Talk:History of cannabis

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History of cannabis is an overview of the history of cannabis: where cultivation began, finds from excavated graves and shrines, words and texts, the routes by which the plant spread, hemp grown for ships and the trade in cannabis drugs and its control. Each section summarises the article named at its head and cites the same sources. The details, and the points on which the sources disagree, are set out in those articles. The history of each country is on its own History of cannabis in … page.

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Discussion

Sources

Where cultivation began. Ren and colleagues (2021), Science Advances 7: eabg2286; Rull (2022), Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 55: 125670; Kudo and colleagues (2009), Japanese Journal of Historical Botany 17: 27–31; McPartland, Guy and Hegman (2018) and McPartland and Hegman (2018), Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 27; Kovalchuk and colleagues (2020), Annual Review of Plant Biology 71; Balant and colleagues (2025); Dal Martello and colleagues (2024); Clarke and Merlin (2016); de Candolle (1882); Vavilov (1926).
Finds from graves and shrines. The excavation and analysis papers for each site: Jiang and colleagues (2006, 2016, 2021), Russo and colleagues (2008), Ren and colleagues (2019), Rudenko (1970), Dergachev and colleagues (2001), Kishlyaruk (2010), Rosetti (1959), Sarianidi (2003), Bakels (2003), Arie, Rosen and Namdar (2020), Zias and colleagues (1993), Murphy and colleagues (2011), Rodríguez Frade (2022), van der Merwe (1975), Bai and colleagues (2021), Chen and colleagues (2014), Lu and colleagues (2022).
Words and texts. Whitney's translation of the Atharvaveda (1905); Witzel (1997, 2003); Grierson (1894); Meulenbeld (1989); Wujastyk (2002); Chopra and Chopra (1957); Brand and Zhao (2017); Hamarneh (1972); Lozano (2001); Leclerc's translation of Ibn al-Bayṭār (1883); Silvestre de Sacy (1806) for al-Maqrizi; Orta (1563, in Ficalho's edition of 1891); Acosta (1578).
Routes of the plant. Stevens and colleagues (2016); Helman-Ważny (2016); Duvall (2017, 2019, the book of 2019, 2026); du Toit (1975); Flacourt (1661); Benoist (1975); Rubin (1975); Rubin and Comitas (1975); Banks (2021); Lescarbot (1617); the proceedings of the Virginia Assembly (1619); Olvera-Hernández and Schievenini-Stefanoni (2017); the Farmacopea mexicana (1846).
Into South Asia and Into Southeast Asia. The report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894), vol. I, ch. II; McPartland, Hegman and Long (2019); Ren and colleagues (2021); Bates (2019); Stevens and colleagues (2016); Dal Martello and colleagues (2024); Grierson (1894); McPartland and Small (2020); Martin (1975), in Rubin (ed.), Cannabis and Culture; Crawfurd (1856); King Narai's medical treatise (Fine Arts Department edition, 1965) and Chokevivat (2019); Rumphius, Herbarium Amboinense vol. V (1747); Dampier (1699); the House of Commons return of 1893 on ganja; the Thai Cannabis Act of B.E. 2477 (1935).
Hemp for ships. Díaz-Ordóñez (2018, 2019, 2021 and in Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, 2019); Díaz-Ordóñez and Rodríguez Hernández (2017, 2020); Serrera Contreras (1974); Encinas (1596); the Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias (1681); Acosta Ortega (2025).
Trade and control. The report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894); the United Nations Secretariat in the Bulletin on Narcotics (1953); the Mauritius Ordinance No. 2 of 1840; the Boletín Oficial de la Zona de Protectorado Español en Marruecos of 31 August 1935; Afsahi (2017).

Where the sources disagree

The Yanghai date. Jiang and colleagues (2006) dated the cannabis of tomb M90 by radiocarbon to 2500 years before present. Russo and colleagues (2008) report a corrected, calibrated date of 2700 years.
Gonur Depe and Togolok-21. Sarianidi reported cannabis in the vessels; Bakels identified the impressions as most likely broomcorn millet. Ren and colleagues (2019) regard the original identifications as erroneous.
The early Sanskrit texts. Grierson (1894), the Chopras (1957) and Aldrich (1977) read bhaṅga in the Atharvaveda and passages of the Sushruta Samhita as cannabis. Meulenbeld (1989) and Wujastyk (2002) find no reliable reference before about 1000 CE.
Native to South Asia or brought in. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894) took the botanists' evidence to exclude India from the plant's native range. McPartland and colleagues (2019) found its pollen in India by 32,600 years ago; Ren and colleagues (2021) have it introduced from China about 3,000 years ago.
Arrival in Southeast Asia. Martin (1975) put it about the 16th century; McPartland and Small (2020), citing Clarke and Merlin, have South Asian plants carried there by the 13th century.
Arab traders in Africa. Du Toit (1975) held that the plant spread down the east of Africa with Arab traders. Duvall (2019) rejects the account and names Swahili-speaking Africans as the carriers inland.
The drug plant in the Americas. Duvall (2026) holds that enslaved people from western Central Africa carried it across the Atlantic. Rubin and Comitas (1975) traced the uses of ganja in Jamaica to labourers from India. Banks (2021) wrote that "most studies now contend" that migrants from India were likely the first to bring cannabis to the Caribbean.
The Ponferrada cédula. Encinas (1596) prints it with the year 1554 and the Recopilación (1681) with 1545. Díaz-Ordóñez and Rodríguez Hernández call 1545, repeated as the year the plant reached the Americas, a founding myth.