork, supplemented by earlier ethnobotanical research conducted from 1965 onward. The following details are from pp. 63–76 unless otherwise noted.

Terminology

Martin records the Khmer term for cannabis as គញ្ជា (kancha), derived from Sanskrit gañjā, pointing to introduction from the Indian subcontinent, probably via maritime trade networks. This etymology is consistent with the broader pattern of Sanskrit-derived cannabis terminology across mainland Southeast Asia.

Cultivation

Martin notes that cannabis "apparently never been intensively cultivated" in Cambodia, but that small plots could "frequently be found" around houses. The largest garden she observed contained approximately 70 plants. Although the species prefers rich and humid soil, she observed it growing in sandy dry soil with only water and chicken or cattle manure applied from time to time. Female plants yielded seeds that were soaked in water for three days before planting in open ground. The best time for sowing was during the rainy season, with harvest during the dry season, though cultivation could begin at any time given sufficient water. The inflorescence developed after four or five months.

She notes that cultivation was more significant "along the river and closer to Vietnam," suggesting that proximity to trade routes with Vietnam influenced the scale of production. Cultivation in Laos was "hardly more widespread" than in Cambodia, and in Vietnam cannabis was important in Chau Doc, a Cambodian border region.

Market economics

Nearly all the harvest was bought from the grower at 3,000 riel per kilogram for female plants by an intermediary, who resold them either on the open market at ten riel per package of seven or eight flowering tops, or to restaurateurs and individual buyers. In Laos, a package of ten flowering stems cost 90 kip, or 20 kip for the same number of stems without flowers (both male and female), used for making soup.

These prices document a period when cannabis was a cheap, freely available commodity, decades before enforcement of prohibition drove prices upward. For comparison, by 2021 farmgate prices in Kirivong had risen to 140,000–160,000 riel (US$35–40) per kilogram, and by 2026 wholesale prices in Kampot had reached US$500–600 per kilogram.

Culinary use

Martin documented cannabis as a common ingredient in Southeast Asian cooking. Hemp soup (sngao) was widespread, especially chicken soup (sngao moan) flavoured with roasted kancha leaves, both male and female. Cannabis was also added to sämlä käko (a Khmer stew) and Thai kaeng phet with ground flowers.

In Cambodia specifically, fresh leaves served as condiments (kruiang) for curry or as vegetables (bänläe) to accompany vermicelli soup (inum bänhcok). They were also eaten as fritters (änlwak) with fish paste (prähok). Martin notes that cannabis was valued in cooking not only for its intoxicating properties but for the pleasant flavour it added to food.

Chinese-operated soup shops throughout the region incorporated hemp in their dishes in order to encourage repeat customers, a practice later replaced by green tea.

Medicinal use

Martin records extensive medicinal applications across all four countries. Cannabis was universally recognized as an analgesic, considered comparable to opium derivatives, and could be added to any relaxant to reinforce its effect.

In Cambodia, the entire plant (male or female, all vegetative and reproductive organs) was used. Specific applications included: a decoction taken before meals as an appetite restorer; cigarettes made with Cananga latifolia bark to treat nasal polyps; a preparation with Cinnamomum bark and myrtle bark to facilitate digestion; and inhalation of one kilogram of male and female plants twice daily to treat malaria.

Cannabis was extensively used in postpartum care. An infusion of male and female plant tops brought a feeling of well-being (srual khluan) to the mother; a concoction with Cinnamomum bark and various tropical creepers stimulated lactation; and alcoholic extracts combated postpartum stiffness. Martin lists the specific plant combinations for each preparation in detail.

In Thailand, cannabis was used in medications to eliminate dizziness, as a remedy for cholera (taken alone), to suppress convulsions (ground in honey with numerous other plants), to relieve asthma, to counteract diarrhea and dysentery, and to facilitate contractions during difficult childbirth. Sandalwood and hemp taken as tea were considered beneficial for the heart, liver and lungs.

In Vietnam, where traditional medicine was largely inspired by Chinese medicine, the seeds and kernels were the preferred part of the plant. Preparations were used to combat loss of memory, mental confusion, aging, psoriasis, dysmenorrhea, and to produce well-being after childbirth. In obstetrics, twenty-one kernels boiled in water were believed to correct an awkward fetal presentation.

Smoking customs

Cannabis in Southeast Asia was smoked with no prior processing — unlike the resinous preparations of Arab countries or elsewhere, the raw plant was simply dried, cut into pieces and mixed with tobacco. The entire plant was used after sun-drying: stem, leaves and inflorescence. The mixture was wrapped in paper, maize leaf (slak po:t), leaves of Combretum quadrangulare (slak sängkae), or banana leaf (slak ce:c). More commonly, it was smoked in a bamboo water pipe (rut sey).

Martin records a notable detail: the chopping block on which the plant was cut was made of Cambodian strychnos wood (slaeng), as bits of this wood were believed to act as a cough remedy and to impart a pleasant bitter taste.

Smoking was predominantly a male activity. First use typically occurred around age fifteen. Cambodian girls were not permitted to smoke before eighteen, though the practice was common among women in some northeastern hill tribes, such as the Bunong. Most Khmers did not smoke regularly, taking only a few puffs when the opportunity arose. However, some habitual users, especially former members of the French army, smoked five to ten pipes three times a day; when deprived, they experienced immediate anorexia, nervousness, irritability and aggression.

Social attitudes and work use

Martin's account describes cannabis as socially integrated rather than stigmatized. After the evening meal, the head of the household would lay out a straw mat and invite others to share in smoking. It was a group pleasure, not solitary: "smoking is to avoid being sad, to experience a feeling of well-being." Users reported that cannabis gave strength and allowed prolonged work — those harvesting jute or working in the forest would increase their dosage beforehand. Hemp was also used to combat cold during the cold season.

Possession of cannabis did not constitute an offence. "The normal reaction," Martin writes, "is rather to laugh and wish pleasure to the person who has it." Cambodian medicine men were comfortable prescribing cannabis and were well acquainted with proper dosages. In Thailand, users described red eyes, heavy eyelids, seeing everything in a good light and feeling gay, noting that the effects were shorter if one ate while smoking.

Martin concludes that peasants across the region "experiment with everything that belongs to their universe, often have complete knowledge of all the elements that compose it, and how to use them in moderation." Distrust of cannabis appeared only among individuals whose cultural attitudes were patterned after those of the West.

Legal framework

Martin documents three layers of cannabis regulation in Cambodian history, none of which resulted in actual enforcement:

Under the French Protectorate, Customs and Excises (Douanes et Régies) controlled cannabis across the entire territory of French Indochina. After independence, two further statutes were enacted:

1. Kram No. 10 NS, 30 May 1955: A royal edict issued by King Suramarinth (Sihanouk's father, who held the throne after Sihanouk abdicated in March 1955) halting all growing of cannabis. This is only two years after Cambodian independence.
2. Kret No. 481.72 PRK, 14 July 1972: The Khmer Republic created a Bureau of Narcotics in Phnom Penh, which "emphasized the repression of opium traffic and updated complementary clauses relative to hemp."

Despite both statutes, Martin immediately states that "retail sale of the plant is absolutely free in Cambodia and Laos." This observation is critical: it establishes that the 1996 Law on Drug Management was not Cambodia's first cannabis prohibition, but its first enforced prohibition, driven by American diplomatic pressure rather than any domestic impetus. The gap between law and practice — four decades of complete non-enforcement — reframes the conventional narrative that Cambodia was unregulated before 1996.

Vietnam

Martin covers cannabis in Vietnam, where the plant is known as cần sa (from Sanskrit gañjā) or gai ändö ("Indian grass-cloth plant"), the latter name reflecting Indian origin. At the time of her observations, a resin-based preparation (cần xa) had been recently introduced and was smoked mostly by foreigners; it was since this period that more severe controls over cultivation and use had appeared in the country.

Laos

In Laos, Martin documents similar patterns of domestic cultivation and open market trade. Retail sale was entirely free, as in Cambodia. She records a system of quality grading for smoking hemp: first quality, harvested in winter when covered with dew (the strongest); second quality, harvested at other times; and third quality, plants not gathered at the proper time, with reduced potency. The term kan xa was used throughout Laos, derived from the same Sanskrit root.

Thailand

Martin notes that since the formation of a new Thai government in December 1971, cannabis had disappeared from open sale. Its use in popular medicine was regulated: it was required to be combined with other plants in medical preparations and could not be the sole ingredient. Martin records detailed multi-ingredient formulations prescribed by Thai practitioners, including preparations for convulsions, cholera, hemorrhoids and childbirth.

Significance for landrace documentation

Martin's chapter is the foundational primary source for several areas of the Cambodia country page and related wiki content:

• Last pre-Khmer Rouge documentation: The 1973 fieldwork captures traditional Khmer cannabis culture at the end of its unbroken continuity. The Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979) destroyed much of Cambodia's traditional agricultural knowledge, making Martin's observations irreplaceable.
• Prohibition chronology: The 1955 and 1972 statutes, documented in Martin's text, corrected a widespread factual error in the secondary literature. Multiple sources had stated that Cambodia's first cannabis prohibition was the 1996 Law on Drug Management. Martin's documentation of earlier, unenforced statutes reframes the 1996 law as the first enforced prohibition, a distinction with significant implications for understanding how US diplomatic pressure reshaped Cambodian drug policy.
• Baseline market data: The 3,000 riel per kilogram farmgate price provides the earliest documented price point in the wiki's Cambodia price history table, establishing the economic baseline against which modern enforcement-driven price inflation can be measured.
• Cultivation patterns: The description of small household plots of up to 70 plants documents a form of cultivation that persisted largely unchanged until eradication campaigns began targeting Kirivong in the late 2010s. The contrast between Martin's domestic compound gardens and Kirivong's commercial hillside plantations illustrates how prohibition paradoxically drove cannabis from integrated household cultivation into large-scale, more vulnerable monoculture.
• Ethnobotanical detail: The Khmer culinary terminology (sngao, kruiang, änlwak, prähok), the Latin binomials for companion plants used in medicinal preparations, the Laotian quality grading system, and the social context of communal evening smoking sessions constitute a level of ethnographic precision that no subsequent observer has matched for this region.

The chapter is also positioned within Cannabis and Culture alongside other foundational ethnobotanical texts, including Du Toit's chapter on dagga in southern Africa, Li Hui-Lin's work on cannabis in eastern Asia, and Benet's treatment of early diffusion — all potential future pages.

See also

• Cambodia — Country page
• Kirivong — Growing area where Martin's documented cultivation patterns persisted into the modern era
• Herbarium Amboinense — Historical Source page for Rumphius's 1741 botanical catalogue

External links

• "Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia" — De Gruyter (publisher page)
• Marie Alexandrine Martin — Persée author page (complete publication list)
• Collection Pangloss: Corpus krom_khmer — CNRS archive of Martin's Cambodian field recordings

Marie Alexandrine Martin 1932–2013 1973 1975 English De Gruyter Mouton Berlin / New York Cambodia Thailand Vietnam Laos Book chapter